I apologize if you’ve been waiting on the edge of your seat for this update. Since December was short, I decided to roll it into January’s update.
At Academie Duello, we’ve seen our numbers grow, but some weeks remain intimate. I prefer small class sizes because I can address all concerns and track improvements in all my students.
Weekly Rundown
Week 15 (4 December 2010): To start off this month, we reviewed Boxing and Savate. We recently had a class with this same combo, looking at all the unarmed striking techniques of Bartitsu. I thought we could all use more time on punch-kick combos and integrating them further.
Week 16 (11 December 2010): This weekend, we reviewed the previous week’s Savate kicking techniques, which included using the stop-kick (coup-d’arret). But we spent the majority of our time on Jujitsu by learning a new breakfall in the form of a shoulder-roll. We’ve tried sacrifice throws in previous classes, so we could integrate our new breakfall with a new version of the sacrifice throw. In our combination segment, we added a coup de pied bas to that sacrifice throw, and in our sparring section we explored escapes from grapples using our new skills.
Week 17 (18 December 2010): First thing this week, we spent rolling and reviewing our Jujitsu throws from the previous week. Then, we went back to Boxing. Now that we’ve got a full range of evasions, blocks and counters, this class focused on awareness and reaction choices. Slow free-form sparring rounded off the class.
Break for winter holidays. During that time, I attended the Paddy Crean workshop in Banff. Although the focus is on stage combat and the typical WMA content (longsword, rapier, etc.), I found some interesting cross-over with Matt Richardson’s class on backsword which easily translates to cane technique.
Week 18 (8 January 2011): For our first class of 2011, we went into a review of boxing fundamentals and new cane techniques. The cane focused on diagonal strikes and the sweeping motions that deflect while winding up for a strike.
Week 19 (15 January 2011): As a refresher for new students, we repeated and expanded from the previous week’s boxing and cane techniques. In the sparring section, we had structured interactions in which the defender could react once with one evasive movement or block.
Week 20 (22 January 2011): We reviewed our scientific boxing from the previous week and learned some new Savate techniques. We looked at kick-punch combinations and using the knees in the clinch during the main combination section. Then, we explored the same kind of adaptation to defensive moves of an adversary as we looked at the week, but with our new kicks and knee strikes.
Week 21 (29 January 2011): We reviewed more of our Savate kicking techniques, then moved to more cane possibilities. Cane and savate are our two long-range disciplines, so when we combined them we explored managing distance.
Coming Up
February will include another Introduction to Bartitsu workshop to introduce new students to the art on Saturday the 19th.
