Ow. My elbow hurts.
It got hit awhile back. Maybe at BAT ten days before, maybe at Pennsic, I can't recall, but it got hit. I thought it was healed but it ached all last night. Since I'm currently not allowed anti-inflamatories, and since I didn't put the ice packs back in the freezer last time I used them, it is still achy.
Also, I did not fight that well. But I did fight.
I only fought four opponents, but I had a plan for the evening. I would warm up with a good fighter, I would make sure I fought Omega and Gregor, then I owed Luther (or is it Uther) Crown Prince of Acre a fight. After that if I had anything left I would fight Douglas. Never made it to Douglas, mostly because I chose to wait and make sure I got my fights with Omega and Gregor.
My warmup fight went well. I fought that really good guy in 14th century blue and grey rig, Azure, a Lion Rampant within a tressure fleury or. (at least I think that's it--might be a double tressure). I think he's from Acre as well. It was a great set of fights. He won the first two, then I started wining. He one shotted me with a rising snap on our last fight, which means I was in deep suckage for the evening. My best kill on him was probably my double-pump wrap.
I was working on two things all night. The first was I was trying to maneuver myself into position so that my shield was always between me and his weapon. That meant, instead of going nose to nose like typical SCA fighters I would cheat to shield side and set up toward his weapon. THe other part of that, using my feet to move my shield instead of my arm, went out with the first engagement. Part of that plan was concentrating on defense. I've always been an offensive minded, Bellatrix trained fighter: grab the initiative, attack, and kill him before he can kill you. In a kingdom of counter punchers that has long spelled my doom. So I have been concentrating on patience and defense and it worked well against this guy. I blocked most of his stuff and waited till I could set up shots. It meant my fights were longer, but I felt good about them.
Against Omega I was toast. I did not touch him once. He took my arm, my off leg, and my onside leg at will. He picked up every shot I was aboout to throw well outside of commitment range. When I just defended and kept at range I could stay alive, but that is about all I could do. After awhile I was looking too much for the thrust, which John pointed out. Then I went away from it entirely.
Against Gregor that's what I tried to do, and it mostly worked. I stayed at range and picked up his shots early for the first few bouts. He was killing me when I started to attack, or when I was recovering. Then he started throwing that over the shield flip that Thorsen gets me with whenever I use a heater. The first time he threw it is didn't work. Then he opened up his stance by moving his right foot forward, squaring his shoulders a bit, that improved the angle and he killed me with it. I went exclusively to a sword forward guard and he started timing my shots, to throw it whenever my sword was moving. It was not good. Lateral movement to my right is probably the best defense. The only time I killed Gregor was with a hook/thrust. Troulbe with a money shot is that you can only use it once.
Against Luther I did great. He is an awesome quick fighter but he has some windows. I got him twice with Omega's deep off-side leg shot. I also hit either him or the first guy (at this point I can't remember) with it in the body. I took his leg and got him with Ed's version of the butterfly. Then I took his leg again. I threw a shot at his head and noticed that he was using an a-frame stance that left his body open, so I stepped in and smashed his sword and shield with my shield. As he recovered I stabbed him in the chest. That was a great kill, because I had seen the flaw in his style and immediately capitalized on it.
Both Gregor and Omega said I was not fighting as well as I usually do. For my fights with Gregor I had even taken off my breast plate, because it was restricting my movement and because it was so freaking hot. The heat, by the way, got to me. Plus I only ate 1,000 calories yesterday, *and* I had lifted on Monday and done some intense yoga on Tuesday, so I hadn't recovered. But my timing was way off, so was my targeting, and my elbow ached.
I've been working on a short-stick onside, a good shot to throw from a sword forward guard. It is a good hard shhot and I've killed with it a couple of times now. It is one of those shots that is more like a punch than a swing.
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