This summer was a bust

 Boy, has it really been since June that I’ve written in this blog?  I’ve gotten even worse at  it. 

 A good practice tonight. I fought Beatrix,  Jan, Arne,  Gawaine,  and a newer left-handed fighter who told me his name, but it completely escaped me.   This guy, by the way, had an incredible kit. 14th century helm with a giant nasal and aventail, great coat of plates, but the best thing of all was that he had Kydex plastic arms that you could not tell where Kydex plastic arms, because he had built them on a freaking last!  They had a  Great coke bottle shaped to them, and he had riveted them so it looks like they had splints. 

 Nothing really special to say about my fighting tonight. I avoided the thrust most of the night and worked on the edge. I only managed to kill Arne once, but he told me afterwards that he did not like what I was doing. I had him back on his heels the whole time, which was the idea. I try to fight Arne by channeling Joe Frazier.  Beatrix I did really well against, and I think Jan beat me three out of five.   Not too bad. 

 I had a very decent day at Ducal Challenge couple weeks ago.   Well, I kind of decent day. I barely made it out of my pool.  I was in the pool of death, which also had brick jams, Ionis, Hassan, and Arne.  I ended up in a three-way tie for fourth place, the last slot to advance, with Hassan and Brick, but I killed both of them.  Then I went to quarterfinals and got knocked out by Cullen, who eventually won. So that wasn’t bad. 

 I didn’t  report on Pennsic.  Here is my report: every days fighting was more fun than the day before.  I pulled a calf muscle, twisted my knee, and probably got a small blood clot in my calf, my doctor freaked out a bit, but the ultrasound showed nothing so I was cleared to fight again.  If I did get a blood clot, I’m pretty sure it came from  wrapping my knee too tightly on Friday. I could not fight for a month as a result. So Pennsic wrecked me. 

It’s 52 days until Crown Tourney. My next time in armor will be Tuesday at McCareen Park. 

Mudthaw is coming up

 Sometimes you need to train, and sometimes you just need to fight. 

 I have been training, but not truly fighting. I’ve been doing my daily pell work, Push-ups, squats, lots of walking, occasional running, and tackling that hill, though nowhere near as much as I need to or would like.  I have not been in armor very much at all. In large part, this has to do with logistics that I need to overcome. Translation,  it is no longer as feasible as it once was, or frankly as simple, for me to haul my armor to work with me and then go to practice in New Jersey, and quite frankly, after 25 years, I’m just tired of hauling my arm on the subway. So I’m taking cabs or Zipcars,  and due to the expense I don’t do that very often. 

 I have made it to Nutley, and the Hawthorne, and to the local Brooklyn practice.  Today was the first day at Brooklyn there was someone besides me in armor. But spring has sprung it, and practice is picking up. 

 At Nutley, and Hawthorne, all I want to do is fight. Last time I was at Nutley it was a fairly late night, but I got to fight four knights and an otc,  and it was a great workout. 

 Tonight, was in someway is much better. There was only me and Travis in armor.  He had already been doing some work by the time I got there an armored up, so he was not interested in slow work or warm-up drills.  We did some free sparring for a while. Then we did situational drills. We did duke Paul’s offense/defense drill.   Then we both did some work fighting from our knees. Then more free sparring.  He is super fast and has a pretty tight defense, and he nailed me with an excellent body shot in our first fight, in which we double killed.  In our last sparring session, I did a couple of things that I really enjoyed. And one of our fights, are used to technique that I’m playing with but had not done a lot of recently, essentially Duke Lucan’s  footwork, but with the heater shield. The way I use it I fight in an A-frame and clock my shield over to guard my leading, stored side, foot. It worked perfectly as I passed to my left and hit him in his offside body. 

This is the kind of work that everybody should do more often. You can improve your fighting more efficiently by drilling with one good fighter on a regular basis, then you can just by doing a bashing practice with five good fighters.  This is the kind of work that everybody should do more often. You can improve your fighting more efficiently by drilling with one good fighter on a regular basis, then you can just by doing a bashing practice with five good fighters.  But you definitely need both, and the bashing practice is a lot more fun! 

 My next time in armor will be Saturday at Mudthaw 

Nutley and Iron Bog, with Video!

Fight practice is a commitment, and training for Crown more so. For instance, the good practices around here are in Jersey. Being one of those New Yorkers who don't own a car, getting to practice is a real hassle. (when I first moved here, and for several years, there was an excellent practice in Union Square, but the City closed us down by renovating the park, turning where we fought and parked into an event space/market, and now the only good practices are on the other side of the Hudson).  For instance: to get to Iron Bog practice yesterday, I left the apartment at 9:00 AM. After a set back (I got to the subway and realized I'd left my wallet at home) I had to take a cab from Brooklyn to Penn Station ($40) in order to catch my train. There being no traffic on Sunday Morning, I got there with enough time to grab coffee and breakfast at Pret a Mangier. Catching the 10:07 to Rahway ($10) I started to Jersey. However, there was both a busted switch and some single-tracking due to maintenance between Secaucus and Newark, so we were 45 minutes late. Practice? Great! Dinner with my camp-mates afterword? Fun (and $22)! I caught the 8:42 back to Penn Station ($10) and made it home at 10:30 PM. So (and this was counting dinner) practice yesterday cost me 13.5 hours of my time and (counting dinner) and $82 (counting dinner). While I was there I picked up a set of Cet's leg splints, but that's $80 I was going to spend at some point anyway. Take out the dinner (yes, I would have eaten anyway, but I would have cooked for myself), and it's only $60. So, it's a commitment.

Oh: I had a great time, and a great practice.

WORKOUTS
I finished the century drill on the last day of Spring Break. I've kept up the same workout, save that on Thursday I did not run. But I *did* run after I got him from Nutley on Wednesday night, of which I'm kind of proud. Just now, I went down to the gym at school, did my workout, with 20 minutes of yoga, then ran (in my 5 fingers) a mile and a half.

TECHNIQUE
I have transitioned now into a modified A Frame/High Guard like Gregor uses. I can take that into a standard high-guard if need be (like against Arne, because it defends my off-side better). I have mostly but not completely abandoned the Bellatrix High-open form that I'm most comfortable with. I am using Gemeni's technique of being in high open form when I'm out of range or right at the edge of it, and closing up when I move into range.

FIGHTING

NUTLEY

At Nutley on Wednesday I could not get in enough fighting. It was a great practice once again, with about 20 people in armor. I only fought five people, and only three of those were with sword and shield.

For the most part, I stank.

I started out fighting Jan Janovich. My first fight against him was great. I worked him till I took his leg, then killed him. Then we more or less traded fights till he nailed me in the cup. And not one of those annoying little tip shots either. This was a full on cleave you in two shot. Thankfully, the cup worked.

Next I fought an unbelted fighter from ICOD named Michael. He nailed me. Then he nailed me again. I killed him three times, all with a hook/thrust. I was bad!

Then I fought Gregor. He said my defense was really good. Ha! I got him once with a hook thrust.

Wanting to get some training for Crown I fought Eric Hundeman with his preferred style, sword and "broken lance" with a thrusting tip on one end. Here's the thing. If I fight it like I'm fighting sword and short sword, or case, like my usual two weapon gig, I do well. If I fight it like he and Radnor do I'm doomed.

Then I fought James, a Tribal fighter from the West. We fought Sword and Buckler. That was fun.


IRON BOG
I fought Sir Harold. Sir Mord, Sir William, Arne, and a polearm fight with Dan. However, before getting into armor, I did my whole workout-- pushups, squats, yoga, and a run around that big fighting field (I did my pell work at home). I was beat! I wanted to be tired out. It worked. My targeting was awful! My power was weak!

Harold was SUPER Tough yesterday (he was knocking Arne around). We only made it through two fights, and we split them. He was bringing a lot of heat and I couldn't get near to hitting him.

Mord killed me once. I killed him more than once. My targetting sucked and it felt my blows were really slow.

Against Bill I had a great set of fights, but that light sword was starting to broom, so a couple of times my technique worked to get an opening but didn't kill him.

Against Arne I fought really really well.

I went against Dan with the pole arm because big choppy things is one of the forms for finals. I fought it like Diablu, with downward chops from a vertical guard and did ok. Then I fought my normal pole style and did much better.

So check it out, Video!

Here's me and Gregor. Note how the "tight defense" he mentioned. Especialy at about 1:12. It reminds me of the great Michael Pope's comment about my fight with Michael San in the Cynaguan Novice Tourney, AS 13 (the coronet where it snowed--you know....). "So Valgard here says to Michael San "here Mike! Use my shield as a coffee table?" Michael said "Thank you very much sucker, eat flaming rattan death!"



More of me and Gregor:




So here's me and Bill at Iron Bog. Check out how terrible my targetting is. I'm way way off! Note how I gracefully slip and nearly faceplant right in front of him!




And finally my first fight with Arne. This was a good one, but not my best fight of the day.



It's 12 days until Crown. My next time in armor will be Wednesday at Nutley.

Western Twelfth Night

Yes, Twelfth Night. I did not fight (though there is often night fighting at Western 12th Night), but I did get to hang around talking about fighting with lots of my favorite dukes, including Hauoc Bender, Thorfin the Cruel, and Alaric Von Drachenklaue. This is actually part one of a two part post. I'm writing it because, as he dropped me off at the train the next morning, I said to Alfred "read your Silver." 

Let me elaborate. Alfred if Carlysle is one of the best two-sword fighters I've ever seen. He is getting back into fighting after a very long hiatus. That's not as big a deal as you'd think, since so much of his game is mental. It's a very tactical fight with him, and a bit zen. Alfred has not fought much since the adoption of low profile thrusting tips. My full statement to him was "watch out for those low-profile thrusting tips, they will blow you up.... Read you Silver. Silver will teach you everything you need to know about low-profile thrusting tips." And he will. 

George Silver in his two books "Paradoxes of Defense"  (http://www.umass.edu/renaissance/lord/pdfs/Silver_1599.pdf) 

and "Brief Instructions On My Paradoxes of Defense," (http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/brief.html) 

was famously antagonistic toward the thrust. He did not eschew it himself, he used it a lot: rather, he objected to rapier fighting, which relies upon the thrust almost exclusively. He favored the edge because, as he put it, it takes a strong arm to ward a cut but the strength of a baby can ward a thrust. One of the big paradoxes of the SCA is, the way we determine victory, the unarmored combat manuals--Silver's most particularly, are the most useful for what we do. I should have referred Alfred to Fiore di Liberi's techniques for the sword in one hand as well, as it uses many of the same principles. 

