Feedback on free courses

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.

 

Getting Started with LongswordLongsword: 8 lessons, 15 min video Getting Started with RapierRapier: 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!

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Online Swordplay Courses are Coming

swordplay coursesGreetings everyone! We have been working hard on exciting new additions to Duello.TV. Our goal is to make the site an even more effective resource for learning swordplay for the first time or honing existing skills. Our existing content is very thorough and we are constantly improving it, adding to it, and keeping it up to date (we have more than 400 video lessons now online). However for many newer practitioners the quantity of information and required knowledge for each video can be overwhelming.

So we are hard at work on creating online swordplay courses. Courses break up the content in our longer video lessons into smaller topics. Each topic includes a video lesson, a quiz (to aid in retention), short-term and long-term practice guidance, and areas to ask questions and get specific help from us and our community.

The courses are progressive, so each skill builds on the other and allows you a much clearer path for learning how to fence and progress in this beautiful art. Do the lessons on your own or with a partner, or simply browse through the content and use your existing knowledge to answer the quizzes.

If you have comments or questions regarding specific lesson videos, quizzes, or practice content, you’ll be able post it into the comment box for that specific area. Feel free to ask actual technical questions (meaning really take the course and see how it works) or simply give us feedback on ways we could improve that section.

We have a group of beta testers involved in our first course offerings for the Rapier, so we can garner as much feedback and improvement before releasing them to the public. We are working on the first offering for longsword as well (based on absolutely brand new content) and have begun work on our level 2 content for rapier and longsword. The feedback you give us will help us shape these offerings.

Not a part of the beta group? No problem, you can access the free Swordplay Sampler Course here. We want to hear from you, so hop in and tell us what you think.

Devon & Greg

Next Round of Beta Courses is Live

Hi all! We’re back with a mid-month update on the new developments at DTV. Work is progressing fast and furious. We’ve spent the last many months at work behind the scenes, and the fruits are now coming into view.

rapier-offhand-apprenticeThe Apprentice (Green Cord) offhand material has been fully refreshed and updated to reflect a more direct and systematic approach we’re using at the Vancouver Salle. We hope you’ll get a lot out of it. Your approach to the use of the offhand should be greatly enhance by going through this material carefully and repeatedly. Don’t forget to send us a comment or email and tell us what you think of it.

New Swordplay Beta Courses

The two remaining courses in Rapier Fundamentals are now available to all beta testers.

1. Rapier Fundamentals II: Movement, Control & Recovery (RAP-055)

2. Rapier Fundamentals III: Tempo & Combat (RAP-060)

As you may already know, Rapier Fundamentals I was brought out for testing at the beginning of the month. If you haven’t had a chance to try these out, please avail yourself to some great learning resources. Watch the video, answer the quiz, work through the practice notes, and leave us comments on how we may improve the experience. If you have a question about a particular technique, we are completely available to help answer it and assist in your education. Take this opportunity to learn!

These courses are geared to beginners, but I believe one can never drill the basics too many times. Fundamentals are always useful!

Try Them Out Today

You can access the courses here. Scroll down to where you see the Rapier Fundamentals courses, and the button “Add to My Courses”. After the page refreshes you should see the course in the My Courses list there and on the My Account page. (There’s about a 30-second delay between the time you add the course and the time it appears in your courses list. We’re working on eliminating this delay. Thanks.)

Feel free to follow along and do the lessons on your own or with a partner, or simply browse through the content and use your existing knowledge to answer the quizzes.

Your Feedback is Needed to Make it Better

If you have comments or questions regarding specific lesson videos, quizzes, or practice content, please post it into the comment box for that specific area. Feel free to ask actual technical questions (meaning really take the course and see how it works) or simply give us feedback on ways we could improve that section.

We are working on the first offering for longsword as well (based on absolutely brand new content) and have also begun work on our level 2 content for rapier and longsword. The feedback you give us now will help us shape these offerings.

Hop in and let us know what you think! We’re eager to hear from you.

Devon & Greg

Feedback on Hompage & Library

Thanks everyone for the positive and helpful feedback on Duello.TV’s new Getting Started courses. Our DTV goals are to create a useful resource for the community 1) to introduce newcomers to HEMA, and 2) to provide well structured high level teaching material for existing members and practitioners, leading them to the mastery of swordplay.

We’re working toward a Friday grand re-opening. We’d love some more input on what we are offering beyond the Courses:

HOMEPAGE (when not logged in)

It’s a big page that we’ve worked hard to organize and present all the features of DTV in a comprehensible and engaging way.

  • Is it clear what Duello.TV is trying to accomplish? Can you summarize it in a simple way?
  • If you were new to HEMA, how excited would you be to find this for the first time?
  • As an initiated practitioner, does it give you the sense of just how much advanced content is there and how it can be of personal benefit?

VIDEO LIBRARY

In the Video Library area of the site we have over 45 hours of instruction organized into playlists of 30-120 minutes each (hundreds of videos, thousands of individual lessons). These are separate from courses (no quizzes, notes, or assignments) with multiple lessons per video, and are aimed at novice to expert practitioners.

  • Does the distinction between these lesson videos and our courses make sense?
  • Which topic areas most interest you? What do you think should be added to the library?
  • How easy is it to find a desired topic? Can you spot room for improved organization?

Round 1 feedback was great, looking forward to more great feedback in round 2.

Devon & Greg