Swordplay On Your Break, or a Break from Swordplay?
We just finished our last curriculum week for the year at Academie Duello. It will be two weeks before we're back onto our regular program, and depend…
Humble Beginnings: How To Start a Sword Fighting School
To create something doesn't take much. Just a start. From that start, with some love, rhythm, and resilience, you can create something really special …
Vancouver International Swordplay Symposium
It's back! The fourth Vancouver International Swordplay Symposium runs February 17–19, 2017. The theme this year is This vs That: An Exploration of …
Giving Yourself an Idiot Mark
Mistakes are not the realm of the beginner, they’re the realm of the innovator. If you’re not making errors you’re not trying hard enough, chall…
Failure and the Journey of Success
It can be challenging to fail your own students. I care for them and empathize with both the disappointment and frustration. As a teacher I share in t…
Unsolicited Help isn’t Help—It’s Harm
This is not an article about not giving help, it’s simply about being effective and constructive with the help you offer. If you truly want to help …
Always Be Both a Student and a Teacher
The act of sharing something with others increases retention, understanding, and personal fulfillment. The most important thing is to realize being a …
Good Fighting Is Not An Excuse for Bad Behaviour
Those to whom we offer respect and friendship become a type of leader in our lives, and we look to leaders to share with us their ideas on how to live…
How to Have an Effective Training Partnership
From early experience I learned that a simple partnership can be a powerful and productive force in one’s life. A little bit of social pressure and …
The Difference Between a Fighter and a Martial Artist
If you can kick butt, does that make you a martial artist? Not necessarily. If you seek to be an artist, you must first develop the palette. That mean…