In simplest terms, the way to avoid a thrust is to step off line, so that the thrust passes you by. Yes, you can parry it with either your blade or your hand, and you should, but this is your backup defense. Your primary defense is to step off line. Fiore has a technique for the sword in one hand wherein your ward (he only uses one ward for one handed sword) is with your feet in line, as in a modern fencing stance, your weight primarily on your back foot, and standing on the balls of both feet, with the sword held at the left hip, pointing backward, and your left hand on your right hip. In this way, the sword is more or less in the position it is normally in when in the scabbard (you can use this technique on the draw). Talhoffer uses this same guard, and it's similar to the first guard in I:33, but with your weight more to the back and without the buckler. The point is that you are keeping your arms and hands as far away from your opponent and as close to your body as possible. Should your opponent thrust at you, your parry is to flick your sword out. Flick is the best description--it's not a big, sweeping cut, but just a flick, deflecting his thrust and brining your sword on line, pointing at his breast. However, as you do this, and this is your main defense, you step off line with your right foot slightly to the left, taking your body out of the path of the trust. Either one is a good defense, but you use both to be careful. You could, at this point, incressare and thrust. I've used this technique in rapier fighting with good success. However, Fiore has you pass forward on the left, gaining the place, and cutting off your opponent's extended hand with a short chop.  (This is the way bob Charon teaches this technique). 

Silver's variation is that, since he uses a basket hilt (impregnable hands) he holds his sword in front in a hanging guard, and his left hand folded against his chest, instead of on his left hip. According to Stephen Hand, Sliver will do something similar, stepping off line, deflecting the sword, and passing on the left, but he is more likely to employ the elbow push, turning his opponent away, then thrusting home.  When I fight two weapon, as I noted a few posts ago (BBQ), I nearly always use arming sword and short sword, and employ a not very accurate style based on Silver's sword and dagger technique. In this, the dagger is used almost exclusively for defense. I present the dagger forward, hold the sword back, both tips more or less even with one another. I tie up their swords with my dagger and either cut or thrust with my sword. It works surprisingly well, even against dukes. I wouldn't want to try it against bellatrix, however. 

Alfred uses a high/low technique, in which he holds his right hand on his shoulder, as in a classic bellatrix sword and shield stance, and his left hand sword low near his right hip, with his feet in a normal sca fighting stance, left foot forward and right hip cocked. He should be able to use variations of the silver and Fiore techniques against thrusts. Against sword and shield fighters, stand so that, if the opponent is using a thrusting tip, you use an opposite stance (Right foot forward against right handed fighters). Your forward arm should hold your sword near the opposit hip, and the other sword should be cocked on your shoulder. No matter what they do, bring the low sword up in defense. If they thrust, step off line, parry as in Fiore, then attack with the other sword while passing forward. If they cut, do more or less the same, block with the forward sword, attack with the second sword while passing forward (at sometimes you may want to incressare, as in Fiore, or use a grapevine step, as in Silver: but the idea is always the same: the key is to get past and outside your opponent's weapon, passing forward so that you gain the place--close and square to their hip/shoulder (FIroe says you should be able to piss down their leg). Then their ribs and the back of their head are totally open to you. 

I probably didn't explain myself. Anyway: everybody should read their Silver. 

It is three days until Birka. I was just cleared for fighting by my surgeon about an hour ago, and I'm not sure I want my first time in armor after recovering from surgery to be the toughest, most grueling tournament in the Knowne World, so I am not sure at this moment when my next time in armor will be. I start training again on Monway (this is the start of my semester, so it makes it easy, as I've got a good gym available at CCNY).  

Iron Bog 11/14/15

Ok: so I'm actually writing this post before starting my post on last week's Crown Tourney. I was pretty busy last week and there was a lot to write about. But I'm going to write this first because it's fresh in my mind. And it was a good practice. I'll publish it second.

WORKOUTS

I'm only getting to the gym once a week now. They've cancelled classes at my neighborhood gym and, after seventeen years and three locations, I'm thinking of dropping my membership. Have not missed a day of push-ups (50), and still getting 10,000 steps most days. 

TECHNIQUE

I ended up working a couple of things: controlling range, especially in the A Frame, and trying to develop my trigger fighting better. I used a variety of shots and defenses, but I think I only threw one thrust and that did not land. It is all about edge work right now. 

FIGHTS

It was Southern Region Sunday, so while it was a big practice most people were out there working on melee fighting. I was interested in training for singles. Ron had wanted to just do some singles training off to the side so I hung out there. We worked with a new trainee of Bill's and a few unbelteds. I fought one set each with Sir Mord, Jonathan, and .... (I'm not sure--I think there was another set...), two sets with Ron and three sets with Critter. I used three--actually four--different defenses: an A frame, a high open Western guard, a high closed guard (looking over the top of my shield), and a sword foot forward guard. I was flowing between them easily. 

Critiques: when in the high closed guard I am still vulnerable to a slot shot. Ron noted that my lateral movement is too broad and is opening me up too much, especially to off side leg shots. I pulled a couple of off side hip shots, a common problem for me. I thought I was getting tunnel vision, especially against Mord. 

Positive take  aways: Ron said I'm fighting as well as he's seen me fight in the past few years. I killed him a couple of times. The best one was when I took his leg with a dropping leg wrap, a la Collin de Bray, and then killed him with a top edge hook. 

Against Critter my counters were working. I found a great one that worked every time I threw it (he was using a center grip kite, which helped). I used to employ a small shield technique from Hauoc. Fighting in a weak (sword foot forward) high closed form, leaving the on-side leg open, when the leg is attacked, defend the leg with a rotation block while defending the arm, shoulder, and head with a hanging sword guard. On contact, you throw a shot straight down at the shoulder. Sometimes you will hit the head. I've killed dukes with big kite shields while I was using sword and buckler with this technique. I've used it with a bunny round and with a center grip kite, but it's never worked with heater shield. I hit Critter with it five times by starting in a standard strong (shield side foot forward) high guard and, as he threw at the leg, passing back on the left and doing the block/counter as above. 

I found, no surprise, that my defense was best in the A frame, but Ron had little trouble taking it apart. I won most of my fights but was indecisive. 

On the whole I felt slow. 

There are 70 days until Birka. I don't know when my next time in armor will be (I will be missing 100 minutes this weekend for opening day of deer season). 

How to run a practice. Or two.

I've been to a couple of practices recently that I haven't written about. Frankly, I didn't do much at either one of them. Still nursing my wrist injury, And fighting only with my short pole arm, I didn't want to push anything too far.

I have harped on this before, but I'm going to ask the question again: what's the best way to run a practice? Our natural inclination is to get out there and fight. That's what we do. It's what we love. We love the adrenaline, we love the competition, we love the contact. Real hard-core fighters; they love hitting and they love being hit. So the tendency is just to pair up with people go out and fight between three and eight fights. That's how we practice. It's been that way forever. It was that way for me 35 years ago, and it's that way for me most of the time now. 

But I trained quite a bit with the Duke Paul. If you read his article in the known world handbook, you know that he advocates training based on that you will find in martial arts schools. He used to advocate a year of unarmored training for new fighters, working just on form and movement for that year before ever putting on armor. Nobody wants to do that, but the guys who actually worked with Paul and trained for a long time without strapping up were hell on wheels the first time they put armor on. 

Every time I have tried to run a series of unarmored classes, I've been met with great enthusiasm on the first night followed by a steep drop off on the second night. Most people want to just go out and fight. 

Paul also has some ideas on how to run an armored practice, and I try to use these as much as I can when I'm dealing with less experienced fighters. In the past two weeks I've had the opportunity to run or participate in practices that were geared more towards training then fighting. Both worked well. 

MCCAREN PARK

our first McCarren Park practice in a long time was quite a success. There were four unbolted fighters plus myself in armor. Ervsld was there wearing some of his armor to do polearm drills, and Sir Gui was there to help train.

While people got an armor, slowly, I spent time training a new person who wanted to learn about fighting. We worked on stance and blow delivery for about 20 minutes. Hardly enough time, but I had a lot of things to do.

Because we had two right-handed fighters and two left-handed fighters, I worked with the right-handers and Gui worked with the left-handers. While Gui discussed numerous blow combinations with his pair, I did situational work with the two fighters I was training, using some of Paul's training techniques. 

We started out just doing blow drills in armor. You block with the sword, throw the same blow as your opponent blocks, repeat. The blow from the standard hanging guard, saber parry number five, and the reverse hanging guard, saber parry number six. Then we took a break.

During this break, I thought a few fights with Samale using my pole arm against his sword and shield. I discovered that I still cannot use the thumb supposed grip.   Fights were fun. 

We used Paul's offense/defense drill, where in one fighter gets to attack nonstop while the other fighter has only three blows, and the fight ends with that third blow his thrown. We did this standing a few times, then with each defending fighter kneeling. Then we took another break.

During this break I worked with Ervald on Palarm drills. I have about five or six Palarm techniques that I use I showed them each one and how to drill with it on the pell. 

Next we ran a simple bear pit. Each of the fighters had to fight it to the others once. Then we took another break. 

Last, to finish up, we did melees, because that's a great way for people to get in a lot of fighting with slightly less risk of injury. Since there were four fighters we ran multiple melees where in each person teamed with each other person at least once.

I ended the night doing some Fiore-based long sword technique with Ervsld. 

I maintain that in this type of practice fighters learn much more than they would in the standard bashing. The trouble is, bashing is so much fun!

SOUTHERN ARMY SUNDAY

this past weekend's southern army Sunday was a pretty good practice as well. There weren't that many fighters in armor, perhaps 12 or 13, but we did a lot of good work.

The only single combat I did was when I warmed up with my pole arm against sir Mord fighting sword and shield. I won all three of our fights, and felt pretty good about what I was doing. But my wrist was already bothering me. The rest of the day I stepped in and out of the melees with either polearm or spear. Spear didn't bother my wrist at all. 

