I always try to show up to a rehearsal when I know Bob Macdougall is going to teach stage combat. The process of fight choreography is fascinating to watch. While making sure all actors are safe, he manages to make the fight sequences believable. Any time you see physical violence on stage, keep this in mind: the moves have been broken down into tiny parts and practiced over and over as if they were dance steps. Actors start by going over the moves slowly, learning how to stay loose, how to appear to grab or hit, how to know where they and their fellow actors are going to be, how to stay safe. They rehearse. They rehearse more. They pick up the pace, and they rehearse some more. When they think they could do it in their sleep, they rehearse some more. By the time the audience sees it, it has become one fluid movement.