Don’t miss out: keep your DTV email current

Greetings everyone! Duello.TV (DTV) has had a pretty amazing few years of growth, exposure and development. In just five years, we’ve gone from a collection of about 20 videos to over 400—the largest repository of Historical European Martial Arts content on the Internet.

Last time I did a calculation there was more than 60 DVDs worth of lesson content. It is also one of the most mature, systematic, and complete approaches to the longsword, rapier, sidesword, grappling, and polearms, born out of more than 20 years of experience and exposure to literally thousands of students.

Greg and I are now hard at work on some exciting changes to DTV for the new year. New features will make it even easier to access and learn from the content on DTV as well as creating even better content for individuals and groups. We think you’ll really like what we’re doing.

What this means is that after December 6, 2015 we’re no longer selling all-access video subscriptions on DTV in its current form. In January 2016 we’ll open the door to the new DTV, which will instead focus on individual learning paths, guided study and community support. If you’re already a Paid Subscriber, or you sign-up for a paid subscription before December 6, 2015, you can keep accessing the hundreds of teaching videos of DTV as you see it now for only $9.95 per month, which is pretty amazing!

Being a subscriber will not only help us make this new version as excellent as we can, it will also give you advanced access to the new content and structure as well as the opportunity to help guide the new version.

If you’re already a subscriber, thank you so much for your support. It has meant a lot to Greg and me. If you’re not, click here to sign-up as an all-access Paid Subscriber before December 6, 2015!

If you don’t want to become a paid subscriber, sign-up for a Free Membership to access free weekly content and to get news and updates on what’s coming up.

For our Free Members, don’t worry you’ll still get access to weekly content and we’ll keep you in the loop on developments too.

I’ll have more to share here about the new version in the coming two weeks. Stay tuned and please spread the word!

Devon

PS. The Academie Duello February Instructor Intensive is nearly full. If you’ve been thinking of joining, now is the time to sign up.

We’re excited to announce that Duello.TV will be opening its doors again soon for subscription access. But before we officially launch we’re looking for some insider feedback on some of our new free offerings.

We have developed a ton of cool new things over the past year, including online HEMA courses for longsword and rapier, new training exercise videos, as well as all-new video library content for our novice longsword and rapier curriculum.

GETTING STARTED COURSES

What we’d like feedback on today is our two free Courses for Italian swordplay: Getting Started with Longsword, and Getting Started with Rapier.

Longsword: 8 lessons, 15 min video

Rapier: 11 lessons, 18 min video

We designed them to be 1) useful resources that a new practitioner could use to try out HEMA and get started in the very basics, and 2) a small sample of what is available in our full Fundamentals Series beginner courses. Take a look at them and tell us:

– What do you like about them most?
– What grabs your interest?
– Can you spot room for improvement?
– Are they a suitable introduction that a newcomer could participate in and enjoy as a one-off?
– Would you recommend them to someone wanting to try HEMA for the first time?

Log in now and try them out: Getting Started with Longsword, Getting Started with Rapier. As DTV members you’re already enrolled!

All constructive feedback is welcome! If you like it, let us know– if you don’t like it, we want to hear from you! We’re fine tuning and constantly rolling out new features, so the site will probably be changing from visit to visit. We look forward to hearing from you.

Devon & Greg

P.S. If you know someone who would love to participate in this evaluation and send feedback, please feel free to forward this email to them. Non-members will be prompted to register for free. Thank you!

As I posted last week, Duello.TV will be undergoing some changes over the coming months. In fact we’re already hard at work at quite a few of them. I wanted to share a little bit about where we’re going and solicit feedback from the community about what they feel would be valuable for you. Leave your comments here

Over the years we have had a loyal following both of subscribers and members, however as the internet and the practice of HEMA has grown, we have begun to feel that there is much more we can offer to help individuals learn and grow using new tools and technologies. The ten-to-fifteen-minute highly detailed videos we offer are great for instructors and certain higher level practitioners, however they can be a bit daunting for someone who is trying to start from the beginning.

The main features we’re planning to offer on the new DTV are as follows:

An Individual Learning Portal

Aimed at solo practitioners and the individual members of study group and other schools interested in learning what we have to offer. This will include:

• Structured courses where videos are shorter and more actionable. I.e. 2 to 3 minute discrete lessons.
• Guided assessments and quizzes.
• Progress and level tracking.
• Daily training advice and drills.
• Forums for asking questions and getting guidance.

A Study Group Portal

Similar to what we offer currently with the unlimited access plan but with more guidance for setting up and running classes from our material. This will include:

• Lesson plans.
• Drilling guidance.
• Level assessments.
• Forums for asking questions and getting guidance.

What do you think? Does this have value for you? What would you add and where do you think we’d do best to focus? Leave your comments here.

To help support our development of the new site, we’re offering our unlimited access subscription (gives you access to all 400+ lessons on rapier, longsword, sidesword, grappling, and more) for only $9.95 per month. This package and price will be going away after December 6, 2015, so sign-up now to get the deal and help us out. We’ll also give you advanced opportunities to check out the new stuff as we build it.

Sign-up and support us here. You can also get access to our free membership and get free content and stay in the loop on our project.

Thanks everyone for your ongoing support and feedback!
Devon