We started out with a shield wall drill. This drill is kind of not fair to the shields, and it bothers me. We worked out a way to make it more fair and I think it works better. We put all the shields on one side, and rotated the Spears in two at a time on the other side. In the first part of the drill the shield are just supposed to stay alive as long as they can. If they are killed they step out and then step back in as the resurrected. This cannot go on too long, because it's sort of the fish in the barrel thing. That's the part that's really unfair to the shields. We solve this problem by giving the marshals the ability to call a charge at any time. When the Spears we're getting cocky or lazy, or it had just gone on for a little while too long, the marshals with yell charge, and the shields would charge forward and cream us. The second form of this drill that we did was an advancing drill. We set up a line and the shields had to advance across it against two or three spears at a slow steady walk. By the time we were done with these two drills, the shields were almost impossible to kill with just two or three Spearman alone. They were working together very well overlapping their shields and staying alive.

Next we did some situational work. We started out just using triads, with a random teams of three. Then we mixed it up a bit by doing uneven sides. We would add a fourth and the fifth fighter to the first triad, and have three on four, then three on five, then four on five etc. A couple of times we would stop for instruction about the best way to attack a superior force. (The answer is to attack a flank say that you can stack them up, crossing their T like Nelson at Trafalgar). 

After that we ran a set of several resurrection bridge fights. This is another way to get a lot of combat in, so people really enjoy themselves, and works very well at the end of the day. 

The point of neither of these practices was to fight. The point of both of these practices was to train. We interspersed situational drills with instruction, and in both cases there was a marked improvement just over the course of the day among the unbolted fighters.

I received a clean bill of health from my doctor and permission to resume normal activities with my wrist. Just in time. It is seven days until crown tournament, and my next time in armor will be a crown.

Cloisters

What do you do when you're injured? Do you quit fighting, do you work on parts of the body that are not injured, or do you find a way to keep fighting anyway? Mostly I have been nursing my injury by not fighting, but that doesn't always work. I have been so depressed not being able to put on armor for most of the summer.

Sometimes, all you want to do is put on armor and hit people. I have been in armor exactly 6 times since the last crown tournament and that includes the three days that I was at Pennsic. Last week I finally got in to see my orthopedist, who put a brace on my wrist and said wear it every day all day long for three weeks. It makes swinging a broadsword absolutely impossible, but I wasn't fighting anyway. I've been through this before: I broke the same wrist several years ago. More on that below.

WORKOUTS

I have gotten into the gym a couple of times recent, including once this week for a very good leg workout: leg presses, calf raises, leg extensions, leg curls, five sets of 10 reps on each exercise, building to max weight. Also did some yoga that day. Unfortunately, my gym has canceled yoga classes due to a mold outbreak in the classroom, with no clue as to when it will be eradicated. Classes at school conflict with my teaching schedule this semester. So mostly it's been 50 push-ups every single day, and 10,000 steps most days. The doctor said no more PT, so the Indian clubs have been set aside.

TECHNIQUE

With my wrist in a brace I was fighting left handed and with a pole arm. That's about as deep as my technique got. 

FIGHTING

I put armor on and fight. It's what I do. It's what I love. OK, it's not the only thing I love: I love acting, and singing, and teaching, and cuddling with my girlfriend. But mostly I love to fight. I also enjoy the cloisters them a lot. 40,000 people show up to the medieval fair and most of them walked past our field even if they don't stop. We always get a great crowd!

In other words, getting out and fighting made me feel about as happy as I've been recently.

My right wrist is currently in a brace, and I cannot break it over which means fighting with a broadsword in my right hand is extremely difficult. But I am from the West, and I have a certain history. One of my mentors was Sir William the Lucky, and he instilled in me the ancient western value that you always fighting crown. Only Dukes get a pass on that. Fighting in crown is what we are here for, and everything else is kind of a sideshow. It's prepping for fighting in ground, or it's what we do to perform as or for the king. Crown is how this game started, and crown is really what it's all about. So you fight in crown. When William didn't particularly want to win crown, and he won three even though he only uses the title count, he would fight left-handed. When I broke my wrist years years ago, I fought in both Cynagua coronet and the subsequent crown tourney with my wrist in either a plaster cast or brace and fought left-handed. When I broke my leg in the champions battle a few years ago, I fought in both the following Western and Eastern crowns in an air boot (they were both that October--I did pretty well too). 

I don't think I had fought left-handed more than once or twice in the last 25 years. And probably no more than 20 times my entire career. However, if there is one thing I can do left-handed it's throw a really good Bellatrix snap. I pulled my center grip Viking shield out of storage and went to it. My fights were all classic Bellatrix, only once did I bring my sword forward into a high closed form guard. I probably fought more fights with pole arm that I fought with sword and shield however. With pole arm I csn fight right or left-handed and do so with pretty much all of my normal technique. One thing I did discover was that the thumbs opposed to grip, (like the common, erroneous idea of quarterstaff), which is used by Duke Vissivald, and is what I like to use again sword and shield fighters didn't work very well -- or rather it was very painful. It involves a short very hard punch to the head, and that put a lot of shock on why sore wrist. But I still won two fights that way. 

I'm currently the rapier champion of Oatgardr, so I fought that as well. We did three shows and I split my time between rapier and heavy in the first half-hour show, I fought only heavy in the second show, and only rapier in the third.

A couple of things stood out. There were three unbelted fighters there, Owain, Ansel, and Ronan. I killed each of them with both my weapons forms at various times. I had a couple of great fights against Ansel where in he was using great ax and I was using my short pole arm. Against Ronan I had a really good kill with my pole arm. My go to technique for pole vs sword and shield for years was a three phase fake. I would fake a  thrust to the head, do a circle disengage so it looks like I was going for the leg, and then come back up with the face thrust. I often use this with a two-handed sword as well. Ronan is left-handed, and I was fighting him with a left-handed lead grip on my pole. I have never thrown that shot left-handed, but it works really well. Later, in a sword and shield fight against him I threw and upsilon leg shot, then another, then faked it and turned it into a rising snap. Rule of three. Faked him out of his jock. Owain was using lots of different forms. I took sword and shield against his two sword and pole against his shield. All in all I died a lot but I won more. 

I was really happy how I fought over all. We ended both shows with a grand Mellee, and I won them both.

I will be fighting in crown. Maybe I'll be fighting left-handed, maybe I'll be fighting with pole arm, but I will be fighting in crown. It's what I do.

It's 32 days until crown tournament, and I don't know when my next time in armor will be.

MUDTHAW AND NUTLEY, March 2015

Ever since I moved to the east kingdom, I've had a big Achilles' heel. Well it existed before, but it wasn't as big an issue. I never dealt well with really big shields. Here, I have to deal with shields that cover people from the bottom of their nose to the middle of their shins sometimes. I've come up with two good things to against them, a high wrap and a hook trust: but those really only work well on fighters who are shorter than me or about my height. Here in the East kingdom I occasionally run into Giants using really long kite shields. At Mud Thaw I got four of them in a row. Guess what? I got my ass kicked.

WORKOUTS
My workouts are picked up. It feels really good. This week I have some very intensive yoga classes, some good gym workouts, plus fighting at Nutley. And of course 50 push-ups every day, and an average of about 10,000 steps.

TECHNIQUE
At Nutley, I was into using a very basic training technique. For my first two sets of fights, I limited myself to only one shot. This was to improve my recognition/reaction and my timing. I've never been a  trigger fighter, and I don't have Wulf Sagan or Fabian here to train me, so I decided to just go for this one thing and see how it went.

FIGHTS
My first set of fights was against Arn, he's a really good fighter, as I've mentioned in the past. We thought seven or eight bouts, and all I threw was a straight headshot. Sometimes it was off the shoulder, sometimes it was from a closed high guard, but all I was throwing was basically a simple snap. With this, I managed to kill him three or four times. The last time was great because it included a top edge hook, a classic Bellatrix move. The whole point of the exercise was to work on timing and taking advantage of openings created when he moved or threw a shot. It's a good training exercise.

Next I Fought Avran, who was using sword and shield right-handed. The first bout I only threw the leg shot, and then when I took his leg I threw the straight on-side headshot until I landed it. The rest of our bouts I only through the headshot. He killed me once. For the last fight I went back to the leg shot, and he killed me again.

Then I fought a set against Aquillla, a really tall guy with a heater. Everything was working well, and I even got him with both a hook thrust and a butterfly. (that's an off-side body shot that starts as a rising snap then changes direction, based on Radnor's axiom that the third fake or direction change usually fakes them out).

I tried to get in fights with Stefan, I tried to get in fights with Gregor, I tried to get fights with Jibril, but their dance cards were full. The night was actually very bad for me, and I knew it at the time, because it was really good for my ego. Not a good thing going into a big tournament on Saturday. I needed to get hit a bit.


MUDTHAW
I never wake up until I've been hit a couple of times. That's why I love the pool format. Mudthaw is a traditional double elim tourney, and that was bad for me. I didn't get any warm up at all. Because we took Ivan off to Vigil, I had just finished getting into armor when they were calling the pairings. I was the first fight on my field. I walked out against an older two-sword fighter named Aethelhawk or Aethelred (something) and he came on guard in a fairly wide, square stance. I took my sword to my hip and, at the lay on, I thrust into his neck. Game over. I was still not even awake yet.

My second fight I drew Touri, a tall, strong fighter from VDK with one of those long peaked Lucan style kites. I seem to fight him every Mudthaw. This time we exchanged a couple of blows, then I used almost the same blow I used in the first round, a thrust from my hip, but it came in an arc instead of a straight line. It is essentially the lazy "flaoting punch" shot that Jade uses, and which I've had success with against Brennan. That ended the fight. Again I hadn't broken a sweat.

