Drama Teacher Course
This course provides a smooth and safe progression of 21 lessons - 90 minutes - in stage combat with swords for you and your students to follow, as well as additional notes and documents. This gives your students a solid and applicable foundation of concepts and drills in theatrical combat.
You can use this resource however you need: for one month, a semester, throughout the school year, or to prep for a production. The low subscription rate makes these lessons an affordable choice for teachers anywhere, and the integrated progress bar and lesson completion check list make it easy to track your progress. This course gives access to a higher standard of dramatic action no matter where you live.
These video lessons are not a full substitute for in-person instruction, but they do provide a solid addition to your curriculum, and can be used as a solid resource to supplement any other instruction.
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Welcome to the Drama Teacher Stage Combat Course! Let’s go over how to best use this course and help you integrate fundamental stage combat with prop swords into your curriculum.
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Let’s introduce you and your students to stage combat, and set some goals so we know what we’re doing and where we’re going!
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You can’t just use anything! You have to know what makes a prop sword safe or unsafe to use for performance, and what’s best to use for practice .
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Not all swords are built alike! Let’s learn what all the parts are and what they do, and what type of swords we’ll be using so we can better perform with them.
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Before we continue, you should all meet my training partner: fellow actor and stunt performer Tyson Dailey!
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How you hold a sword is very important, as it’s your connection to your prop. We use the Pivoting Grip.
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Don’t just stand there! En Garde stance is how we stand when we engage in a sword fight - it’s a ready position - and it helps express character.
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Consistent targeting is one of the most important aspects of performing action. It keeps us safe and lets us tell a dynamic story.
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Parries are moves with the sword meant to stop an oncoming attack. We’ll cover the six fundamental sabre parries that will keep you safe!
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Cutting attacks with the sword use the edge of the blade and are done in a controlled way to keep you and your partner safe. You want to LOOK like a threat, not actually be one!
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We now move into partner drills with the sword, practicing our cuts and parries together
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Footwork and movement is important in helping control distance with your partner, therefore keeping you both safe.
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Now that we’ve got a framework for foundational footwork, let’s add a partner drill to get a sense of how it is appied.
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We now practice our linear movement with a partner, working on maintaining a safe distance.
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Let’s layer on basic footwork to our cuts and parries 1 through 6. This will give you a really solid feel of attack and defense on all the lines while being motivated by good footwork.
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This pattern is called Box in 4. It teaches how to move the sword naturally from one parry and cut to the next, and gets us closer to doing fight choreography.
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X in 4 is an intermediate pattern that teaches how the sword moves from one parry to the next with a partner - this one feels like a real performance!
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X in 4 is an intermediate pattern that teaches how the sword moves from one parry to the next with a partner - this one feels like a real performance!
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We now combine X in 4 with the basic footwork, and suddenly we’re looking much more sword fight-y!
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This advanced footwork will teach you the classic fencing style of movement seen in all swashbuckling films, and will have your students looking like pros.
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We now combine X in 4 with the Advanced Footwork and voila! It feels like fight choreography!
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You’ve made it to th end of he Drama Teacher’s Course! Thank you so much for using this course as a template to explore basic swordplay for theatre and film!
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