Good news! For those of you who want more swordplay practice and who can't make it downtown, there are now swordplay classes almost every Sunday at Cornwall Ridge. Mounted Combat Mastery continues to run twice a month, and now Mounted Combat Fundamentals has a twice monthly section open to apprentice level (green cord or green…
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The Vancouver International Swordplay Symposium is taking place March 6th to 8th, 2020 and this year's theme is our most exciting yet: East Meets West! We're bringing together the martial arts traditions of countries from across the globe in the spirit of collaboration and learning. This year we have 10 intensives in 5 paired tracks…
Classes start up again on January 12th after our December hiatus. If you missed our Christmas playday and therefore haven't been on a horse since November ... or perhaps even longer ... here are some quick exercises and stretches to prime your body for riding once more. Five Easy Exercises for Equestrians Plank. Core strength…
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Greetings Academie Duello friends and family! I hope that you have all had a wonderful holiday season and are looking forward to a special 2020. It is pretty amazing to me to be moving into the second decade of the new millennium already. Academie Duello marked its 15th anniversary in 2019 and it has been…
The seventh annual 30-for-30 Swordplay Challenge is just about to start on January 2nd. If you’ve heard of yoga challenges, you know what this is about. It’s like that, but with swords! The challenge: practice swordplay for 30 minutes per day for 30 days in January from the 2nd to the 31st. This requires no…
Sometimes the most you can muster is a single mindful breath. And sometimes that's all the meditation you need. One set of crunches. One line on your manuscript. One walk around the block. We often overestimate what we can accomplish in one day, while we underestimate what we can accomplish in five years if we…
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This post originally appeared on our online learning portal: Duello.TV. One of the more challenging leaps to make in combat martial arts is the move from a largely symmetrical combat environment (where everyone is largely from the same school and trying to do the same techniques) to one that is broader and more chaotic. This…
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Last week I was an instructor and director (referee) at the South East Renaissance Fencing Open (SERFO) in Atlanta, Georgia. This excellent event was put on by Keith Cotter-Reilly of the Atlanta Freifechters and David Coblentz of Decatur School of Arms and their respective crews. This is definitely one of the smoother and more professionally…
Riding Level 1: Preparing to Mount The first item on the Riding 1 checklist deals with preparing to mount your horse. 1. Adjust stirrups and girth from the ground, put reins over horse’s head Pretty simple, right? And in truth, most people get 9s or 10s in this section. However, until this is second nature…
Over the spring and summer I’ve put up posts detailing the requirements for our Horsemanship Level 1. If you read through those posts, look at the relevant chapters of the Manual of Horsemanship, and attend at least Horsemanship classes in which you have the opportunity to practice handling, grooming and tacking up, you have a…
Now that we've had a week off after Carosella 2019, it's time to get back in the saddle again! If you were inspired by the demonstration of riding, horsemanship, and mounted combat skills on display, now's your chance to get back in the saddle. All classes take place in the indoor arena at Cornwall Ridge…
This past weekend was the 20th Anniversary of the Western Martial Arts Workshop hosted by the Chicago Swordplay Guild at the lovely Dekoven Center on the shores of Lake Michigan. I have had the opportunity to be teaching at this event for the past 10 years and it is always one of my favorite events…
What an amazing weekend! Carosella 2019 was our seventh iteration of the event but it contained many firsts. We finally brought Working Equitation to the event courtesy of Darcy Henkel and Westcoast Working Equitation; Benjamin Davis gave us a cutting workshop; we included on-ground longsword, sidesword, and rapier tournaments for the first time; and we…