If you've been following my blog lately, you will have noted that I've been falling back into what I like to describe as my style, the modified high open form that dominated the SCA before lighter swords with low-profile thrusting tips came along. I've been enjoying that fight, and I've won a few times with it. Nonetheless it's been taking me out of my A-Frame defense, which is what I'd been working on last year and which had given me some success. In my third fight I drew Dimitry from Serpentius. He is a huge fighter with a huge peaked kite and a super-long sword with a thrusting tip. I could feel in that fight that my mind was totally gone. I was indecisive. I was trying too hard to stay alive. I was lazy and he almost took my arm as a result.  I was mostly using the A-Frame, but I wasn't committed to it. In the A Fram I adopt a slight crouch, where as normally I stand up tall. I don't like crouching against a taller fighter because I'm giving up more height to him. He fights shield leg forward, like Lucan or Darius, so I tried a couple of times to get his leg (which had gotten me killed against Cullyn last Crown). I tried a stutter wrap, but it landed wrong. I was mostly just trying to stay alive. My indecisiveness may have cost me that bout. I think there were at least two times when I could have struck him, but I was too tentative. In the end he threw a truly beautiful shot--a high wavy fake with a nice deep on-side body wrap that hit me right on my kidney belt and I fell over. No loss to cry over, as he went very deep in the tournament and killed a couple more chiv. But I felt very frustrated.

Next I fought Bric James. He is another big fighter with a big VDK kite, but he's not quite as tall as the first two. In the video of this fight you can see that I am still indecisive. I threw a helicopter fake head shot that got into his face but without enough power. I tried it again, which is odd because that's two molinee shots in a row, which I have tried to move away from. The second time he was ready for it. Finally, I manged to kill him with a stutter wrap. That was a fight I felt in control of.



(for some reason, videos imbedded into my blog never frame properly, but if you click the link at the top of the fram it will take you to YouTube and you can get a much better view).

Then I fought a fighter named Wee Collin. You can imagine how he is built. It was more or less the same thing, except he was using a huge center-grip kite. In that bout, once again, I am clearly indecisive. I felt I was fighting better, controlling range and tempo, but I was wrong. As you can see in the video, I was not committing to a stance. In the video you can see that I go from the high guard to the a frame and back, but when I go back into the High I DON'T PUT MY SHIELD BACK INTO THE HIGH-GUARD POSITION. I didn't realize that till the third time I watched the video. I thought I'd thrown that last blow from the a-frame, but I didn't. My left side was fighting A Frame but my right side was in a high open form. When I threw that snap (a pretty weak one, actually) I also blocked for an anticipated snap from him, but Collin had a good counter to it--more or less the same one Cullyn used against me at Crown in Canada. Taking advantage of the fact that I set up with my shield covering the left side of my head, he brought his sword straight down the slot and nailed me. This was TERRIBLE technique on my part. If I'd thrown a flatter snap and stayed in the high guard he'd have no blow. I'f I'd thrown the shot from the A frame I'd have likely been covered with my basket hilt. AWFUL!! Go to tape:




My poor performance can be attributed to a lot of things--me still getting used to the A Frame defense, the winter lay-off, meeting a type of guy that always gives me trouble, but mostly it was a head thing. I was trying too much to stay alive. I was indecisive. I was switching defenses. I was throwing pretty weak blows. Afterward, when I went and fought pick ups, I was fighting much better because I wasn't trying to stay alive. I killed somebody with that back-edge torque shot for the first time in my life. I fought Master Carl (long peaked kite but shorter than me) and I killed him with timing shots, a hook thrust, a butterfly, and a stutter wrap--pretty much my whole arsenal.  Really, I had a great time, it was as always a huge, fun list. I did not fight up to my usual standards, and there is no way I will contend in Crown if I fight like this in a month, but I had a bit of an epiphany regarding my fighting. I felt I'd found a good combination of offense and defense, and an aggression I was certainly lacking earlier in the day. I need to work it out at practice this week.

All told, I did not live up to my personal standards.

As a sage once said, half of this game is 50% mental.

And buy duct tape!

It is 34 days until Crown Tourney. My next time in armor will be this Wednesday at Nutley.

Iron bog fighter practice March 8, 2015

Okay, so two hours each way is a long time to drive just to fight four people. But I had a great time and Iron Bog today, and I got a lot done.  There was a great deal of teaching involved for me today. I taught a couple of guys how to properly throw a snap wrap, I gave a 20 minute lesson on footwork that really primed my own for the rest of the day, and we did a lot of work with Zack on how to throw a J-hook and a tight wrap. Plus, it was just a really nice day!

WORKOUTS

workouts amounted to the same thing for the last two weeks that they have amounted to for most of the last three months. There were a couple of yoga classes, an average of 11,000 steps today walking, and 50 push-ups every day. I do need to start doing more intense workouts.

TECHNIQUE

Doing a 20 minute footwork drill with one of the unbelted fighters prompted me to start thinking about footwork and some combined techniques and that I haven't used in a while. One of these was an off-line passing step to the right. This is accompanied by a brief shield press. The purpose of the press is not just to freeze the shield but also to provide resistance to the other fighter so that he keeps his momentum moving forward. This is a really strong technique.I decided to work on all of my passing shots and my off-line attacks and retreats this practice. It was pretty effective.

I conceive of footwork as an eight pointed star, not where the center of the star is at the center of mass of the fighter, but where the center of the star is under the toe of the fighters lead foot. Every point of the star is a place to step two and a different technique. Are you also use The Oldcastle technique of advancing using increasing steps, and then passing so that you intersect your opponents are going to tack on a tangent. And Bellatrix is circle in the box.look it up. The star conception allows me to move in every direction that I need to move with the set distance for each of my steps. I can pass or shuffle back-and-forth in a straight line right and left on a horizontal line I can increase and decrease on a diagonal line and I can pass forward or back on to the other points of the star. The goal as with all footwork, is threefold: first defense by waiting shots or moving to where you were shield or sword will intercept them; the second opening up angles of attack by moving off line; the third is, as Fiore do Liberia puts it, to gain the place so that you are squared to your opponent and can piss down his leg. Once you're there you have won the fight. I managed to gain the place several times today.

FIGHTING

I only fought four opponents, Gunar, Mord, Zack, and Stirling. Although I lost at least one fight to each of them, I pretty much dominated, controlled all of the fights, and was doing really good work. The toughest of my opponents was easily Zack but I had some advantages that I used.

Gunar normally uses a long center grip tight, but he had switched for his fight with me to a 32 inch heater shield. This is not too short for his body, as he's several inches shorter than myself. However, I was able to use misdirection to hit him. I used to the shield press and passing technique that I described above against him and it worked perfectly, I also usedLucky's passing step, where you throw a snap to the head and, assuming it is blocked, pass with your right foot off-line to the left so you're actually turning your shoulder towards your opponent but your sword is cocked up by your head to defend yourself then you stop around squaring up and throwing an offside headshot it works great against lefties good against righties. I took his leg with Martin the Temprate's Hidden leg shot, and with an upsilon, and with the double strike. I also got him with both Radnor's and Gendy's butterfly techniques.

Sir Mord was fighting really aggressively, but he was too focused on my leg. He did knowledged that and said it was what he was trying to do, but it made hitting him in the head too easy. I did use the slide to the left foot work technique to get over the top of his kite shield once. That was very useful.

Zack thinks I totally had his number, but that's just not true. He hits so hard and is so fast and has such interesting awkward moves, that it's really a chore to fight him. My biggest problem was that I am focusing too much I'm getting ready to fight John the breeder the next time I see him, and Zack and John are two very different fighters. They may both be strong fast lefties, but they fight totally different styles. I did concentrate on using my boxer/A-frame style, but I also went away from it. My worst problem was getting power into my offside head shots after he had taken my leg I think I landed at least three of those and they were clearly not good. His problem was that he was throwing long deep wrap shots, that were very easy to pick up just from his shoulder movements. I also made a total rookie mistake in our last fight I decided to jump in and press him really hard to begin with, then I backed out and was fighting a sore back kind of Western/Belatrix style. Problem was, my feet were in the wrong position to do that against a left-handed fighter and my shield was way off to my left side he took good advantage of this. 

Then I thought Sterling, who has a very frustrating habit of leaning out of the way when I throw my hook thrust shot. We only fought three fights. I killed him with that outside thrust that comes from the hip over the top of his shield -- the very sneaky one that Duke Jade is so good at. He killed me by taking my leg and then hitting me in the head, and then we had a nice long fighting which we both lost our legs and eventually I killed him with an off side head shot. That was my best kill of the day, because I used to really advanced Radnor of Guildemar technique to get it. I changed my interior timing, by changing the pattern of my breathing by holding my breath for a split second and then firing on the exhalation. I hit him in a transition window, just the way it's supposed to work. 

Hopefully there will be some video up soon.

There are 55 days until crown tournament. My next time in armor will hopefully be at Nutley this Wednesday.

Ironbog, February 22

This lay off was too long. It really affected me. The lay off has been for a number of reasons: concussion, shoulder injury, mostly there was a malaise about the SCA. I was just bummed out over the reaction to crown. The result was, I managed to get in armor three times since crown before today. Basically once a month. I've been pretty active, but it hasn't helped. My shield arm tired out right away. I was more winded than I ever remember being. I'm on the fourth day of a vegan liquid diet (first week of lent) which I think also had a lot to do with it. Regardless, endurance has been my strongest trait, I need to get it back. 

WORKOUTS

I'm averaging about 10,000 steps and doing 50 push ups daily, plus yoga a couple times a week. Also shoulder rehab with the Indian clubs. I did a killer WOD two weeks ago: 5x3 of power cleans, front squat, and squat cleans. But I hurt my shoulder. Then I got sick for two weeks and didn't get back to the gym. 

I need to start a workout program. 

TECHNIQUE

None. This was just about helmet time. 3/4 of the time I was fighting an a frame, but that's all. 

FIGHTING

I fought like ass. I fought Ron three different sets. I also fought Harold and three other unbelted fighters. 

Against Ron, especially our first set, I hit him three or four times with no power. That was a lack of practice plus a light sword. My second set of fights I did better. I killed him with a stutter wrap and--no kidding--a wavy rising snap. I faked him out so good his shield was around his knees and his head was wide open. Our third set he just calmly and surgically kicked my ass. Like completely embarrassed. 

My other fights were good. They were all hard hitting energetic unbelted fighters who would make you pay if you made a mistake. Two of them I was able to surgically dissect myself. All of them hit me hard at least once. Three things stand out. 

First, was my endurance. It was terrible. I was gasping for air after the first couple bouts of every set. This was also my shield arm, which is weak, and my power, which is low. 

Secondly, I was not in the early fights mentally. I did not have any focus, and my mind was wandering. 

Worst part, I was getting in my own way. I caught my forearm on my shield edge. I totally missed a couple of shots off of fakes. 

