Saturday, March 29, 2008

Mudthaw

What a great fun day. I went....what? Eight rounds. It was essentially quarter finals. I'm pretty sure there were eight left, certainly no more than ten. They ran it as a regular single tree double elimination, with no losers list, like they do on the west coast. At this point I'm happy with either method. They managed to have a fairly clean end to the list. The round after I got knocked out there were five people each with a loss. Instead of doing what they'd do in the west, have a bye that round and then a bye next round, meaning there would be a bye into finals, they drew lots to have two of the fighters fight, so there would be four people. It ended up with Kelson, Gabriel, Kendrick, and Grifith. Grifith beat Gabriel and Kendrick beat Kelson, then Grifith beat Kendrick 2/0 in the finals.

I had a fun day. I was on the edge the whole time. Most of the fights I won I almost lost, and both fo the fights I lost I almost won. I lost to Gabriel and Master Wulfbrand, and I beat Master Torvald and Sir Douglas, along with Barak, Heinrich Brauer, Reinmar from Bloodguard, and Master Julein, who was having a very good day. I started out trying to get my head together. I hadn't fought with a bunny round since Crown. I'd been using the centergrip round all winter, and it was seductive. I was getting pretty good with it, but I wanted to get back to my classic bunny round style, and I was worried I'd choke with no practice with it. But I was pretty sound.
Only one thing bothered me: my last fight with Wulfbrand I am not sure my head was in the right place. I was fighting hard and fast and having fun. But I was kind of thinking too much. I was going through different techniques, blows, combinations, etc., and then he got me. I may have been thinking too much, or I may have just been throwing out everything I had because he is so FAST. I dont' know. It was sure fun.

My last four wins I won with a thrust: three of them with hook/thrusts--Douglas I beat with an outside thrust. Barak I killed with a slot body as he took my leg. Torvald took my leg and then I killed him with a deep wrap.

It was a really good tourney all around.

1 comment:

Tim Mayer said...

Congratulations on going eight rounds. I only made it five, which is what I did last year. I'd hoped we were going to dance there for a moment, but I hadn't heard right when the martial called the names. Just as well, I had a good, final third win (in a row).
I'd really like to hear some day how the "bunny" round got it's name.