Get fit with SwordFit
Posted September 13, 2011 8:31 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Are you looking for a good workout? Do you like big, sharp, pointy things? Meet Devon Boorman, master instructor at Academie Duello, the Centre for Swordplay in Downtown Vancouver.
“I think of SwordFit of being almost like CrossFit meets swords. With modern fitness knowledge and wanting to train an army in the middle ages, what would I do?”
You’d do circuit training. Full contact. With a broadsword.
“It’s all circuit-based,” says Boorman. “You’ll be doing three minutes where you’ll be basically saving your life. Obviously wearing protective gear. The blade is probably about 36 inches long and has two cutting edges and a thrusting point. So you’ll techniques that involve both cutting and thrusting. You’ll learn a lot of cutting and then crossing, which is where you make a defensive action, you almost cut into your opponent’s sword to stop it or deflect it, and then there’s counterattacking.”
And then they end it with a stretch out and cool down. “They’re not sharp swords. Obviously I wouldn’t have a lot of students if we used sharps,” Boorman deadpans. The important thing is anyone can do SwordFit.
“We have all kinds. We get people who come out here as, like, a date. It’s conflict resolution skills that are more practical than you can ever imagine!” he laughs. Don’t forget to try the pole axe.
SwordFit currently runs at Academie Duello Mondays and Wednesdays from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
