Welcome to Fightin’ Words!
So who am I? Why are we here?

Let’s start with the who.

My name is Dominic, and I’ve been a stage combat performer in one form or another since 1999. I’m currently on my way to Actor Combatant status in the SAFD (more on that below), and just generally trying to learn everything I can and master my movement. It’s hard.

Where did I start? Pro wrestling school around my senior year of high school. It was amazing and a dream come true at the time. I learned so much, and it really formed the foundation for all of my movement skills to come. That worked out for about a year then the promotion folded.

Flash forward to 2003 and I was attending a Live Action Role Playing game (Mystic Realms) that got the crazy idea to put on their own Renaissance Faire. I volunteered to teach some folks what I knew from my wrestling days and we put on some matches for several years.

By about 2006 the person would quickly become my best friend (and hopefully will be a contributor to this project) Sean got talked into doing live steel fighting. I wanted nothing to do with swords really, but thought that I should check it out. Plus I could help teach the team what I knew about unarmed fighting from my wrestling background. After a year or two just helping out and learning, I became the co-director of that team and still run it today. We do one show a year in Millville, NJ. We were almost entirely self taught and via our diverse backgrounds tried to come up with best-practices for safety and storytelling. We did pretty well, all things considered.

Over the course of a couple of years I ended up as a featured fight extra in an independent fantasy film and did some light stunt and extra work on a web show. I started cracking bullwhips, and have now been doing that for well over 10 years.

I did a little choreography at the Fusion Performing Arts Centre for a couple of small original productions, and in 2016 Sean and I managed to get ourselves hired for The Who’s Tommy at The Levoy in Millville, NJ. It was a small gig, just a 40ish second fight, but it taught us a lot, and was a great experience at a larger theater than either of us had ever worked for.

In 2017 took a few HEMA (historical European martial arts) classes focusing mostly on German and Italian Longsword (Meyer, Leichtenauer, and Fiore) with the Philadelphia Common Fencers Guild. Sean was also starting to dabble with the idea of joining the SAFD (Society of American Fight Directors). As is wont to happen, I ended up interested as well.

I joined up and took my first certification course in Broadsword and Shield with who is quickly becoming one of my favorite humans , Jacqueline Halloway. Sean and I (we do a lot of work together) got hired for Romeo & Juliet at the Ritz Theatre Co in Oaklyn, NJ. I joined a gym in an effort to get my ass into some semblance of shape.

2018 has been insane, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. R&J went up in March and was an incredible experience. I performed at the Philadelphia Renaissance Faire. I took the SAFD Theatrical Firearms Safety course. Sean and I went to the NY Summer Sling (4 day intensive stage combat workshop) in August. I’m finishing up a Quarterstaff cert class right now, and just attended the Philly Stage Combat Workshop (a two day workshop affectionately known as The Philly Cheesesteak). I started ax throwing and have joined a league. I’ve taken a few parkour classes.

Nowhere to go from here but up. I have plans to keep learning, keep training, keep growing.

Now that that’s out of the way…

Why are we here?

Existentialism aside, I just want to share what I know and how I feel about this art form we call Stage Combat.

I plan to use this as an outlet for opinions, advice, guest columns, promoting things I’m involved with, etc…

I hope you enjoy this journey with me!