My approach to stage combat has three priorities: Safety, Simulation, and Story. This is a small but important departure from the standard Fight Directors Canada version that students will see in their glossary: safety, storytelling, and style. Here is why I believe simulation beats style and gives us a clearer understanding of what we do as actor-combatants. We Agree on Safety and Story First of all, I'm sure we can all agree that two of our priorities are to maximize safety and enable storytelling. There is no doubt that the reason we do not allow performers to fight for real is for their safety. We have invented the techniques of stage combat to create fight scenes and to depict injuries and deaths on stage without putting the actor in jeopardy. It is fundamental to the art of stage combat, and when comparing two options, we tend to pick the safer version if the effect is otherwise equal to the audience... more on that later. Perhaps some may argue that storytelling is not necessary