Our next round of Beginner’s Courses start in a couple weeks! Challenge yourself and have fun with our unique, engaging beginner programs. Want to know what you're getting into first? Sign up for a FREE TRIAL LESSON for any of our Beginner’s Courses! Our two swordplay Beginner’s Courses, Taste of the Renaissance and Warrior Fundamentals, are 8-classes long and can be taken…
Read More... from July Beginner's Courses at Academie Duello
Autumn has descended on Vancouver, and whether you're looking for something to shake off the rainy doldrums or a different way to stay active indoors, look no father than Academie Duello. We now offer three unique Beginner's Courses, each an affordable $99 (+tax)! Fight Like Sherlock Holmes Bartitsu is a complex martial art with many…
Greetings everyone! It's the second week of October and the tracks of awesome swordplay continue, though one of them is only a slightly different course than last week. Greg and I posted up videos for Rapier Cutting for Green Cord (level 1) but as many of you let us know, that was completely incorrect.…
Greetings everyone, This week I am in Chicago preparing for the Western Martial Arts Workshop in Racine, Wisconsin. This is a superb Western Martial Arts event put on by the Chicago Swordplay Guild and is one of the oldest running events of its kind in the world. This week in our classes…
Greetings everyone to the first fine week of September. This past weekend many Academie Duello members as well as friends from abroad including Paul Wagner of the Stoccata School of Defence in Australia and Samantha Swords from New Zealand joined in the annual Cascadia North Accolade Tournament. This year the event took place on the…
The last week has been an interesting week in Western Martial Arts. The Audatia sword fighting card game being spearheaded by Guy Windsor of the Helsinki Sword School has well surpassed its funding target on IndieGoGo and is into some cool stretch targets. This project is absolutely worth funding so I recommend you follow the link and…
Read More... from Duello.TV for this Week and a Few Updates on the World of WMA
Don't miss our next round of Beginner's Courses, starting the first week of September! Whether you join our Taste of the Renaissance or our Warrior Fundamentals program, prepare to get a unique workout that engages both your mind and body. Take it from student Tris H, who found the classes so valuable that she immediately…
Classes are cooking along at Academie Duello this week. One thing I have been excited about in Vancouver is the increasing number of women in our programs. We have always had a good ratio of men and women but in last night's Green Cord portion of class we had 12 students and only 2 of…
Hello Everyone, This has got to be one of my favourite weeks in our Mastery program curriculum but I'm a complete subtleties geek and I love the rapier -- a weapon that is all about subtleties. In Green Cord (level 1) we're using the cut to stringere the opponent's weapon (perhaps the least subtle…
Welcome to the first full week of August. Our Blue Cord and Red Cord curriculum works on a 9 month rotation and we're back to month 1. In both our calendars this is a month on fundamental rapier. For Reds (level 3) we're working on plays in various tempos and how to counter them. For…
We've just finished our fifth week of Knight Camp this summer. If you're unfamiliar with Knight Camp it is this super-awesome kids summer day-camp that we run weekly during July and August. In the camp kids learn swordplay, pole weapons, and grappling as well as non-martial knightly skills such as medieval games, heraldry (the science…
This is an exciting final week of the month at Academie Duello. I am getting ready to day for an event at the Vancouver Shakespeare festival, Bard on the Beach, for the launch of CC Humphreys latest novel Shakespeare's Rebel. We're doing a prize playing amongst senior Academie Duello students as well as choreographed fights…
Whether you're looking for a fun way to get and stay in shape, or a new mentally and physically stimulating hobby, our Beginner's Courses have something for everyone. Take it from one of our Taste of the Renaissance graduates and now ongoing student: First off, if you are thinking about stopping in here, stop thinking…
Happy Canada Day and Fourth of July to our friends in Canada and the US, respectively. We just finished marching our way through the streets of Vancouver with 65 of us showing off our swordplay skills for a very enthusiastic crowd. Let me tell you, this gives me no small respect for our historical brethren…
(photo taken by Penny Higgins) I returned home this past Monday from the excellent Borealis Swordplay Symposium in Ottawa which was hosted by Jason Smith and crew of Ottawa's Les Maitres d'Armes. The event was two days long with day one focusing on 2-hour workshops and some room for free fencing, and day two focusing…
Read More... from Borealis Swordplay Symposium and Tournament Report
Ours is a martial art rich with words. Words that describe foot positions, body orientations, sword positions, sword relationships and angles, directions of movement, tactical principles, strategic ideals, and more. We also use a vocabulary that is full of unfamiliar words from the Italian language (some of them even unfamiliar to modern Italian speakers) and…
Read More... from Glossary of Academie Duello's Terms of Swordplay
Welcome to Duello.TV for the week of June 3rd. The sun in shining in Vancouver and its a great time to train outside. I know that many Academie Duello students are getting into some extra time at the sword as they participate in the 30 for 30 Swordplay Challenge. If you haven't joined, it's not…
Welcome to Duello.TV's videos for the week of May 27th! This week 'practice' has been on my mind. Capo Ferro says that swordplay is made up of Nature, Reason, Art, and Practice. Practice being the disciplining of the body to enact the principles of art, that have been identified through reason, and governed by the…