Watch: I learned to stage fight at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland - here's how it's done

“This is Yasmeen, she’s going to fight you.”

Actress Yasmeen Hindawi doesn’t look too scary, in fact, she looks friendly. But she could be a smiling assassin.

A star pupil on a course run by Rob Myles, a tutor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, she has been drafted in for the day to help teach me to stage fight.

Tutor Rob Myles teaches arts correspondent Jane Bradley to stage fight at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. | Jane Bradley

Rob’s usual courses cover not only stage combat using techniques such as slaps, punches and kicks, but also weapons such as swords, daggers and even “found objects” like pencils. But in this intensive three-hour session, we decide to stick to body combat.

Later this summer, he is holding a full four-day course, where students will learn not only from him, but from Joey Ansah, who gained international recognition as Desh in The Bourne Ultimatum and Tetsuro Shimaguchi, who gained international acclaim as the sword fight choreographer and actor - Crazy 88’s “Miki” - in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol 1.

Rob tells me not to be nervous.

“The whole point of this is not to actually get hurt,” he reminds me.

Already a jobbing actor, he started stage fighting 20 years ago after his love for martial arts took him to Japan. There he ended up duelling with someone he believes to be a Japanese gang member - an encounter that left him in hospital with a collapsed throat.

“I realised after that it was the story that was being told that I was most interested in, rather than the actual martial practice,” he says.

We start by learning the basic technique of the “knap”. This is the slap or punch sound that needs to accompany any attack to give the illusion of contact. Rob and Yasmeen easily produce a loud, hollow noise, by clapping their cupped hands to their shoulders. It is harder then it looks.

I’m told to knap Yasmeen on the shoulder with one hand, pushing her backwards. Rob tells us to assess pain levels on a scale of one to ten, Yasmeen ranks my push a three. Perfect.

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We push each other back and forth for a while, graduating to a two-handed push that reminds me of a scene from Grange Hill, before Rob introduces a new technique - the slap.

Standing side on to the audience - in this case my video tripod - I’m told to raise my right hand at an angle in front of my face and then quickly extend it out to the side of Yasmeen’s ear, before snapping it back. At the same time, Yasmeen knaps, subtly clapping both her hands together by her hip to create the sound, something the audience will, Rob tells me, not notice. He is right. Once we get the timing right, the illusion is uncanny.

Of course, I can’t take all of the credit. Yasmeen’s reactions are key to this.

If she does not believably seem to be in pain, falling the right way, making the right facial expressions, shouting, groaning or screaming at the right point, the blows are also not believable. But of course, she does. She’s a pro. When we try it the other way around, it is somehow not so effective - my acting skills are, unsurprisingly, not quite up to her standard.

I tell Rob that it is like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. When you’re trying to remember the physical moves - where your hand should be; if you need to do the knap - it is easy to forget you’re also meant to be acting.

When I try to focus on the acting, I forget important details like how far my fist is actually meant to be away from Yasmeen’s shoulder and accidentally make contact. Luckily, I’m pretty weak and pathetic, so no damage is done.

We move through a series of other moves, punches, kicks and ear grabs, before coming to my favourite, an uppercut.

For this one, I have my back to the audience, standing in front of Yasmeen. She holds her right hand out at hip height, palm facing up in front of her, something the audience cannot see.

Jane Bradley learns stage fighting techniques at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. | Jane Bradley

My hand in a fist, I rotate my arm, swinging a punch at arm’s length in front of Yasmeen’s body. I open my palm to slap hers in an upward-moving high five - before closing my fist again for the flourishing finish. On camera, it looks like I have socked her one perfectly in the jaw. I’m proud.

After a couple of hours, Rob and Yasmeen quickly choreograph a fight scene, which incorporates five techniques we have worked on.

I start by pushing Yasmeen on both shoulders, then she grabs my wrists and spins me around, before I slap her, then swing a punch at the other side of her head. We finish by her trying to push my head down before I escape and end the whole thing with my favourite move, the uppercut to the chin.

We practice it about a thousand times, until we are both beaten. Rob says that when he is teaching a six-hour workshop, his smartwatch tells him he has burned 4,600 calories.

“And I’m not working as hard as the students,” he points out. Yasmeen, whose first rodeo it is not, has brought chocolate biscuits to keep our strength up.

“One more?” Rob begs, as Yasmeen and I try to catch our breath. We reluctantly agree, scoffing a final biscuit.

The last take sees Yasmeen beaten, on the ground, while I stand victorious.

I feel like a gladiator.

Budding stage fighters can book their places on the four-day workshop, The Claymore, here.

Anyone in Scotland looking to take part can apply for the Agnes Allan, James McAvoy and Drama Scholarships for financial support. Current students at other performing arts institutions are also entitled to an additional discount.