Welcome everyone to another excellent week at Academie Duello and Duello.TV. This week we have some exciting news to report -- we have over 250 videos on Duello.TV about over 40 hours of content now available. We're also nearly all the way through creating lessons for our full Mastery Program calendar, which means we'll be able to move onto some of our other programs including our longsword and sidesword focus classes, unarmed, stage combat and more. If you have any particular desires for what you want to see next, please send us some feedback and let us know.

Green Cord (Level 1)

http://duello.tv/featured-videos/this-week-in-class/

This week our focus is on stringering the sword of our opponent with both the sword, through finding, and with the offhand itself. The goal of stringere is to get your opponent to move in a way that you can easily defend and that makes your opponent vulnerable to counter-attack. A strong emphasis is given on using the rapier and offhand in union to fully protect one side of the body or the other both high and low. I recommend Green Cord students also look at Blue Cord Offhand/Dagger class 4 (featured this week) for even more ideas on primary stringere with the offhand.

Blue Cord (Level 2)

http://duello.tv/featured-videos/this-week-in-class/

Continuing to parallel the content of the Green Cord classes, this week's classes focus on forcing the opponent, through stringere, to strike into a position we can easily cover. The primary stringere of the offhand/dagger is a particularly interesting lesson that can give you a much greater understanding of how either the rapier or the offhand can be used to strategical constrain the opponent.

Red Cord (Level 3)

http://duello.tv/featured-videos/this-week-in-class/

This week's classes in Red Cord take the fundamental postures we worked on last week and then first look at how we can force the opponent into the defence of our sword and shield and then second how we can defeat the rapier and buckler by 1. exploiting openings between the rapier and buckler, 2. angling around the buckler, and 3. causing the opponent to block their vision with the buckler.

Solo Exercise of the Week

http://duello.tv/featured-videos/fundamental-exercises

Returning to the sidesword this week with a pattern that builds on the standard flowing X cut to make two consecutive cuts with the false and then true edge as the sword descends or rises. The exercise is being practiced in SwordFit this week.

Devon Boorman is the Co-Founder and Director of Academie Duello Centre for Swordplay, which has been active in Vancouver, Canada since 2004. Devon’s expertise centres on the Italian swordplay tradition including the arts of the Renaissance Italian rapier, sidesword, and longsword, as well as knife and unarmed techniques.
Read more from Devon Boorman.