18-22 April - Intensive Week Camp - Academie Duello - Vancouver - Canada

ALSO NOTE: there will be an half day workshop on april 17th from 1pm-5pm which you can sign up for register HERE

FOR THE INTENSIVE CAMP - PLEASE REGISTER HERE

A warrior discipline, a martial art, a science of combat for dueling and survival, a way of defense from assaults, formative practice for the body-mind-spirit, exercise, confrontation, psychophysical increase, a community, tradition and values, deep roots based on the teaching and respect for the Ancestors’ Legacy. This is Fencing. This is Italian Martial Arts. Centuries of tradition, still alive today. A school handed down through the centuries, thanks to the Masters, past and present, which left to future generations the codes, the techniques and the pedagogy. L’arte di ripararsi e ben rispondere ai colpi avversi, “The Art of guarding and riposting well against the opponent’s blows”. This five-day intensive will be a unique opportunity to learn Italian fencing (classic, traditional and modern) and Italian martial arts for modern practice, needs and applications. Italian martial arts (IMAs) are rich in culture and technical aspects. They cover hundreds of years, a variegated number of weapons and methods, armed and unarmed. There are ancient, medieval, renaissance, modern and contemporary methods and their evolutions. There are academic, military, regional, folk- and family-based traditions and methods which all share the same genome, the same principles, the same structure, and culture. During our intensive we will learn some of these Sciences and Arts of fighting and fencing, in their present methods, forms and approach.

The classes are focused for a contemporary use and practice of IMAs for combat and self defense, within the framework of the traditional fencing principles applied for swords and other weapons. For this reason, they will focus on three major elements of the Art: 1) stick fencing - bastone a una mano (one-handed stick) - bastone da passeggio (walking stick) - bastone da braccio (short stick) 2) unarmed fencing - methods originated from medieval “Abracar” as detailed starting from Fiore De Liberi in his Flos Duellatorum - from Renaissance “Pugne” - 19th-century methods of wrestling and bare-handed pugilism for self defense - contemporary methods such as “calci e schiaffi” 3) Short range fencing (Italian school of daggers and knives) - the dimension of the duel, or “gioco largo” - the combat for survival or “gioco stretto” All topics will cover theory, technique, tactics, sparring, and combat drills. You will develop a solid ownership of the principles of the art, the philosophy, the application, the use in a fight or in a context of self-defense. About the instructor: Dr. Marco Quarta is a biomedical scientist at the School of Medicine of Stanford University, CA, USA. His research is focused on skeletal muscle physiology, biomechanics and on bioengineering of stem cells for regenerative medicine. He also reseaches, teaches and promotes Italian Martial Arts (IMAs) at Stanford and in the San Francisco Bay Area. Overall, his work, as for Nova Scrimia philosophy, is dedicated to proposing original IMA traditions actualized in modern combat and self defense methods. Marco grew up in Bologna, Italy. His journey in the martial art world started at a young age with judo and jujitsu (where he earned a black belt) to join eventually mixed martial arts (currently practicing BJJ). His interest in Italian martial traditions started in the early Nineties with formal training in modern fencing, boxing and wrestling. He eventually joined Graziano Galvani and his IMAs research group (Circolo della Tavola), that later will grow into the organization known as Nova Scrimia. As a co-founder, he served as senior instructor of the Nova Scrimia brotherhood from 1999 until present time. He is also maestro of historic fencing at Scrimia Scuola d’Armi. Since late Nineties, he has been teaching and promoting IMAs with publications, lectures, festivals, tournaments and seminars at Italian and International Universities and fencing/martial art symposia (including University of Bologna, Stanford in California, Vancouver International Swordplay Symposium, Western Martial Arts Workshop WMAW in Chicago, and Bone Breakers MMA Academy in Mexico City). In 2008 he moved to California with his family, where he founded Nova Scrimia International (www.novascrimia.org), teaching and promoting IMAs in Canada, USA and Mexico. Since 2000 he opened Salles d'Armes in Bologna (IT), Padova (IT), San Francisco Bay Area (USA) and Mexico City (MX). He is also one of the founders of “Hic Sunt Leones”, a fighting club based on traditional fencing assaults, duels and ritual combats. Marco has a personal interest in the body-mind-spirit elements embedded in the core of western martial arts and fencing traditions, including the symbolic and philosophical aspects.