Having established my training goals, which I was supposed
to begin enxt week, I kind of got a jump on them, which feels pretty good. I am
still missing Pennsic a lot, but my body has recovered and is now ready for the
increased workload I’m going to put on it. I still need to drag my pell out,
however.
REHAB
My rehab is going fine. I have kind of reached an
equilibrium. I do it regularly but I miss days now and then. My elbow feels
good at rest. My Achiles has been very good recently, but I am feeling the increased
workload from cycling (see below). My shoulder is the same as always—use it for
awhile and it will hurt, but a lot more if I skip my rehab.
WORKOUTS
I was resting my body. All I did this past week was ride my
bicycle and go on a couple of walks. I shot sporting clays on Thursday, which
is a pretty good workout. The walk is long, it was hot, it takes 2 hours to go
2.5 miles, you are carrying a shotgun the whole time and your shoulder takes a
pounding. Counting that walk, with the rest of it on my bicycle, I logged just
over 50 miles last week, which I did not think I would do.
TECHNIQUE
The technique I am working on right now is Duke Paul’s
Single Hip Return. (http://www.bellatrix.org/school/appendix_h.htm).
I am still working on a few things. In the videos on this page he does not do
the pulling down motion of the start of the return that he has been teaching. I need to talk
to him about this. I was teaching this technique this weekend (see below) and,
while what I was doing will work and was how Paul had been demonstrating the
technique recently, I want to make sure I am teaching it correctly (I know what
I am teaching will work for me). Basically, it is a variation of the standard
second blow off an onside blow which, instead of driving the sword-side hip
forward gets its power form pulling the sword side hip back. Paul’s variation
is in increasing the velocity of the sword by shortening the arc that it
describes.
FIGHTING
An Dubaghin was holding their “arrows and ales ” event at the
Unitarian Church in Huntington on Saturday. Gui has been going out there
recently to establish a rapport with both the barony and with the two large
fighting units out there, Three Skulls and Sutr’s Brood, neither of which have
knights in them. Saturday I went with him. We hung out most of the day and then
got into armor around 2:30 or 3:00. I was running the class. I did not get a
whole lot of fighting in, but this was not about me it was about the unbelted
fighters out there, so the little bit of helmet time was welcome.
The post-Pennsic gremlins were in full force. I had
unpacked, washed, and then re-packed my armor into a different bag. Not only
did I forget my belt but I forgot my shield. I borrowed a belt.
We started with
free-sparing. I used to fight with just a five-inch rondel as a shield—not even
really a buckler— and I had my greatsword with me, so the lack of shield didn’t
bother me, but I was supposed to be teaching sword and shield. I went out and
warmed up with Stick, a big strong leftie from Three Skulls, just using my
Torvaldr gauntlet for a shield. That was fun! Later I borrowed a shield and had
a set of fights with Antonius.
After that I lined them up in two ranks, both the armored and the unarmored students, and we did some
technique instruction. I taught them three foundational Bellatrix techniques—the snap
(which none of them had ever had explained to them) the tear-drop return and
the single hip return. I went over them in detail, watched each of them closely
as they performed the techniques, and gave them some pointers. Then I paired
them off so they could do them in slow-work with an opponent.
After that they put helmets on and did armored drills. There
were four fighters in armor at that point. I had each of them fight each of the
others as though it were a crown final. Then two more fighters joined us. I had
each fighter hold the field as a defender using Paul’s offense/defense drill,
in which the patient agent (defender) is given three blows to throw (in this
case on-side head, off-side head, and on-side leg) while the agent (attacker)
is told to keep up a hard continuous attack. The encounter is over when the
patient agent has thrown his three blows. They really liked this drill.
After that they broke up for some free sparing. Because
there were so many lefties, and they were not that experienced, they were
having real trouble finding areas to attack and they were getting sloppy. I put
on my helmet and a left handed shield to teach them about hooks and magic
buttons.
The baroness was so happy that two knights had come out to the island to train her
fighters that she called us into court to thank us and gave us some bruise
balm. (Long Island is one of the most isolated parts of the kingdom, believe it
or not, because NOBODY wants to have to drive through New York City to get
there).
So all in all a good week. I actually got some helmet time
and I logged 50 miles. I am already ahead of the game.
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