00:00I'm Jane Bradley, Arts Correspondent at The Scotsman, and I'm here at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland today with Rob Miles, who is the resident stage combat instructor.
00:09Hi, Rob.
00:10Hi.
00:11So today I'm going to learn to do stage combat, and I'm hoping that Rob and Yasmin, who is going to be fighting me, are going to go gentle on me.
00:19But can you tell me a little bit about how you got into this in the first place?
00:23Of course, yeah. I was an actor from being a young man, kind of 13, 14 was when I really got into it, thanks to a youth programme over in Rotherham, where I grew up.
00:34And as part of that, I was always interested in the kind of action-adventure genre, like most people, I grew up on Star Wars and things of that nature.
00:41So, you know, sword fighting always seemed like it was going to be good fun.
00:45But I got into that through martial arts.
00:48So I did historical European martial arts for a time, and I also did Japanese martial arts.
00:53So I did karate, kendo, judo, jiu-jitsu, and kind of continued that on while I went to university, got a degree in psychology, and then I was introduced to the JET scheme, which is the Japan Exchange Teaching Programme.
01:08So I went over to Japan for a year, ostensibly to teach English, but actually to do martial arts.
01:13And while I was out there doing that, I found out the hard way that it was not for me.
01:19So I was in a karate tournament, and a special ringer was brought in to spar with me, who'd never been part of the dojo before.
01:28And he had long sleeves on, which indicated that he had tattoos all over his body, which has connotations, shall we say, in that culture.
01:35And the next thing I knew, I was on the ground coughing up blood because he kicked me in the throat so hard and so fast that I didn't even see it.
01:44And what flashed into my brain at that time was Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai getting up after getting beaten down over and over again.
01:50So I was like, yeah, come on, let's go again.
01:52And then the adrenaline crashed, and I went to A&E.
01:54But in that moment, I realized that actually it was the story that was being told with this that I was most interested in, rather than the actual martial practice of it.
02:04But having that basis gave me a really good grounding to begin.
02:08And then I found a guy called Tetsuro Shimaguchi, who choreographed the final fight between Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu in Kill Bill Volume 1.
02:14And he does a thing called Chanbara, or what he calls Kengido, which is stage combat, but Japanese style, so samurai fighting, essentially.
02:24And that was my first experience of stage combat.
02:26And then since then, I came back to the UK and dedicated my life and career to being an actor and director.
02:32And through that, did a lot of training with the British Academy of Stage and Screen Combat, with who I'm now a certified teacher.
02:38And now we're bringing the Claymore, which is a big summer action workshop, August 21st to 24th, to the Royal Conservatoire.
02:46And one of the teachers is Tetsuro Shimaguchi, my original sensei in stage combat.
02:51So I'm really excited to be able to bring him back here to share those skills that are from literally half the world away, right here in Glasgow.
02:59And at the same time, we've got people like Paul MacDonald, who is a historical fencer, who specializes in Scottish backsword, who's from right here.
03:08And he's going to be sending his skills out into the world at the same time.
03:11And on top of that, we've got stuntmen from The Bourne Automatum, Mission Impossible, Fallout, The Boys coming to teach a whole range of things,
03:21from martial arts and weapons to also intimacy and physical theatre.
03:26So we've got Frantic Assembly coming, for instance, and Suzanne Smith, who is the casting director on things like Outlander,
03:32is also going to come and do a casting workshop for action roles.
03:36So there's a lot of very exciting things that are going to go down.
03:39And the rest of the time, I teach here.
03:43We do three courses a year, intensive courses a year, in one of the nine weapon systems that the British Academy of Stage and Screen Combat provides certifications in.
03:53So if people want to come and learn these skills, then they can do so here three times a year.
03:58Fantastic. And you're going to give me a little bit of a taster of this today.
04:01So can you give me any idea of what I'm in for in the next couple of hours?
04:05I can. I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised, you know, because stage combat has more in common with magicianship and dance than it does with martial arts.
04:14Because it is a cooperative endeavour to sell the illusion of a conflict.
04:20And that word illusion is really important.
04:22There is some sleight of hand to this that you're going to experience and then deploy.
04:27And it's about the acting and the performance that comes through that connects the dots of that physical story for the audience with an emotional impact and a transformation for that character.
04:38So I think the important thing to begin with is that it's all consent based, trauma informed and safety is our number one priority.
04:50But that's because stage combat is not safe. It is risk mitigated.
04:54So we do as much as we can together to keep each other safe at all times.
05:00But we have to put in that work and we have to give that work our attention. Does that make sense?
05:04Yeah. And I think you're scaring me slightly more. So I think we need to get started.
05:08I think. Yeah, let's dive in and let's see how you feel on the other side.
05:12All right. Let's do it.
05:13Let's do it.
05:43Yeah. So if you bring it to this one.
05:45So we're going to choreograph a piece now where Yasmin and I are going to have a fight.
