Greetings, Duellists! It's that time of year again--time to dust off your costumes, gorge yourself on sweet stuff and then work it off swordfighting and rocking out with your friends! Details This coming Saturday, October 27th, join us at Academie Duello from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. for a Hallowe'en Cabaret featuring: a Pumpkin Carving…
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Up till now all discussing of the Riding 1 curriculum has implied the use of two hands on the reins. This is because we ride with English tack in the Cavaliere program and teach English style riding (for the reasons for this see these previous posts: English or Western pt I and pt II). However,…
Well, sort of new. The name of the Riding & Horsemanship classes has changed to the Cavaliere Class. Why? Because we've added 45 minutes of sword drills and practice time to the end of class. You'll still get your all your horsemanship instruction -- feeding, grooming, vet & first aid, conditioning etc -- as well…
We couldn't have ordered nicer weather for our annual Cavaliere Tournament ... or asked for a better group of riders and volunteers! We had four teams of grooms out bright and early to make the horses beautiful, and once more our volunteer judges from Richmond Pony Club lent their critical eyes to check horses and…
Come one, come all! The Knightly Games Tournament has something for everyone this Sunday September 30th, at Red Colt Farm! As promised last week, here is a list of games and their descriptions. Groom Competition Grooms will have 45 minutes to turn out a well-groomed and correctly tacked up horse. Entrants may participate with their…
There's few worse positions in a fight than to have an opponent behind you. Visibility The biggest concern is that you can only see what's ahead of you, so an opponent behind you is effectively invisible. You cannot react to their motion unless they grab you and you can feel their position and their close…
Entry forms are now available for our Knightly Games Tournament, to be held Sunday 30 September 2012 at Red Colt. The day will begin at 9am sharp for the Grooms competition. Teams of grooms will have 45 minutes to groom and tack up their horses to sparkling perfection before meeting the critical eye of our…
The combatants at the Saturday afternoon deed of arms, after 90 minutes of fighting in harness. Fighting at axe, spear, sword, and dagger.
I had to be careful with the title of this week's post. Didn't want it turning up in the wrong sort of searches,* as the next item on the Riding 1 checklist is: 9. Show correct way to hold a whip/crop This is one of the skills we ask for in our level…
Thanks everyone who came to our mounted combat workshop today! We had a great turnout and everyone did a fantastic job of learning a very diverse set of content.
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A thousand thanks to everyone who contributed some of their precious long weekend time to our double-barrelled work party on Saturday and Monday! On Saturday our team augured post holes, and made concrete footings for the post saddles in preparation for Monday's framing team, which measured, sawed, drilled and bolted the bones of the shedrow…
You are invited to a good old-fashioned barn raising! Okay - we're not raising a whole barn, but we are building a new shedrow shelter for our horses and we need a whole lot of talented, strong, wonderful people like YOU to help us! If you haven't been able to join us for a…
This week, I'm taking over the 7am SwordFit Bootcamp, and naturally, we're using Bartitsu skills as the foundation of our movements. One-hour Class Outline Welcome and Salute Warm Up: Jogging Jump rope (Jumping Jacks for those without rope) Medicine ball toss and catch with joint rotations Boxing: Preparation: Shadow boxing Free punching focus pads Lead…
Following my trip to the WWOC event outside Hannover, I headed north to Hamburgh to meet up with my good friend Roland Warzecha who hosted me for several days at his lovely country house outside of the city. On the first full day of my visit we headed to the medieval town of Lubeck known…
Greetings all, I have been rather silent on the Academie Duello blog over the past 2 weeks as I have been away in Germany at the third World Wide Open Championship that took place just outside of Hannover. I thought I'd take a few moments to share my impression and experiences of this Historical European…
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Still on hols, so more photos this week. While the Royal Ontario Museum doesn't have cuddly herds of black horses (see last week's post on the Musical Ride museum), it does have a surprisingly decent collection of western arms and armour. Here are a few of the cavalry related pieces: This rather gorgeous cavalry sabre…
I'm on holiday at the moment, and far too full of sun and food to stir myself into writing a proper post. But I thought you all might enjoy some photos of the RCMP Musical Ride Museum & Stables in Ottawa: See the full gallery on Posterous Three year olds enjoying turnout. The stables. A…
Last week I talked about the dressage letters in the riding ring, and how to use them to increase your accuracy. The exercise was a change of rein at the walk across the school from B to E. In your level 1 riding test we also ask you to: 7. Change rein on long diagonal…