It's a lot of rust to be knocked off. 

It is 63 days until crown. My next time in armor will be Thursday at Wantagh. 

Acheron 1/11/14

Ow. 

That's really all you can say when Gui basket hilts you in the face. Actually, it was more like "Ow! F*ck!" And probably a bit more. I'm hazy About The details. Since he hit me in the forehead, and I felt it on the back of my head, and since I was definitely woozy standing up, I took off my armor and quit for the day. I've had what my doctor described as a "mild concussion" and the symptoms were a lot worse than this. But there's no reason to wait for a second hit to make it that bad. So I'm done early.

Which is ok, just as its ok that Gui punched me with is basket hilt. It was unintentional, and accidents happen. One of the most important lessons to be learned in fighting is that you are going to get hurt, and if you can't handle that you should take up another activity. 

The real great fighters, they enjoy the pain. 

WORKOUTS

It's been a long time since I posted. All I can say about workouts is that through running, walking, push-ups every day, and a couple of intense yoga classes, I actually lost two pounds over Xmas. 

TECHNIQUE

I actually have fought twice since 100 Minutes Wad, both times at Acheron. First time I was just trying to play around and get helmet time. It included some great two handed sword fights with Jibril. 

Today I only fought three people: Gui, Samale, and Zack. The only thing I was working on was Lettie technique. Against Zack, I had good success with three techniques: Gui's short punching technique (what he was doing when he basket-hilted  me), the slide steps to the right to take the leg, and a very active boxer style. 

The first technique is just what it sounds like. A punch to the forehead. Ideally it lands  with the first third of the sword. If they're farther away it lands farther out. The trick is simply to be aggressive and throw it multiple times while moving forward. It is one of the more bogus shots, as there is little chance of it being effective in an armored fight, but I'm not convinced a single blow could ever bring someone down in a real sword fight in mail. 

The slide or shuffle step is not unlike Lucky's leg shots where he hid behind his shield and crouched over. You bend down behind the shield, throw the leg, shuffle forward and to the right repeated throwing the shot. Sometimes you very it by throwing a leg wrap, but I rarely do  that. 

The boxer style just had me using a lot of lateral movement to open up angles and a boxer/a frame defense. This is exactly what I was trained not to do against lefties. But it worked against Zack. I think I it was prompting hi to over commit. 

My fights were great over all. Samale is fighting better but was falling for the rising snap. I managed to kill Gui from my knees with a face thrust. Zack has found that aggression that makes Gui so good, and he was tough. 

But I have  a concussion, and that sucks.

I will not be attending Birka this year and they have not announced a date for crown. i will not be fighting for at least ten days. 

100 Minutes War

I'm not going to write about politics. I'm not going to write about cheating, or calibration, or conduct on the field. If you have been paying attention, there is a crisis going on in the Kingdom of the East stemming from finals in crown. I am in the minority in my opinion of almost every aspect of this debate. I will address that in a later post, but only in the most general terms. Frankly, I'm tired of it.

I will instead talk about 100 Minutes War.

WORKOUTS
Workouts are hard to come by this time of year. I have lots of time but I'm exhausted. I've done push ups every day. I've done some good gym workouts, and I'm making at least one yoga class a week, but I am specifically not being organized in any way. It's the off season.

TECHNIQUE
I had not intended to work on any technique, but I ended up doing a lot. I did not even pack my shield (Had I realized that Duke Edmund from the Midrealm would be there I would have). It was spear, pole arm, and bastard sword for me. Mostly it was spear. Now, for the longest time, I didn't fight spear. I was a sword and shield guy in wars and that was what I liked. I could use a spear but I wasn't particularly good with one. I started fighting spear in bridge battles a few  years ago out of respect for my knees and a desire  not to get hit six times in rapid succession. I was having some neck problems at the time, and found that the occasional multiple shot, which happens in a fixed position battle fairly often, was causing me problems. Then I found that I liked spear. I have fun in the spear duels, and I've been getting good at it over the past two years. But this weekend I had a minor breakthrough with my spear technique. I fight with my left foot forward most time, feet not in line but close to it, almost in a slight lunge. Occasionally, for reach, I place my right foot forward. When I use a right hand lead I basically fight in a fencing stance and use the spear like a very long foil. I keep my forward toe pointed at my primary target. The problem with all of this is, this is not the way I fence rapier. I take a wide, slightly square stance with rapier. I move side to side as much as I do forward and back. This is what I started doing at 100 minutes--not a deep super wide stance, but fighting a bit more square-- and it worked really really well. My kills went up, my defense has always been good but my situational awareness was better. I had a lot of fun.

FIGHTING
100 Minutes war is always awesome, and this was no exception. Its' a 100 minute resurrection battle with about 130 on a side, not unlike the old all-day res wars we used to fight for Mists/Cynagua war, or the Acre crusade event. No flags or anything like that, just kill as many guys as you can all day long.

I was on Ionnis' side, and we fought most of the day uphill in a narrow wooded battle field. We were fighting between two roads that ran parallel through the woods. There was not much space between them (50 yards at most). There was a gully that ran through the center, also paralleling the roads, that was deeper at the bottom of the hill and about six to ten feet wide. Most of the fighting took plase on the roads. We were fighting up hill, and after awhile it evolved into a staring contest. We didn't want to charge up the hill, they wouldn't be baited down. After about an hour they rotated us and moved us uphill, so we were fighting across the gully, with the roads as our rear boundaries. This gave us a wider front and nobody had a terrain advantage anymore. In other words, they changed it up so we would have more fun. That is good autocrating.

I was doing my best work on the road before we rotated. The ground was smooth so I had good foot work. Between the roads it was all rocks and snags. I was also using the slope defensively by staying on my toes and, when dodging, just lifting them so I was doing a little hop. This would carry me backward down the hill about six inches. It made me seem much more agile and quick than I probably was being, and it helped my defense a lot. With the wider stance, I was getting a lot more kills to the side, following the rule don't try to kill the guy in front of you. I was having an awesome day. When we rotated the terrain proved my downfall. I got piked in the leg early on while fighting at the top of one side of the gully, and spent the next ten or twelve minutes on my knees and out of range of everything. I don't kill myself when in a res battle--it's a point of pride to me that I don't give up in that situation, but I considered it at that point. Eventually I crawled to my left to where the walls were less steep and there was more fighting going on, and then kind of slid down into the bottom of the gully and fought there from my knees until I was finally speared. I don't think I killed anyone, but the guys I was dueling got killed by people around me, so I was helping out.

The one hard hit I took was form King Edward when he launched a breakthrough. I stood him up with a cross check from my spear as he laid me out,  with a blow to my elbow then one to my shoulder/back, but he got killed while he was doing it.

At the end of the battle I switched downhill to where Ostgardr had migrated to. We had pushed that side back, so were were fighting in almost the same spot where we had started the day. We were back on that road but down hill a bit, so we weren't on the slope. I speared for awhile there until Balfar went up the line and killed a bunch of us from my right. Then, as there was five minutes left, I ran back to the res point, got my bastard sword, and waded in for some rock-em-sock-em. I killed three or four guys in the final press. I did accidentally hit Nico, who was on our side, from behind. He had pushed past me on my left and I was swinging at every helmt that was in front of me. Oops: but he didn't notice and, anyway, I didn't have engagement with him so it didn't count. It was kind of like that moment in Baldwin of Eriabor's "Talking Grand Mellee Blues,"

I soon saw that wouldn't work
That's when I started to berserk
Eleven or twelve of the enemy died
Plus two or three from my own side
Oh well: easy come, easy go.

It is 59 says until Birka (though there is a good chance I won't be going this year). My next time in armor will be after Thanksgiving, probably at Hawthorne. 

Crown Tourney #90

I hate myself.

I was planning to start this blog by saying "I hate myself," because in the fight that knocked me out of Crown yesterday's did something stupid and paid the price by losing. But that was yesterday. Today I hate myself because I just left my bag on the train. It was my best Eagle Creek bag, and it had my regalia in it, along with my only pair of 501s. It gets worse. I put it on an overhead rack in Seacaucus to go one stop to NYC. I was on the phone when I got off the train. I walked a block to the subway. I was about to get on the F train when I realized that I didn't have my suitcase. I hurried back to Penn Station but I wasn't sure what track it was on. The track I though it was turned out to have an Amtrak train on it, but the track next toy hat one had a train going to Trenton that look right. I rushed over to that track. The train was crowded no it was about to pull out. I pushed my way on and looked around. The door started to close. I didn't see my bag. I wasn't even sure if this was the right train, so I got off. The doors closed. As the train pulled out I saw my bag through the window. It was like a scene from some pathetic comedy, like a sad-sack (literally) Woody Allen or Harold Lloyd movie, and there I was, running down the track, watching my bag roll out of my life forever. I wanted to scream and hit things. I am angry and depressed and angry. If I'd just stayed on it and gone back to Seacaucus I would have gotten my bag back. The station agent said there was no way to contact the train. I filled out a report, but I don't hold out hope. My coronet was in that bag. 

So I guess I will have to win another. 

Crown #90 was, as I have indicated, frustrating. We fought in a mud puddle, in the freezing rain, with some wicked injuries and some serious screw ups (William McCrimmon suffered a detached biceps, Duke Randal was dropped from the list by mistake after only one loss and by the time it was discovered the response was "its to late to do anything about it now" which really infuriates me)--all to see the four guys most people expected get into semi finals, the two dukes most people expected get into finals, and the duke most people expected to win win. My day was ok but, as I said, I made some mental errors and they cost me.  This photo kind of sums up my day, even though it was taken at the beginning (I fixed that shoulder on Thursday--Ha!) .

WORKOUTS

My plan had been to take it easy the week before crown, but in fact I had a great week. I rode my bike to Coney Island and back, I went to yoga, and I ran a 5k fun run at school (several students complained that they couldn't keep pace with me). I rehabbed my shoulder and did push ups every day. 

FIGHTING

The important fights were in the rounds I lost.

The format was double elimination, best two out if three each round. It's not as format I do well in, but my endurance and defense are both good right now. I beat Duke Randal for the first time (a long time quest) and went to sixth round. I suffered my first loss to Breeder and got knocked out (again) by Culann Mac Cianain--two great fighters and contenders. That's a pretty good line and, for the most part, I'm happy with my fights, except for how I suffered my two defeats. 

