Mudthaw

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

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

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

It was a really good tourney all around.

Western Crown Results

The other day I said Bunny-rounds rule. While in general that is true, it is not true this day :)

Sir Titus won Western Crown on Saturday. He is one of the new breed to West Kingdom big shield fighters, and he beat one of the younger classic bunny-round fighters in the finals, Duke Connor. I was surprised at the outcome, even though Titus winning was the buzz I heard last week. I considered Connor to be a notch above. Good job Titus!

But Titus was fighting for my SCA mom, Baroness Eilis, the woman whom I used to fight for on my forays into the West, after I moved to the East kingdom (now I just fight for my sweetie). Of course I think this is the greatest possible result! If anybody deserves to be a queen it is Mom! Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oww

Last year I obviously had a great year. I had fun at Birka. I finaled in a major tournament, I won a tourney at Pennsic, I went deep into Spring Crown and into June Crown in the West. I did ok in Fall Eastern crown. I fought well in three wars and had a great time. I was in armor a lot. Needless to say I was not banged up all that much.

This year is a bit different. I didn't fight in any tourneys at Estrella because I wanted to take it easy. I've been fighting regularly at BAT practice. And I hurt a bit. I fought at Birka after attending a couple of Nutley practices to warm up. I got really banged up and haven't completely recovered. My shoulder has been sore (like it was two years ago, not like the occasional twinge last year) ever since. It comes and goes but it definitely comes when I fight. My wrist is hurting whenever anybody shakes my hand hard. Yesterday at BAT my shoulder started hurting before I left the house. At practice my trapezium was bugging me after the first few fights. Then I fought Puppy and he hit me in the shoulder with that log he swings. My lovely wonderful girlfriend rubbed tiger balm on my shoulder and I iced it and popped a few motrin, so the pain went down, but for awhile lifting it was not easy. It's ok today. I'm not going to Nutley this week as a result, and I may take two weeks off.

So I am doing my shoulder re-hab exercising: rotation exercises with ten pound dumbells.

Needless to say I failed in my goal to fight everybody at practice. It was a good practice nonetheless. I fought Robert, Gui, Nik, Puppy, and Leo. I had good fights with all of them and a lot of fun.

BAT Practice

The ability to leave your armor at the practice sight is so seductive for those f us who travel by subway. Not having to negotiate ten flights of stairs (the R to the F transfer at 4th Avenue) is so nice!! I brought my armor home with me this week because I might go to Nutley tonight. But leaving it there is so cool.

I took it very easy at practice Sunday. I was going to fight everybody there at tleast three fights. That was my plan. Fat chance. Leo was out of armor before I could get to him, then I decided to get a ride home with Alexandre, so I left early. Fighters in armor included me, Leo, Nikolai, Timur, Oscad, Alexandre, Bill, Puppy, and..... swear there was somebody else..... Oh well. I fught Nik, Timur, Oscad, Bill and Alexandre.

Against Timur I used Bill's 2 x 3 heater. Seductive. Timur couldn't really touch me. The only time he hit me was when I went goofy foot. Of course, I also had no offense, was thinking too much, and was quite frankly bored. But I should probably fight in crown like that a couple of times. I did get him with some straight grill cuts, which I almost never throw but are pretty natural out of that sance.

Nik, Bill, and Oscad I fought using the sword and center-grip. Did pretty well.

Against Alexandre we both fought two sword. I used that pseudo Silver/Liberi crossover technique and it worked well, but he was killing me with a simple sweep/thrust to my shouldes technique. Got me with it two or three times.

This is turning into a really good practice.