In recent years, stage combat has been a part of our training in BA Acting at The University of Wales Trinity Saint David. However, during our second year, the opportunity to train in stage combat was revoked on account of the faculty deciding to give the opportunity to the students in the year below us. They did this with the promise that we would get training during our third year. But now that we have entered our third year, stage combat training for our year group has been cancelled because of a lack of budget.

The entire year group are understandably both disappointed and angry about this cut as we are all aware of just how necessary this training is if we are to apply for jobs in the acting industry. Drama.co.uk explains that "Anyone deciding to embark on a career in the performing arts, especially in today's multi-platform media must have as many different skills as is possible. It is one of the things that will increase ones chances of employment and not only that, having combat skills opens up a whole range of work opportunities".

This is an element of training that is not only necessary to our training, but it has also been promised to us on multiple occasions. We are the only year group that will graduate without stage combat training unless something is done about it.

We as a year group hope to raise awareness and would like the department to find the funding to return this vital element of our training to us.

If this ends up not being a possibility, our year group plans to host a number of fundraisers to pay for the training ourselves.