Against both Breeder and Culann, I lost two zip. The first fight in both those rounds I fought well (against Breeder extremely well), but in both I had my leg taken and was then killed. They were good long fights in which I simply got beaten. The second fight is each of these rounds, that is where I was frustrated. Perhaps it's because I was mentally tired. I think it's just because I screwed up. 

Against Bredder in both our fights I had been fighting him with a boxer style. It worked well, and I almost got him with a thrust that I threw like a right hook. In boxing, a right hook (upper hook?) is a good attack against a south paw. Witness this video that's been floating around the interwebs:



Breeder said that he finds the boxing style confusing, and it seems to work pretty well against him, even if I did lose. In our second fight I ducked behind my shield to do the circling leg attack I've been learning from Gui. I noticed that he opened up his right leg when I did that, but to the inside of his shield--I could see the target past the bottom of my shield: only I focused on it. I got target lock and instead of moving out and looking for it later I just targeted the spot as though I was waiting for the opening to be perfect. It was just a fraction of a second, but it was all Breeder needed, and he threw a big dropping wrap that killed me. 

In my second fight against CulannI decided to change things up. My A frame defense had been really good up to that point, but Culann'sis better, and with that big kite shield covering his left side there are zero openings. In our first fight I almost got him with an inside dropping shot, but that shot works even better from a high open form, so in our second fight I fought my old fight, a Western heater style. It was working too, but I was fighting on automatic--that is my style, and the offense was just flowing. I stopped using molinees a few years ago becuase they don't work well against big shield fighters and they expose me too much. I've pulled a couple out recently, but they don't set up well from an A frame, so I use them sometimes as second or third shots ina  combination. I often use a set up where I throw two off side molinee leg shots then change the third into an on side head shot. I used it in the second round, although it did not work. I did not plan to use it against Culann, who is a trigger fighter, but in the flow of things, on auto pilot, I did. I through that low molinee leg shot and he threw a snap to my face. It was light and tippy, but right in the grill at about cheek level. I said "I hate myself," and bowed. (It was way too muddy to fall dead). Lucan saw it from clear across the field, rushed over and said "you know better than that!" I just hung my head in shame. "it's not like you were fighting Beck!"he said. We both laughed--he recognized that Duke Stephen of Beckenham was who I learned a lot of that technique from--or rather with, since we came up together and authorized on the same day. Of course, Beck is a Wulfsagan Von Ostensee student, so he's an even better trigger fighter than Culann. He'd have fired right through that weak ass shit as well. 

Argh! 

The fights I won were less informative if more fun. I beat Randal both times with a hook-thrust. In between that we legged each other and he killed me with a wicked backhand.

I fought Griffyn and I controlled the fight well. I don't know how I won those fights, but they were energetic and a lot of fun.

My second round opponent was really really tough. He jumped into my shorts and killed me with a face thrust our first fight. Then I bore down and tightened my defense up. I killed him with  awrap to the back in our second fight, then took his leg, stepped off line, and hit him in the head in our third. I was trying to use the technique below, but I blew it. However, he dropped his shield after the pass and I hit him. I could tell he was frustrated, and after the conversation I'd had with Tycho a couple of weeks ago, I was worried that I had stepped too deep on him. He and the marshals insisted that that was not so. I offered to keep fighting and he declined. Afterward he came up to me and explained that he had dropped his guard because I had been throwing on technique, stepping out, resetting,a nd coming in again, and that that time he had expected me to do the same thing so he ahd started to re-set while I was still in range. He was frustrated at himself. He gave me a very nice arm ring as a gift for having taught him a lesson--protect yourself at all times.

My first round fight was against Haakon Ragnarson. I controlled that fight well. I forget how I won the first bout, but thankfully Tally got out second fight on video. This is nice because I used two clear techniques that I talk about a lot. First, I use a leg shot off a faked face thrust. Then I use the mis-direction trick, where I flash the thrusting tip and get him to look at that while I pass forward and wrap to the back of his head. Check it out.



The video was yet another from Tally. He's got a lot of them up on his YouTube channel. Check them out.

It is 82 days until Birka. I don't know when I will next be in armor. I may take some time off for hunting season. 

MSR Practice 10/16/14

I totally hogged out at 7-11 after practice last night. This is a bad thing. Must maintain weight, 

It's important to have good equipment. I'm a generally sloppy, lazy person (just ask my lady). Like a lot of people who live in their heads (to borrow a phrase from my dissertation advisor), I'm always thinking about something: my next writing project, tomorrow's lecture, something stupid that I said on the internet --usually with such concentration that I will forget the thing I thought I should do this morning, or not notice the thing right in front of me (like that pile of laundry in the corner). Compounding this is the fact that my knight, though he taught me the value of looking good, it was only through covering up. Underneath a nice tunic, leather jerkin, and harem pants, his armor was a rat bag of gear put together from whatever bits of scrap metal, foam pads, and used sports gear he could lay his hands on. And to him, a sword was just a stick of rattan. It was not planed, it had no thrusting tip, and no basket hilt: just a bit of whittling to form a handle and a short rattan cross hilt. 

I am a bit more thoughtful about my gear, but I'm only handy when I think about it. I know what I like in a sword but I rarely put the effort into building it (the fact that I live in a Brooklyn apartment without a shop is also a factor). Usually, I don't put the effort into building my swords that they deserve, and I use my swords much past their useful life. I've also never found a basket hilt I really like that I can afford (I fought for ten years with a cross hilted sword, and I don't like them very much). Right now I'm using a Baldar cup hilt which, when combined with a fairly light stick, provides good results. The best baskets I've found for weight and balance are Iron Monger hilts, but I own half a dozen basket hilts right now, and whenever I'm at Pennsic I have better things to do with the $75 they would cost me. I just don't feel like buying one. So I stick with what I've got, and I can still kill with it. I'm kind of like Kevin Mitchel, the one-time Giants slugger, who could never find a bat he liked but he could hit home runs with anything. 

The stick I'm using right now is a broom held together with too much tape. It is way too tip heavy for the techniques I'm using these days, and it only lands a good blow one out of three times it lands. This is ok for practice, but probably explains why my arm is so tired this morning. 

WORKOUTS

This has been a good week: Push ups every day, two long hikes, and two good workouts: Wednesday was a good kettle bell workout, and yesterday I went to the gym for 20 minutes of yoga and 20 minutes on the treadmill. I did not have time to lift, but it was still effective.  

FIGHTING

I am so beat up from practice on Thursday. I went there mostly to work on my great sword techniques, tough I planned one or two sword no shield fights as well. The two people I knew I'd be fighting great sword against were Gui and Zack, both of whom are left handed, marking them odd fights. Since I was fighting without a shield I wore my kendo breastplate. Unfortunately, both my shoulder pauldrons are blown out, and so I was without them. I've mostly fought without pauldrons for the last 35 years, but you do pay a price. My main project was to go back to my roots and use Rolf's bastard sword style, the one where I hold it in front of me, diagonally up and back guarding my head, body, and both arms. Problem with that is that against left handers that opens half those targets up, of which my right shoulder was eventually reminded. As a result I also used a bit of Gui's horse stance technique. 

Gui likes to fight in close and I like to fight at range. Usually I try to beat Gui at his own game and I get crushed. I do, however, get to practice all those cool backedge techniques he uses, and I used them to take his leg and double kill with him. My one good kill was in our first bout, where I used that straight cut/thrust, which is becoming my go to shot. 

Against Zack that shot worked very well. I got him with it from both wards (mine and Gui's). I also got him with it from my knees, as he was stepping in after taking my leg, which was particularly satisfying. As long as I controlled the range I was doing well, but when we closed distance we were more or less even. 

I fought sword and shield against Tycho. I was told I circled too far behind him after taking his leg. I was using the "One step" convention, so that surprised me. I have a technique that I use with a legged opponent (no comments about how the answer is to get rid of fighting from our knees because I have no problems with that convention). I show him my thrusting tip, slide to one side and then take a step forward. Normally, I go to my right, but against Tycho, who is left handed, I've been experimenting by going to the left. I think he thought i was "behind him" because I had gone to his shield side, so his shoulders were turned away from me. As far as I can figure out the technique is legal, but both he and Gui thought it wasn't. 

I also fought Brad and then went through the field in a bear pit. 

It is two weeks to crown. My next time in armor will be this Wednesday at Nutley.

Grants Tomb October 5th

Gui had an interesting thing to say about my fighting yesterday. He says my problem is that I push myself in ways and places that I don't need to, that instead of finding my weaknesses and shoring those up I try to learn new techniques or develop new shots that I really don't need. I think that was more of a criticism eight years ago than it is today. That is when I made a conscious decision to switch from being primarily an offensive fighter to primarily a defensive fighter. I simplifed my style, abandoned nearly all of my offense, which was based on molinee's fakes, and combinations, and went to a very pared down simple style that was mostly counter punching: so I see what Gui is talking about, and I probably need to move further in that direction.

Sunday at Grant's Tomb was awesome. I got to practice several different things. There were three knights in armor--Myself, Gui, and Luis--as well as five unbelted fighters--Avran, Torvrikr (sp), Samale, Nikolai, and Tycho.  I manged to fight everybody, and Samale twice. Not only that but I got some good weapons practice in. I fought sword and shield against Luis, Samale, Tycho, Nikolai, and Gui, I fought polearm against Avran, long sword against Samale, and single-sword against Torvrikr.

WORKOUTS:
Just Yoga, walking, and push-ups.

TECHNIQUE
Building on what was working at Nutley on Wednesday Night, I wanted to work on aggression and movement in my sword and shield fights. In addition, I wanted to use two specific techniques in my longsword fights that  I had not used at Cloisters--a horse stance technique with the edges held outward and the first Bastard Sword style I learned from Rolf, which is cocked with hands about chest high. In my polearm and my single sword fights I wanted to run through every technique I have.

