by Siobhan Richardson | Dec 18, 2015 | Best Practices
Taking notes on the details of your choreography is essential. You don’t often have the fight director there every day to make corrections and adjustments every rehearsal (you run your fights every day, right?). You’ll have a fight captain or some manner...
by Siobhan Richardson | Dec 4, 2015 | Rehearsal Methods
As promised, we’re looking at methods and exercises for rehearsing a fight scene! Today, we begin with a foundation concept when approaching your fight choreography which lays the groundwork for the upcoming series. In many cases, actors remember the sequence of...
by Siobhan Richardson | Nov 27, 2015 | Actor's Process
I’ve been reading a fantastic book called Physical Expression and the Performing Artist. It explores peoples’ misconceptions about how their bodies work, and how many of us subconsciously add tension in order to make our bodies move the way we think they should. All...
by Siobhan Richardson | Jul 20, 2015 | Style Guide
Hi folks, Take a look at this playlist. It’s a collection of several martial arts — mostly Eastern — so that we can analyze style....
by Siobhan Richardson | Jul 13, 2015 | Style Guide
Karate is again an umbrella term, this time for many of the martial arts of Japan. It’s considered a hard style, though there are some varieties which have exceptions to this. As a generalization, Karate uses a balance of hand strikes and kicks, and tends to...
by Siobhan Richardson | Jul 12, 2015 | Style Guide
Kung-fu translates to “any study, learning, or practice that requires patience, energy, and time to complete” (Wikipedia), but in the West it tends to be an umbrella term for all Chinese Martial Arts. Writing a style guide for all of Kung-fu is a bit...
by Siobhan Richardson | Jul 11, 2015 | Style Guide
Judo is known for throws and take-downs. Through a mechanical lens, check out the aggressor uses incoming energy — whether provided by the victim or whether caused by the aggressor — to initiate the action; look at how the aggressor uses leverage, balance...
by Siobhan Richardson | Jul 10, 2015 | journal
It can’t be repeated enough: this workshop is the beginning of something new. After you recover from this intensive, you can pick it right back up and continue, whether your purpose is to simply maintain your fitness, continue learning and become a leader in the...
by Siobhan Richardson | Jul 7, 2015 | Style Guide
Part of preparation for TMA is observing some of the various styles of Eastern Martial Arts. Today’s clip is an excerpt from Ip Man, displaying a stunning example of Wing Chun. In particular note the moves from 1:50 to 1:55. You get a good look at Wing...
by Siobhan Richardson | Jul 6, 2015 | Cross Training
In less than a month I’ll be teaching Theatrical Martial Arts* (TMA) at the Nordic Stage Fight Society’s Summer workshop. The next couple of weeks will be featuring some suggestions for how to prepare for this kind of movement. One of the common...
