The longsword is a powerful piece of historical weaponry. Its mystique has captured our attention for hundreds of years and is consistently prevalent in both ancient texts and today’s pop culture. A typical training longsword is steel, between 40 and 50 inches in total length, and can take up some serious space when you…
A good friend of mine is a special forces combatives trainer. I asked him how much of their training is devoted to full-speed and full-contact simulated sparring. He told me "no more than 5%". For him it was a matter of balancing value and risk. Full speed, full contact sparring has the value of exposing…
This past week, at our 50-hour instructor intensive, I introduced a new batch of students, who travelled in from various places around the world to the method and benefits of slow sparring. Slow sparring is exactly what it sounds like: sparring done slowly. It has proven itself to me to be a tremendously valuable training…
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In his book Mastery, George Leonard recounts a story about an Aikido class where his Sensei had them repeat a single technique for three hours. George was a fairly senior student at that time who had a solid training ethic. But this particular three hours represented quite a journey for him, and I found it…
One of the most challenging things to deal with in sparring is the mental or emotional intensity of a very forward motivated opponent, someone who throws powerful blows, or someone who comes very ferociously. Commonly people respond in one of two ways: Freeze or pull away, failing to make a cover. Making a single simple…
I'm not a fan of brutality in modern martial arts practice. Aggression brings unnecessary risks and injury, overvalues intensity over grace, and makes martial art less accessible to the unarmoured (both physically and psychologically). Wasn't Real Historical Fighting Brutal? I won't argue that there is no historical precedent for brutal, cruel, and ruthless martial art…
Practicing martial arts on my own can be one of the great pleasures of my week. It is a time that is just purely for me. Within the time spent in solitary practice, I don't have to worry about providing for a partner or guiding a student, I can simply focus on my own body,…
This post originally appeared on Duello.TV, Academie Duello's online learning and training blog portal. At our recent Instructor Intensive, the topic of "training so hard that you lose the joy of it" came up. The people who come out to intensives are hard workers. It takes a lot of drive to come out to do…
At Academie Duello we have an ambitious goal: Make 1000 Masters. The challenge is that at this moment, we have yet to make our first. What is a Master? Within most European martial traditions, a master is someone who not only practices their art with a high level of proficiency but more importantly is able…
Starting a new routine? Coming back after a long break? Stepping it up in a way you haven't before? Fact: the first week will be hard. Go into that eyes open. If you're coming back after a long break or this is the first time you've set a serious routine, expect your body to hurt…
If you want to improve, put improvement on a schedule. Don't expect the schedule to stay the same forever. It's normal and natural for a rhythm that worked last month to not work now. Life changes and renewal gives new energy. Here are some rhythms that work for others and might work for you. Train…
There are two ways that I love sparring these days: With a simple jacket, light or padded gloves, gorget, and mask. In a full suit of plate harness. What I like about both of these environments is their close relations to how the martial arts we teach and practice were performed traditionally. A bulk of…
Read More... from Why Fight Light? Using Less Gear When Sparring
Over this past week, I have been working on a post about understanding who you are as a practitioner and using that self-knowledge to help you find the training strategies that work to help you keep motivated and achieve your mastery goals. Well, it's proven to be a more interesting and challenging post to create…
Feeling in a bit of a slump in your sparring? Perhaps overwhelmed or under-challenged? Sparring games, where you create restrictions and alternate objectives, can be a great way to up the strategic challenge and interest or allow you to focus on a smaller subset of skills. The first batch of games I'm presenting are all…
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Classes are a great place to learn, but proficiency comes from learning in between sessions by practising on your own. Here are five ways you can make the most of your personal practice time: Keep your commitment small If you're new to home practice, make a commitment that you feel very confident about keeping. In the beginning,…
Recently, many female identified practitioners in my life have been bravely and gracefully sharing with me their challenges in being students in martial arts. One of the main things that comes up time and time again is how difficult it is to be a student when their, typically male, partners seem eager to constantly offer…
Over the month of January, Academie Duello and Duello.TV (our online video learning channel) hosted a 30-day swordplay training challenge. Each participant engaged in the goal of at least 30 minutes of swordplay training per day for 30 days. Participants represented dozens of schools from all over the world and the range of disciplines practised was…
Read More... from Advice from the 30 for 30 Swordplay Challenge
Being relaxed is a key component to good fencing. Relaxed muscles are quicker to respond, easier to adapt and change, and more capable of feeling connections through your weapon. Yet, so many of us have a difficult time being relaxed or even being aware of our current state of tension. In this article I'd like…