FIGHTING
Against Gui I won two fights and got creamed six or seven times. I had a real problem with my fights against Gui, which I discussed with him at length. I usually have pretty good footwork. Yesterday I was trying specifically to throw Gui's leg attack, which involves repeatedly throwing wraps and snaps at an opponent's leg while moving around their shield to their sword side in kind of a waddling movement (it's similar to the movement Belatrix uses when fighting agaisnt great weapons with sword and shield). I was doing it either without footwork, in which case he didn't have to move his shield to block, or I was doing it with lousy footwork, with the same result. Normally, even against left handed fighters, my footwork is good enough to win me fights. Against Gui it's terrible. I don't step into my shots enough if at all. Part of it is that he's defending it well because it's a technique he uses, but part of it is I'm not executing at all. I think I'm afraid to come out from behind my shield against Gui and so I'm not stepping out to get around his defense the way I need to. Against Tycho I had no problem with that.

Against Samale, Tycho, and Nikolai my offense and defense were both good. I was trying to be more aggressive--especially against Tycho, and that was working well. I am using a lot more movement and body fakes, so that my A frame is not as static as it has been in the past.

I like to say I have five tricks with a polearm. I used all of them against Avran. My favorite one is to hold the pole like a kayak oar and swim with it. If I can catch the fore of his pole between my hands I will usually kill him with a short chop. If he comes over to my off side and I can knock his attack down I'm on top and will kill him. This worked pretty well. All of my other techniques are more standard, with my thumbs in line not opposed. I also got him once where I just grabbed his pole, choked up and stabbed him in the belly.

My long sword fights against Sam were great. I adjusted my ward so that I was using the Bastard Sword style I first learned from Rolf 35 years ago, with the hands held at about chest level, the blade cocked back and at a slight diagonal toward my right shoulder to that the blade offers cover to both my forearms. I tried a couple of techniques against Samale--Zornhau Ort, Hanging Parry--at which he laughed and said "Ha! I read your blog!" which was pretty affirming. I got some good kills on him with countering shots--parrying and passing either under or over his blade and striking him. Then I fought three fights using Gui's technique, where he adopts a horse stance and holds the sword straight up and down in front with the quillions going parallel to his shoulders-side to side. The idea is that you can use either edge of the sword equally by turning the blade in your hand, I won all three of those fights: once with a thrust, once by blocking and countering to his right side helmet with the true edge, once by blocking and striking his leg with the false edge, then using a technique I'd forgotten about for a legged opponent, where I move my hand above the quillions, strike to the off side, wind, pass on the left, and pull back then short stick him.

Naturally, it was in single sword that I got hurt. This is because I was getting fancy, and the fancier you get the more risks you take. Single sword might be the pinacle of our art--it is certainly the hardest and riskiest thing we do. I have a very well developed single sword style based on techniques from Firoe di Liberi, George Silver, and Dukes Rolf, Paul, and Radnor. I use four wards normally, and I have been working on a 5th, and they all flow one into the other: Right foot forward, weight 70% on the left foot and sword at your left hip (Liberi); weight evenly distributed, sword in a hanging "saber parry" (Sliver); left foot forward, sword above your head (either straight up, as in Silver, or cocked for a snap as in Bellatrix/Radnor), sword cocked in front of you, held diagonally toward your left shoulder (Rolf--same has his bastard sword above), and the one I'm working on now, a fencing stance with the sword held at the right hip, point toward the opponent's face. I'll post some pictures of all of these later. The main goals are to either get above the opponent's sword to make a true edge cut; get a parry 6 (window parry) below your opponent's sword and get a back hand cut; or beat them on timing. You can also use the silver technique of, from the high guard, passing back and striking their arm when they strike at you ("This art is about the lopping off of hands, arms, legs, yea, and even heads."--G. Silver, Gentleman). I did all of this in my fights against Torvrikr. I got hurt when I ducked and he bashed me right on the crown of my helmet while I was bent over. Jammed my neck a  bit. I'm all better now.  Here is a picture on FaceBook of me just starting a technique I learned from Duke Radnor. It caught me in motion, as I've started to strike. I'm going to swing under his blade to draw his defense down, pass on the left and back hand him. If that doesn't work I just come back across his face with a forehand.

This was a great practice. I got in lots of good work. I limbered up my long sword and my polearm. I worked hard on my footwork vs. left handed fighters. I was strong and aggressive.

It is 26 days until Crown Tourney. My next time in armor will most likely be Thursday Night in Hawthorne.

Nutley Practice, October 1 2014

I’m too much of a chameleon. It’s a theme you find in this blog all the time (in fact, it’s in the description). I mention this because Duke Gregor brought it up at Nutley Practice Wednesday night. He said he reads my blog and he sees me writing about this style and that style, identifying them with the people I learned them from, and he asked “when am I going to hear about Val’s style?” I need, in his words, to fight my own fight. It’s a fair criticism. He also said that he is amazed that I can analyze a fight I had in Crown and know exactly what happened. He says he never really knows exactly what he just did, especially in the fights that he wins. He just does it. The implication is that I am thinking too much about what I am doing.

I know what he is talking about. Every fighter seeks to find that place where he is fighting without thought, where he or she is reacting without thinking, where muscle memory and reaction just take over and the lower brain functions are in control. I call this “fighting from within the void” borrowing terminology from translations of Musashi—mostly because it’s cool and makes me sound totally Zen when I say it. But it is true—the best fights I’ve had and the best days I’ve had have always been when I was fighting without thinking. I can still often say what I did, but it was like I had observed myself doing it, not like I had told myself to do it—if that makes any sense. I certainly felt that way in a few of my fights in the Queen’s Champions tourney this summer. I felt it in one or two fights Wednesday night at Nutley too.

But Greggo’s larger point was that I don’t have my own style, at least I don’t write about my own style in this blog.  The truth is that I had a style. It was a distinct style and it was mine. It was not truly unique—it was a Western flat-heater style, based on techniques developed by Radnor and Paul, but with a slightly larger shield than they used. It was identifiable as being similar to all the right handed Western Knights who used heater shields in the 80s and 90s—Duke Christian du Glaive, Count Obadiah,  Steven MacEnruig, William of Houghton, etc. I used combination blows, misdirection, and especially molinee’s (a lot of molinees). In that regard, if it was like anybody else, it was probably closest to Steven of Beckenham—except that Steve being student of Wulf Sagaen von Ostense he was a counter puncher and I am not (most of the people who won crown in the 80s or 90s were Sagan’s students—he occupies a place in the West and now Artemesia similar to the place occupied by Farrel von Halstern in the East and that Eichling von Arum once occupied in CAID, the trainer of kings).  The only person who really fights like me in the East is Duke Ronald, because we were squire brothers and were greatly influenced by Houghton—but he had altered his style radically by the time I moved out here. Regardless, I had a style, and my style was not anybody else’s. It was mine. I had blows and techniques that I had developed for myself. I did things with my sword that nobody else did. When I moved to the East I found that my offense could not get past the longer shields used by the Northern Region fighters and my defense could not cope with an off-side face shot that came from in front of the head (Thorsen in particular destroyed me with that). I tried all sorts of things to compensate—different shields, learning a sword forward style—before finally settling into the A Frame heater style I use now, and to which I am now committed. (Yes, I should have spent a year with Ronald learning how he had coped, but even though he was in South Jersey I didn’t see him much). The A Frame still doesn’t feel like *my* style. My style is the Bellatrix influenced heater style that I fought for 15 years in the West and 5 years here in the East, but which I’ve now mostly abandoned.   

WORKOUTS

Since last I wrote on Monday night, all I’ve done is fight and push ups.

TECHNIQUE

At Nutley I just wanted helmet time. I wanted to jump into the deep end of the pool and trade stripes. I wasn’t working on anything and, in fact, was specifically trying *not* to have a plan in any of my fights.

FIGHTING

I fought Breeder, Duke Kelson, Tseitchel, Duke Gregor, and a fighter I did not know. I’d brought my old leather vambraces because since I started using my splint arms with the 5 piece elbows my neck, back, shoulder, and elbows have bothered me, and I’m pretty sure it’s the vambraces. Unfortunately, I pulled the vambraces out and then forgot to put them on, so I fought without them most of the night. I only realized they were missing after I fought Gregor. I lost my arm twice, but thankfully nobody hit me on the elbow.

Beating someone at practice doesn’t matter, but how well you execute at practice does. It feels good to kill fighters who are good at practice, but it doesn’t mean a lot. Still, I had more success against the top fighters than I am used to. I rarely kill Breeder, I killed him twice. I never kill Kelson, I killed him twice. I rarely kill Gregor, I killed him twice as well. But the better thing is that kills on all of them were basically unplanned. They were shots that I threw in combinations or they were reaction shots. I was fighting from within the void.

Against Breeder, the difference was that I was much more active. I have morphed my A Frame style into a bit of a boxer style. I am moving more. I am switching between a right and left leg lead—even against good lefties. When I killed Breeder the first time it was with a face shot in the middle of an exchange, in which he clearly thought I would be farther to my right than I was, but in which I had stepped off line to my left and got in behind his block. The second time I killed him was just  a blind shot I threw to break up his combo that ended up hitting him.

Kelson beat me handily in our first tow bouts, and I only beat him because he got tired and sloppy. But I still felt good about both my kill shots. The first was a straight down the middle head shot that hit him as he moved off line to his left. The second was a thrust that went straight up the face of his shield and into his grill. Both of these were reactions to what he was doing and I was not conscious of a decision to throw them in either case.

Agaisnt Tseitchel I was getting fancy, but of course the fancier I get the sloppier I get. I had some good fights with her and won a bunch of them.

Against Gregor we started with a very long, intense fight that involved several exchanges and ended with me hitting him in the face as he was disengaging. I killed him once more, but he killed me three or four times. Nonetheless, he said later that I was fighting better than normal: he had been unable to control range with me, and that I had a very tight defense the whole time.

My shield strap broke in my last fight and I ended up borrowing Avran’s great sword and using that as a shield. I fought pretty well, and outlasted my opponent, killing him at least twice. That was mostly for fun, and while it allowed some offensive work it really was not serious practice.   

Another thing I discussed with Gregor is that Farrel taught him, as Bellatrix taught me, that you should train your offense to the point that it is automatic so you can use all your focus on your defense. This is worth thinking about.

There are 29 days until Crown Tournament. The next time I will be in armor will be this Sunday, most likely at Grant’s Tomb. 

