How to Do Slow Sparring Successfully
I'm a big fan of slow sparring as a training tool. I…
Category: Training Blog
Lots of Practice, Not Perfect Practice
There is an interesting phrase pair I have been hearing from a lot of instructors recently. I hear: “Practice makes perfect.” Then an admonishme…
The 5 Minutes Per Day Practice Regimen
In light of our upcoming Online Collaborative Longsword Course, I thought it w…
How Much Should I Worry About Winning at the Beginning?
Not at all.
Whether you approach your practice as a martial sport or a m…
Revisiting the Harm of Unsolicited Help
Recently, many female-identified practitioners in my life have been bravely and gracefully sharing with me their challenges in being students in marti…
Exposure is the Key to Deeper Learning
In his Jogo do Pau training seminar in Vancouver in 2016, instructor Luis Preto demonstrated a basic fact …
Student Trials: Examination and Initiation
This past weekend I was on an examination board for the first Provost of Armizare at the Chicago Swordplay Guild (CSG), Jesse Kulla. Provost is the ra…
Advice from the 30-for-30 Swordplay Challenge
Over the month of January Academie Duello and Duello.TV hosted a 30-day swordplay training challenge. Each participant engaged in the goal of at least…
Making Tournaments Useful in Mastery
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 o…
Inspiration not Competition
Competitiveness plays a big role in sport. Cultivating the competitive spirit is often used to drive one to harder training and to overcoming one's op…
Why Do Martial Arts
Martial arts have been a big part of my life since I was a child. I started first with Kung Fu then Arnis/Eskrima and then I began my longest-term exp…
The Stages of Ignorance in Mastery
Mastery—the pursuit of something to a high level of proficiency—is a challenging and hard to plot journey. Our capacity to stay on the road and mo…
3 Injury Prevention Tips for Rapier Fighters
One of the things I focus on in my recent book Introduction to…
Training to Relax for the Very Tense
Being relaxed is a key component to good fencing. Relaxed muscles are quicker to respond, easier to adapt and change, and more capable of feeling conn…
On Help and Failure
I thought I'd reach back to a post from 2014 that I was reminded of today. This post explores how our desire to help one another can often get in the …
An Argument for Training with Diverse Weapons, Part 1
Recently I was asked why we teach rapier and longsword together in our Instructor Intensives. The questioner postulated that it was like teaching sky …
Swordfight Roadshow Fall 2017
Hi all, Greg Reimer here. Two years ago my partner Brooke and I set out on an epic adventure to sword fight across Western Canada. It went so well we …
Mimicry: How to use it, how to beat it
Ever sparred with someone really good and felt like you were at your best, then right after sparred with someone less experienced and felt like you go…
Burn out: when the fire is gone
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 res…
Choosing the Right Rapier for You
I am asked routinely how to choose the right rapier for practice. This article, cribbed from my forthcoming Introduction to the Italian Rapier
Collaborative vs Competitive Practice Environments
Early in my days of swordplay I remember a common piece of training advice was to "never give anything less than 100% to your training partner". Becau…
WMAW 2017 Report
So this past weekend I attended the bi-annual Western Martial Arts Workshop in Racine, Wisconsin. Hosted by the Chicago Swordplay Guild, this is one o…
What I Love About the Rapier
Monday morning Greg and I met at a print shop in Vancouver to go over the latest proof's of my Introduction to Italian Rapier book. A pre-print copy o…
Why Do We Fight?
To get out of danger. Self-defence is one of the oldest reasons for conflict.
To uphold honour, right wrong, and make just. Both noble aims and rig…
What is part of Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA)?
People often try to use the term HEMA, often pronounced phonetically as "hee-mah", as if it were a specific martial art such as karate (technically a …
Conversations on Binding at the Sword
Not long ago I had a conversation (online of course—who talks on the phone or in person anymore?) with my student Xian from Halifax. He asked a ques…
Notes from a Fencing Student, circa 1657
In the 1650s a German speaking student attended the knight academy at Sorø in Eastern Denmark. There he studied under fencing master Wilhelm Schöffe…
Vancouver Martial Challenge 2017 Report
At the end of July we hosted the Vancouver Martial Challenge at Academie Duello in Vancouver, and it was a tremendous weekend of inter-disciplinary sp…