Learn about our PRO Movie Sword Training Classes near you
For 2 Handed Long Sword Movie Fight Training – www.MovieSwordFighting.com
For Movie Baton, Machete, Sword & Shield and Sword & Dagger Training – www.ShortSwordMovieFighting.com
VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION – Movie sword and shield training tip one what are some basic grips and stances you can use with the sword and shield for your reels, auditions, or even your own content? That’s what we’ll answer in today’s video. Hi, my name is Dillon Wilson with CBT Stunt alliance. Train hard. Perform easy. We help actors, stunt performers, filmmakers, and content creators learn professional stunt training for use in film, tv, and live action performances.
Learn more about Dillon Wilson
(ADVANCE) See FREE Movie Shield & Sword Training Tip 2 of 4: Sword Attacks
Before we get underway, if you’re interested in adding baton, short sword, sword and dagger, even sword and shield, movie fight choreography to your current acting or stunt performer skill set, check out our highly popular online master course at www.ShortSwordMovieFighting.com you can learn attacking angles, Sword fight choreography, sword and dagger, sword and Larry Shield, even how to market your career. You can sign up now and start training now. Go to www.shortswordmoviefighting.com for more info.
Okay, so we get a lot of questions about movie baton and shortsword fighting tips, so we’re going to share a few things with you now, I’m actually an experienced stunt coordinator turned full time director. This is something I plan to do from the beginning of my career up to and including even attending and graduating film school as director. Now, along my journey, I learned that being a stunt coordinator made me a better director, and being a director made me a better stunt coordinator. And what this means to you is that I can offer insights and experience from both sides of the camera as well as all phases of production. When we thought about what would help you the most, we decided to put together this free video course that will cover the basics of movie baton and short Sword movie fighting techniques. This way, you can use it for your real upcoming auditions and even your own content. For actual performances and highly competitive auditions, you need more training like we provide in our highly popular online master course.
Why does this work? Because for self tapes, many sword auditions, mocap, and performances, you just have to look like you know how to use a, ah, movie baton or short sword. If you’re not the lead or a featured fighter, you’re going to throw anywhere from zero to two strikes and then you’re killed. Anyway, check out this following clip to see this in action.
Now, how many strikes did each performer get to throw in that action sequence? Exactly. So in this video, we’re going to actually cover some ways to actually hold a sword and shield to use for your real auditions, uh, and even your own content. All right, in this instructional, we’re going to cover large shield and sword basics.
This is going to be everything you need to have a good foundation in how to use the large shield and sword. So the first thing we’re going to cover is actually how to hold the thing and, uh, posture, stances and lead that you want to be in. And for the most part, I’m going to use the PVC instead of the sword just because it kind of contrasts better with the background. For the most part, you’re going to be like this with the sword. So the same things you learned before, uh, with baton and machete apply here. It’s going to be natural posture. I’m going to be natural posture. Right, lead, you see how this looks?
Movie Sword & Shield Fight training
Natural posture is still the same if we were here, right? It’s just here now. So just like here’s natural posture. The only difference is we’re grabbing a shield and we’re holding it up. Now, when we hold up the shield, we want to hold it up. We don’t want to be down here. We want to hold it up high enough where it protects our face. Yet it’s just below our eyes, so we don’t wish to be here. Then we can’t see. We wish to be right here, not down here, because then we get chopped in the neck. So right below our eyes.
The other thing is with the shield, the edge of the shield should not be out here. It should be on our center line. Again, the center line is that imaginary axis where our body rotates around. So it should be right there, not here, because you’ll learn later. You can get trapped, your shield trapped like that. It must be right on that center line. And the hand, again, is here. The sword is here. And we’re just like, this is how it looks. This is natural posture. Right, lead. We can also lower the shield. I mean, the sword, rather. And this is still natural posture. Sometimes we do that to set up a technique or set up an attack. This is more threatening to an opponent.
This is less threatening. See, if I’m, um, here with a sword, you feel more threatened by this than by this, right? So that’s natural posture. If we’re switching leaves, the same things, apply switching leads before you see that it’s still the same. Switch off with the hands. The same exact thing with the hands. You need to be able to switch quickly when you’re doing stunt fighting. So that’s number one, natural posture. The second one is frontal posture. Right? So with frontal posture, just like we learned with the club or the machete, we’re here. This is already serving to be a shield. That’s why we had those three points, those three barriers. So all you’re doing is now just holding the shield in your hand. Same exact thing. Frontal posture. See, nothing changes.
