Thursday, March 5, 2009

round cut or pear shaped

Last night was Nutley! The stars aligned. Ron called and said he was going and wanted me to show up. James called and said he was going and wanted to give me a ride. We called Oscad (since he had my armor at the warehouse) and he said he's go too. Great trip!

Ok, a bit Keystone Cops. James has a GPS and he still made four wrong turns (by my count), and took us in circles around the entrances to the Lincoln tunnel before we finally go out of New York. It took us more than an hour to do so. The Hudson River is so in the way most of the time. The East River too.

But we got there. I had brought Timur's center grip round with me, since I haven't amde my kite yet. I warmed up with Oscad, then I fought Ron (the main reason I was there) then I fought Bill, who was right handed last night, and then Stephan. After that Ron suggested I use his heater, and I fought Heinrich, the big Landsknecht (is his name Larry?) and Max.

They were all great fights. Ron wanted me to work on deceptive sword work, of which he is a master. I had been trying to be more and more basic in my fights, and I wasn't using the thrusting tip at all much last night.

My fights that stand out were the ones against Stephan and Max. Usually I almost kill Stephan once in a night. Last night I almost killed him twice. In one I threw a snap at his head and his shield was a little slow getting up, but I was at extreme range and just hit him ont eh bottom of the face grill, not very hard and pretty low. In the second one I got him out of position after he threw a leg shot and I moved to my right. I thre a high wrap as he threw his shield up and he barely caught it. That was actually the better of the two moments.

Predictably, when I went from the center grip to the heater my offense suffered but I became really hard to kill. Ron's heater is strapped nicely (better than mine was, I like the angle his hangs at). I had a great defense when using it, and when I locked down and just defended even Max couldn't hit me. But my visibility was down, I wasn't moving as well or as quickly, and I was much more limited in my shot selection, both because I had a different shield in my way and because I wasn't thinking about the same shots. Maybe I wasn't seeing the same openings. My fights with Heinrich and Max were great. I killed max a couple of times, he did the same for me, but he is about twice as fast as I am with really great form, and I was really happy just to get him when I did. Heinrich, because he fights Kelson's style with his sword low guarding his left side, presents some interesting problems but I did ok against him. I think he's the only person I really did a lot of thrusting on.

My wind was great. I've been in the gym two or three times most weeks, and my weight is pretty good (I've gained a few pounds since Lent started). But I found that against the sword and dagger guy my wind went completely away. I am not sure what it is. I didn't feel like I was expending more energy, but all of a sudden I couldn't breath. Then when I went out against Max I eventually got winded but it was nowhere near the same. (I left off fighting Max after he hit me in the body and knocked the wind out of me).

Ron has mostly three shots, a hammer snap, a leg shot, and an off side leg/body depending on how he turns his hand when he throws it. That's all he was using last night, with a few stutters and fakes thrown in. He mostly wins on timing and deception. He has an offside that starts out like a snap and then turns into an offside leg that is really hard for me to pick up. He is wanting me to concentrate on that. This is interesting, because one of the things I did to get better and start winning more fights was to stop relying on fakes and molinees so much. Now I guess I'm going to have to selectively start bring some back in.

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