I’ve brought a new practice into my life this spring. Something that has been more about altering my mood and resetting my rhythm than just purely about martial arts. I started doing a cold ocean swim in the mornings. I had been looking for a way to reset my morning routine. My schedule had been drifting later and later into Read More …
A few months ago I decided to go on a diet. It was not a change in my eating habits but a change in my mental consumption. I had caught myself over the course of the pandemic reading more and more news articles, scrolling through endless youtube videos, and occasionally losing myself in social media–often when it was time instead Read More …
The biggest barrier to getting great work done is trying to do great work. Prolific writer and blogger Seth Godin shares that for every blog post he publishes he writes at least three, and this man publishes one post a day. The lesson is that producers of great work don’t have a higher ratio of quality output, they just have Read More …
Rhythm is the most important thing to cultivate on the path to mastery. This small tool has been essential to keeping the practice of swordplay alive as well as many other practices such as meditation. A Little, Everyday, Becomes a Lot Everyone knows if you want to get better at something, you have to practice. However, making time in a Read More …
I’m a big fan of slow sparring as a training tool. It is an ideal way to focus on mechanics and precision, develop strategic and tactical awareness, and work on the necessary relaxation and fluidity required for high-speed combat in a more manageable setting. The main challenge with slow sparring is that it is difficult to go slow, especially when you’re Read More …
The idea of pursuing personal excellence is great, but functionally how do you do it? I’ve written about beating the boredom of repetitive drilling, and promoting an excellence mindset. Yet when you get the opportunity to really up the quality of what you’re doing, where do you focus? Below is a piece of guidance material I have put together for instructors Read More …
One of the awesome things about Historical European Martial Arts is that they come from a rich historical tradition. And this tradition includes a wealth of instructional books written from within the period where those arts were most actively practiced. Picking up a 15th-century fighting manual is by no means necessary to learn, practice, and enjoy these martial arts, but Read More …
Last Saturday morning at 5:30am I began a trip from Vancouver to the town of Monroe in Washington state, about 3 hours south of Vancouver, with five of my students from Academie Duello. It was our yearly trip to a rapier tournament held by the Society for Creative Anachronism called Ursulmas. This particular tournament gets a permanent spot in our Read More …
Sometimes, I have hated swordplay. This is something I truly love and has been an enduring passion of my life. But when the fire is gone a sense of resentment, frustration, or anger can remain in its place. It can bring a tremendous feeling of loss; when something that has so readily fed you before seems now to have abandoned Read More …
“To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.” – Elbert Hubbard Putting yourself out into the world is a surefire way to invite criticism. All who do encounter those who detract. Yet is there really any other way one would want to be in the world? When we embark on a new pursuit like swordplay, or dance, or writing, we Read More …