Movie sword training online youtube free
One of the great things about CBT, it just, all just integrates things like this. So the, um, pommel can actually touch the shield shields on a sealant. It could be like this. For frontal posture, I’ll turn to the side so you can see it. Turn to the other side. You can see, you can see how well protected I am right. Now, the other variation, this is frontal posture. Front stance, right lead, right. The other one is frontal posture. Front stance, left lead, right. And so what happens is when we switch, essentially, now the sword is in the front with the right forward, you see, the sword is in the rear, sword is in the front, the shield is in the rear. We put a left lead, it switches.
So the shield is in the lead and the right hand, you see, is back here. That’s what we want. So with frontal posture, either one of these from here or here is good. We never hold our sword back here. There’s some systems that do that. They’ll be up here, here, that kind of thing. The sword is either up high or here. It’s always pointing towards the enemy, something like that. All right. And so again, even this position, you want to be switching leads. And we go to the two different frontal postures, we can still switch leads like this. Again, the two different postures.
I’ll keep moving. And you want to just get used to moving like this, right? Because believe it or not, this is what will help you get cast because you seem natural with it. Remember, the stunt coordinator, fight choreographer is going to determine or design the choreography to you. Anyway. So, uh, these motions here are what let them know that you will look natural in the scene. Now, last thing before we move on, there is a third posture that we’re in. And we use this in CBT for combat. There’s more that we use more postures, yet for theatrical. We don’t use all the same posture because they don’t look as cinematic, they don’t look great on camera. Yet there is a third one that we use, and we call this side posture variation. And how that looks is just like this.
So you see the shield. We do the same thing with knife as well. The lead hand is out and the rear hand is up like this. The sword comes over the top of the shield. You see that the arm can be extended or it can be folded back on itself like this. And we don’t usually rest the sword on top of there’s. Some space there. So a lot of times after we finish, uh, some choreography, we’ll finish like this because it looks good, it looks cinematic. You can see it from the side. It even looks good from the front. It looks good from a three quarter view. Right. And again, practice on both sides. So you’re here or here. You can fully extend it, or here. Right. And that’s it. So those are the three postures.
The first two are the ones you’re going to use for the most part with all the choreography. And the third one is usually when you break off an attack, is what you’ll break off the attack in. And when we cover the choreography, you’re going to see it. So stop the video now and give these a try, broken down step by step to ensure that you learn it both easily and quickly. Lastly, we’re going to share a few pro tips with you yet before we do, check this out.
So if any of the topics that we covered are of interest to you, definitely head on over to our website and take the free video tour. Now we’ll share a pro tip with you. Pro tip? Practice with a weighted shield. A weighted shield can be anything. If you’re ever using a book bag or cardboard box, put some weight, some old shoes or something inside of it, uh, to weight it. Actual shields have weight to them. And here’s the thing, the more you practice with it, the more natural you’ll feel and your body learns it. If you practice with a shield that isn’t weighted, when you actually get on set or an audition or something,
it’s not going to be the same. It’s going to throw you off. And, uh, this way you look natural, your body learns the movements, and anyone who sees you, stunt coordinator, director, producer in the audience, uh, is just going to appreciate your performance. We can also tell you that even after working out for a few hours with a shield and sword, you feel it. You feel the weight, uh, the weariness in your arms, your shoulders, especially in your back. So imagine working ten, uh, twelve hour day with a sword and shield.
And that’s even like any weight that you’re going to feel it after a while, you’re going to be feeling that. Now imagine working five days straight and having to do that. That’s the life of a professional stunt performer at times. And so the conditioning is very important. One of the best ways to do that is to practice with it more or even as you’re walking around your house, just kind of keep the shield with you, right? And this will help to condition your body and you’ll feel a lot better and be able to last an entire shoot when you’re doing a, uh, movie sword fight choreography using the shield. All right, make sure you like this video and smash that subscribe button so you don’t miss out on our next training video. Also, make sure you sign up for our pro stunt tips email newsletter to get professional movie baton and short sword fighting tips in your inbox.
You can also find helpful info at our blog:
https://cbtstunts.com/category/movie-sword-fighting-tips/
Lastly, if you like more information about our highly popular online movie Baton and short sword fighting master course, go to www.ShortSwordMovieFighting.com or click on the link below this video. Again, my name is Dillon Wilson with CBT stunt alliance. Train hard, perform easy. Don’t miss our next video when we share with you another movie baton and short sword fighting tip.