30-for-30 Swordplay Challenge 2018!
Happy New Year everyone!
I hope you all had an amazing holiday and end of year celebration! In Vancouver we partied it up with a special Dueling and Dancing New Year’s Eve party that packed the house with sword fighters and partner dancers. It was a great way to end the year and reminded me just how much I’ve been missing swordplay on my week away from home.
2017 in Review
It’s been a big year for Academie Duello and DuelloTV. In Vancouver we hosted the fourth Vancouver International Swordplay Symposium in the Spring and our fourth Carosella Mounted Combat symposium in the Fall!
We graduated students into the Scholar and Free Scholar levels at our home base in Vancouver and hosted four full instructor intensives that brought students from all over the world. DuelloTV has connected with practitioners across North America, Europe, and in South America where we’ve learned there are several passionate and active study groups. We have also welcomed several new official study groups and affiliate schools in British Columbia and Texas!
We have created lots of new content including the Longsword Scholars Assault, reorganized Sidesword beginner material and added new Apprentice playlists here and here, and filmed The Deceptive Fight with Rapier (which is in post production and should appear in the first quarter of 2018). And we’ve been productive in other ways as well: At the beginning of the year we released the Introduction to Longsword DVD and at the end of the year the Introduction to Italian Rapier book! And work progresses on building out the Apprentice-level courses to further the DTV dream of online certification.
In the end, what makes all of these projects special is all of you. Thank you for being part of our community, both close and far. I know for Greg and me it is knowing that we are helping people forward their practice of the art, in a notable way, that really makes this worthwhile. We hope that we are able to help give structure to disciplines that can often seem mysterious, inspire others to become dedicated practitioners, and help people travel along the path of mastery with a bit of support.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to Duello.TV financially. Your contributions have allowed us to dedicate a not insignificant chunk of our lives to building this site and continuing to making it great as well as paying for the infrastructure that keeps it running. And thank you to everyone in the larger community who’s passion and desire to learn keeps fueling our desire to learn and share more. Want an easy way to support DuelloTV and all its connected projects? You can donate $4 per month to DTV and make sure more great resources like these get created for the worldwide swordplay community!
Fifth Annual 30-for-30 Swordplay Challenge Begins
If you’ve never heard of it before, here’s how it works:
Starting today (January 2nd) and for the next 30 days, we are challenging every sword fighter (new or experienced) to commit to at least 30 minutes per day of practice (solo or partnered).
To help support the challenge we have created a Facebook group where you can report each day about your progress and we can all help hold each other accountable.
We’ve also created a 30-for-30 resource page on Duello.TV that will feature weekly drills and training advice for Rapier, Longsword, and Sidesword. You can check that out here!
So join us on the Facebook group, read more about the challenge, and get started! Even if you’re reading this post late, nothing says you can’t join on day 2 or 10!
Happy new year and happy training everyone!
Devon
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