I'm Jill Bearup and what I did on my holidays this year was the Academy of
Performance Combat's intensive summer course from which I emerged with 33
bruises about half a dozen bug bites and count 'em, three basic level stage combat
qualifications: rapier and dagger single sword and unarmed. so if I had to pick a
word for the week it would be intense which is probably not a surprise I mean
the physical intensity I was expecting and the mental intensity I was kind of
prepared for the emotional intensity was I admit a little bit more of a surprise
the physical intensity is pretty obvious because you spend seven hours a day for
five days and change doing you know reasonably strenuous physical activity
basically you have to learn how to move all of your body parts in what may be an
entirely new way. in the course of this physical activity you may also learn
that you in fact walk a bit like a duck but my terrible posture is not the
subject of this video so moving on. it was also really intense physically
because it was so hot I mean hot for England it got up to about 32 degrees
but there was no air conditioning so we were mostly just outside in the shade. I
had a hat and my factor 50 and my long sleeves and my long trousers other
people may have thought it was strange but they were nice enough not to comment
and I didn't get a sunburn so I don't care. it was a great leveller though
because it just meant that absolutely everyone was a hot sweaty mess and so
you couldn't really feel embarrassed about it because everyone else was in
the same boat. mentally it was pretty intense because you have to learn the
way you have to stand the way to hold the sword the way to hold the dagger how
to move forward how to move backwards how to move
sideways how don't move diagonally how to try and hit people with said sword or
dagger or your fists but as you're doing that you also have to learn all of the
names of those things. So you can't just say you go forwards is it an advance a
lunge a passing step? and then having learned all of the names for those
things and how to do them you then have to string them together in a particular
set of sequences ie your fight choreography. Oh, plus you have to learn
eight lines of dialogue which in my case was Shakespeare because of course. You
see your exam at basic level is a performance and a workshop and the
performance is a scene of sixteen lines of dialogue which
is conducted while also having a fight with rapier and dagger and then with
single swords and then unarmed so the fight choreography...yeah... is 28 moves in
four sections before you're both down to a single sword each and then another 24
moves in four sections before you're both down to unarmed and then another
25 or so in four sections before you've actually finished. Put it this way on
Monday morning because I'd already done some fencing a long time ago I could
advance and retreat and parry and lunge by Saturday I was freaking Xena. Or at
least Xena's marginally useful friend. (who I actually was for the purposes of
the exam was Kate from The Taming of the Shrew but with more kneeing in the groin
something I feel the Taming of the Shrew really lacks) our instructor told us that
Basic is the hardest exam that you do because on Monday you know basically
nothing and by Saturday you have to look like you've been doing this your entire
life. you not only have to learn how to do the things you also have to learn
what the things are called and then you have to remember how to put them all in
order so we didn't actually finish getting all of our choreography until
Thursday for an exam that we had on Saturday morning because you know we had
to learn all of the things before we could do the things. Mentally intense!
That it was emotionally intense was one of those things that I probably should
have expected but did not. So they gave us this acronym for the things that
you're supposed to remember when you're stage fighting and the acronym is BEDPAN
and if you're really interested I can tell you what they all stand for in the
comments but the E stands for eye contact and you're supposed to hold eye
contact basically at all times don't look at the
target that you're aiming for don't look where you're supposed to be parrying
don't look at their sword look in their eyes. Constantly. I mean maybe most actors
are just massive extroverts but I find this really difficult. It's like you just
spend the entire time staring at people I mean you're not because you're not
their opponent you're their partner and you're trying to help each other but man
I did not expect to have to do so much gazing. Also I'm a little bit
terrified of doing things which I feel are beyond my physical capabilities
which is how I ended up crying in front of my entire class on Wednesday twice
Granted my entire class was four people and the instructor but still: kind
of embarrassing? a little bit embarrassing. Fortunately everyone was
really understanding about it and then the following day loads of other people
cried and so I kind of felt better about it which is possibly a little bit mean
actually now I think about it... Another really difficult thing: no sorries no
apologising you're not allowed to say you're sorry said Duncan the instructor
to which I replied you do realise that's like half of my vocabulary just gone but
regardless of the crying and the muscle aching and the general exhaustion and
the bug bites I was wearing insect repellent, seriously? I had honestly the
absolute time of my life it was like being a kid again for a week I got to
pretend to punch people and hit them with swords. 10/10 would
recommend what do you mean it's a whole year until the next one? what am I
supposed to do in the meantime? Yeah I'll let you know when I figure that one out
see you next time!