Monday, October 19, 2009

BAT Practice and Beau Geste

Great practice yesterday. We had some new fighters from Long Island, we had six people in armor, we had the scriptorium going on. I taught a nice beginning fighter class. On top of all that I won the Beau Geste. Lots of fun.

Except for some warmups with Everett, I only fought my fights in the torunament. I was pretty wiped out from Rock Climbing the day before, so I was beat. Also, that plus a now dead sword made some of my shots weak. But I had a good time.

My goal in all my fights was to concentrate on using my reach but not being wedded to it. I especially wanted to keep range on Bill and Everett. In bill's case I took his leg and then simply juked him and killed him. In everett's case I ended up taking his arm and then killing him. I did the same thing to Dougal. My kill of Oscad was classic: he hit my leg, I blocked and cut to his head with a downward stroke, my best kill shot these days.

The other thing I was working on was patience.

Farrod and Gui taught me Uther's pell drill (new to me) where you throw a series of two blow combinations at the six points of the pell, including double strikes, starting with the leg: so you strike leg/leg, leg/ribs, leg/head, leg/off-side head, leg/off-side ribs, leg/off-side leg, and then you proceed to the next point: ribs/leg, ribs/ribs, ribs/head, etc. Great drill. My beginners class we worked on stance, the snap, the two-step striking/waking drill, and the block/strike drills in five and six.

(reminds me, I should get the terminology right on that pell drill: it's 1/1, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 1/3, 1/2, 4/1, 4/4, 4/5, etc)

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