WORKOUTS
Again, it’s been light. I’ve only logged four workouts since
Nutley last week: a four mile hike, a very intense weight workout (I did my
off-season arm and shoulder workout, just for fun), and yoga and pushups on
Tuesday. Not a lot—way behind what I wanted to be doing.
REHAB
My shoulder injury seems to have subsided. I am still doing
stretches for it but I haven’t picked up the Indian clubs all week. However, my
back is bothering me still. Yoga helps.
TECHNIQUE
Again, I was concentrating on the A-Frame defense and
building an offense out of that.
FIGHTING
Like I said, I learned a lot last night. I fought Vasili,
Kelson, Ansel, Douglas, and Jan Janovich.
One of the things I learned was against Kelson: I am letting
my focus wander when I start to think “what next.” They take arms at Nutley.
They’re happy to do it. Kelson had hit my arm at some point two weeks ago when
we fought. I had corrected for that, and was fighting with my elbow in, but
after a few exchanges (all of which he won), I was trying to come up with
another attack. (waiting him out had already failed). While I was thinking
about it, according to him, I squared up a bit and my elbow floated out, so he
popped it. That was my mind wandering off my defense. He also said that I was able to totally cut
him off, which is a good thing. It mostly came from me not wanting to back out
as much. He closed hard and I stood my ground. He says that I cocked my shield
up it blinded him and stopped him cold. He said it was a bunny round technique
that he hadn’t expected with the heater.
I learned a couple of things against Douglas. The first is
that I need to thro more off-side body shots at him. I might have thrown one. I
also learned that the A-Frame, for me at least, is useless against Florentine
fighters. He destroyed my right arm and hip. I already knew that he would no
longer fall for that blow where I throw an out of range wrap at his left hand
sword and then thrust. He’s wise to that trick. But I also learned that he doe
not like a low-line attack. I did something I’ve never done against him and
rarely do against Florentine fighters: I dropped into a low-line thrusting
ward, essentially the plow with the left-foot forward. He backed right out and
refused to come in. I backed him up. He would not close. It threw him off
completely. This bears a lot of though.
It was, however, against Jan that I learned the most
important lesson. He had my leg once early on, then I changed what I was doing. I was reminded that he hunts arms when people thrust at him. But the biggie was stance: I’ve had a “boxer” stance for awhile, but only as a set up to one blow, an
onside head/onside leg combo from a sword foot forward boxer stance/a-frame.
Learned it from Beckenham long time ago. Kelson said at one point that his
stance was essentially a boxer stance. This is the way the Atlantians use the
A-Frame. I decided to give that a try. When we try something new we basically
look at what someone else is doing, copy that, and then change it to fit
ourselves. I had mostly copied Kelson’s A-frame (not Stephan’s). It’s a very
relaxed, erect stance with the shield and sword presented forward, close together
and a little bit away from the body. Against Jan I pulled it back in again and,
basically, took a true boxer’s stance—fists held close at face level, weight
slightly forward, head down. Jan said it cut off his leg blow naturally. By
pulling in my shield a bit I was able to open my view up and I found, instead
of looking at Jan’s shoulders or his hips I was now focusing directly on his
baskethilt. We fought several more passes like this, a couple of which I won.
It improved my offense by about 30% and my defense for about 5%. Good find. My
best fight of the night was my last one with Jan. I went back to a high closed
form and this time it was working. I was blocking everything he was throwing at
me. After a few minutes it got very fun—very intense. I had him backing up. My
defense was tight. I had a lot of offense. I just pursued him doggedly around the floor,
cutting it of when he tried to circle me. Our exchanges were hard and fast and
all over the place. Eventually we took each others legs then I took his hip. We
fought like that for a long time. He couldn’t move, so I slid a bit right and
hooked his shield, and threw a wrap that killed him. I was the hardest fought bout
of the night.
It is 23 days until crown. I don’t know when my next time in
armor will be, because I will probably take next week off. My back needs more
healing, I think.
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