Rusted Woodlands

Last night me, Gui, and Oscad went to practice in Rusted Woodlands. This is mostly a teaching practice, not a lot of bashing, which was pretty good, even if it doesn't serve my primary need right now, which is to fight the big boys. But it was very useful and, as Tanaka Says, there's so little teaching going on in the SCA (a complaint for as long as I've been doing this).

I fought with Tanaka and Alberecht, the other two knights there, and I fought Oscad, Seth (a two sword fighter) and Stirling. I still lost my arm at least once or twice, and my leg more often than I should have (if the main reason I switched to alonger shield was to protect my leg, what's the point? If I want to go to a flatter strapped kite I need to get an aluminum one). I did well against every body I fought. Much of the time we spent working on various ways to conceptuaize distance and movement. Tanaka divides range into 4/3/2/1/0. Four being extreme range, three being long range, 2 being close range, etc. (I think he has too many in his list. I'm happy with three) and was discussing, as was Korwyn on his LJ awhile back, attacking into the transitions. He said of me "Val's problem in the East is that he likes to control the range and kill people on transition, and he likes to fight at four and at three but not as 1." I don't think that's true, but it might be. I need to think on that. As we talked about movement and footwork, I realized that witht he new shield I am not moving anymore. I sometimes try Lucan's passing shot, but that's it.

I spent some time training Oscad. We worked on Sagan's step trigger, on Pauls circle in the box, and on Gyrth's tangent attack, and I showed him most of my passing attacks. That was good for me as well.