On winning CAID Queen's Championship

In 1987, pursuing a career as a television writer that never came to fruition, I moved briefly to the kingdom of CAID. I had been spending time down south fairly regularly. Yaroslav the Persistent had a large household down there, Seitch Persistent, and a couple of years before the Seitch had merged with the tribe, so that members of one were considered members of another. In other words, I had a household, friends, and sword brothers ready and waiting for me when I got there. I didn't live in CAID long. My lady got a great job offer in San Francisco and a writers strike shut down Hollywood. I toughed it out for awhile but left sometime that summer--but not until after I fought in CAID Queen's Champion tourney. It was won by Njal Grimmson, who defeated Freewind Bahadur in the finals. I got knocked out by Njal sometime late in the tourney, I remember it as quarter finals, but it might have been earlier.

I think one of the things CAID does best is the Queen Champions tourney. It has expanded to include rapier and cut and thrust, but back then it was just armored combat. There is only a four month lag between crown and coronation in CAID, and Queen's Champion Tourney is the day after the coronation--the first order of business after that event. This means that in CAID, where they only have two crowns a year, there is a major Kingdom level tournament every four months and the Queen always has her own champion, not one whom she inherited. CAID does have a King's champion too, but that is the runner up from crown. Usually the winner of the tourney is named champion: In fact this past weekend, when Bridgit said she was going to choose her champion from among the combatants, it was so unusual that people said they'd never heard of that before. I've lived in two other kingdoms. In the East a tournament is held in whichever he winner is the King's champion and the queen chooses her champion from the competitors. In the West how the champion is picked varries from queen to queen. Usually he or she is simply appointed without a tourney, but it has been done the other two ways as well. They don't have a King's Champion. 

Ever since I lived in CAID I have had a fondness, a fascination, for that tournament, and I always wanted to fight in it again, and now I have. 

This blog is late, because I didn't write about Grant's Tomb practice last week. I Will cover that briefly. 

WORKOUTS

The same: push-ups every day, yoga, long walks  and occasional bike rides. I'm training for a mud run in three weeks, so I have to get out and do some running this week for sure. 

TECHNIQUE

the only technique I was specifically working on at practice was my two weapon, which I normally fight sword and short-sword. (The short sword is an anachronism left over from the days in the West before low-profile thrusting tips, when only two weapons, short swords  and glaives, could have thrusting tips and still be considered "knightly," meaning you could not refuse to fight them in the lists. It could be a gladius or a cinqueda or even a Bowie knife as well as a true shortsword. It was my knight's favorite weapon). I took it out against Arn, the champion of Rusted Woodlands, a fairly new freighter who is one of those naturals. He said he didn't think that could be a very good style, but I killed him six or seven times  losing once. I fight that at range and take advantage of my visibility. I use the same offense that I use sword and shield, and rarely attack with the knife following the advice of George Sliver-- but like Silver I do use the short sword to pin my opponent's arm, which worked against Arn and shocked him. When I take someone's leg, I switch the sword to a dagger grip to guard my own leg, and then I will use it for face thrusts. I got him with this as well. 

I fought Arn again with Sword and Shield as well as Lou, Samalle, Ansel, and I think Zack, It was a great practice, with nine fighters, three of whom were knights. I did get Lou with a great technique. He fights sword and great ax, like a maud with an ax head on it. I attacked his ax handle with a down award cut. He is used to people sweeping the handle and then trying to come with a cut to the off side or a snap, but much like I do when I use the Fiore technique against Madus, I let contact with his weapon stop the momentum of mine. Then I just turn it into a body thrust. I made this variation up on the fly, and it worked. 

QUEEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP

You don't win a major tourney every day. In fact, although I've won some small tourneys recently, I think the last truly big tourney I won was Crown, and that was 20 years ago. I did not go to CAID planning to win Queen's Championship. I went because my squire, Agrippa, was being crowned King. I expected to hover around, see some old friends, suit up and have some fun. Instead i got to accomplish a goal I've had for 36 years. 

I'm sorry, I wasn't fighting people I know well, so I don't recall names. I also was in kind of a fog for half the day and it all runs together. I can point out a few things, however. 

Agrippa made a speech on which he quoted Sun Tzu about winning with ease. Part of the quote described how the great fighters of old would make themselves invulnerable to loss and then await until their opponents gave them an opportunity to kill them. This is probably where Radnor got his saying "we let our opponents tell us how they would like to be killed." This ended up being my day for the most part. I was using a borrowed sword and shield but my own armor (with the gamboised cuises, because I was flying). The sword was Agrippa's and it was tip heavy, and heavier than I use these days, and the shield was a large center grip oval. I could not use most of my regular offense and defense--the center grip meant I could not do a hook-thrust, the sword was a touch slower on the second shot than I like, but it was a perfect sword for some Bellatrix technique. The big shield was big, and saved my leg once or twice, but it also got me killed in my one loss before the finals. 

My first bout was against an unbelted fighter with a tear drop kite. He was very solid. I was told everything about this guy--he's super aggressive, he lays back, he can't hit hard, he is really tricky, he's a push over, he will give you real trouble. I found him to be very solid. If the blow he landed on my calf is any indication he has no problems with power. I can't remember how I won't the fight. 

I fought a polearm fighter named Renfield. Like Sir Diablu, he holds his pole straight up int he air right in front of him. This got him killed. It meant I could set up closer than I would against most polearm fighters, and I was able to pick up his first blow pretty easily. I only had to take one step to be in range. I stepped in, took his leg,and killed him. 

I fought a lady on the Queen's Guard named Blue. She was tough and had a good defense. She used a pointed triangular kite shield, one with no curves, and it kind of got her killed. I started her out with a rising snap, and then a straight thrust. Neither worked. Then in a flurry I took her leg. expecting me to wrap to her head, she set up in kind of an a frame, which exposed her whole torso. The straight line of her shield made the gap even mor pronounced. The first time I thrust there she covered it but the second time she didn't. 

There are two tall Liams. One is a knight and the other is his man at arms. They are both about six six or seven and built like oak trees. The man at arms is left handed, and he is the one I fought. He was fast and strong but inexperienced. I tried my usual opening against a leftie -- the step through off side attack and it didn't work. Neither did Gui's punch shot. But he was setting up way over to the left side with his shield, and I took his shield arm as a result (because he is so tall. A normal sized fight would gave been Hilton the head) It being CAID, I gave up my shield (which I have stopped doing since I made the switch to fighting like an Easterner). We had a long fight with single swords because I was being cautious. I used the Fiore sword in one hand technique, Radnor's technique in which a faked body shot draws the defense out and then a back hand is aimed at the head, and my usual Rolf inspired technique in which I hold the sword cocked in front of me and use short cuts. That's the best defensive style. I eventually threw a double strike, the first time hitting his sword and the second time passing beneath it to hit him in the body. 

About this time I took my loss. I fought Kuma, a big power lifter who is supposedly the top polearm fighter in the kingdom. That was an intense fight. He tried to draw me out of my defense but I wouldn't let him. I followed his attacks and closed behind them, but could not hit him. His footwork was really good. At one point I could tell I had him a bit frustrated because he asked how I was able to see him with only one eye--that was all I was allowing to peek from behind my shield, and that was defended by my sword. Eventually, however, I had to close. The third or fourth time I did so he struck while I was striking--three quick blows that were so strong, even though I blocked all three of them, they blew right through my shield. The first one had been good but I couldn't fall down fast enough. ThAt is how the center grip got me killed. He was so strong he was able to just brush it aside. 

I fought a fighter I can't name in green and black with a 24" round shield, I thought ah! My specialty, but again none of me stuff was working. I threw a rising snap, nope. I threw Martin the Temperate's leg shot. Nope. But I noticed that he was trying to use the Hauoc technique of leading with the weak side, parrying with the shield in 2 and the sword in 5 (a saber parry) and then cutting. unfortunately for him, he was striking an onside blow out of it, whereas an offside slot shot would be more effective. I was fighting a closed form, as close to an A frame as I could with the center grip, with the shield protecting my left side and the sword my right. As he stepped forward, guarding in that same window parry, I just shot thrust  down the middle and he ran his face right onto my sword. That was how he wanted to be killed. 

Then I was in Semi finals against Germanicus, another pole arm fighter. He was tough as well. He had seen what Kuma had done and tried to circle to my shield side to blind me, but I just adjusted and followed him. Both our fights were long and exhausting, in our first fight I closed behind his attack and eventually took his leg and killed him. In our second fight he tried to close with me and throw some back edge attacks but I was too close to him for that and I hit him in the head. Afterword he said "man! You East Kingdom boys really bring it! I'm glad you don't come to any of our wars!"

In the finals I faced Duke Sven. Another leftie taller than I. That's my bane, tall lefties. In the first fight I managed   to hit him with a off side head shot in the middle of an exchange. In the second he got me with a nice one-two across the face. In our third fight I took his leg and noticed that he was setting up to defend the wrap so I figured "what the hell," and threw Patrick Livathan's behind the back shot, which I'd never tired against a leftie, and he fell over. Cheers. 

I may be forgetting a round in here. Like I said, a blur. 

I had a lot of advantages. There were very few knights in the list and I didn't fight any of them till I faced Sven in the finals. I had never fought any of the people I faced before so they didn't know what to expect.  I was out of kingdom--I had nothing at all to prove and no pressure (unlike at a Crown for which I'd trained for three months). 

In every one of those fights I went in with a plan that did not work, and in every one of the fights I won, I looked at my opponent and, often in the middle of an exchange, I saw how they wanted to be killed and I killed them, just like Sun Tzu and Radnor told me to. 

After the finals I made a speech about how I had lived in CAID and was a a member of the Seitch. Which Duke Sven had belonged to as well--he was one of Jaroslav's squires--and how I learned that shot from a CAID Duke. At court I told of how I had lost to Njal Grimson back in 1988, and so this win was a dream I had never thought would come true. Her majesty and I talked about it and she wanted me to  be her champion. Since I will be at Pennsic and hopefully Great Western War as well, I will serve as her champion there and Duke Sven will act in my stead the rest of the time. 

I must admit, I have been giddy for three days. I am the Queen of CAID's champion. How cool is that? 

There are 34 days until Pennsic. My next time in armor will be at Riverfest this Sunday. Because I'm playing Hamlet this July (like us on FaceBook--Hamlet Unmasked) it will be my last time in armor till Pennsic.