Ever since I moved to the east kingdom, I've had a big Achilles' heel. Well it existed before, but it wasn't as big an issue. I never dealt well with really big shields. Here, I have to deal with shields that cover people from the bottom of their nose to the middle of their shins sometimes. I've come up with two good things to against them, a high wrap and a hook trust: but those really only work well on fighters who are shorter than me or about my height. Here in the East kingdom I occasionally run into Giants using really long kite shields. At Mud Thaw I got four of them in a row. Guess what? I got my ass kicked.
WORKOUTS
My workouts are picked up. It feels really good. This week I have some very intensive yoga classes, some good gym workouts, plus fighting at Nutley. And of course 50 push-ups every day, and an average of about 10,000 steps.
TECHNIQUE
At Nutley, I was into using a very basic training technique. For my first two sets of fights, I limited myself to only one shot. This was to improve my recognition/reaction and my timing. I've never been a trigger fighter, and I don't have Wulf Sagan or Fabian here to train me, so I decided to just go for this one thing and see how it went.
FIGHTS
My first set of fights was against Arn, he's a really good fighter, as I've mentioned in the past. We thought seven or eight bouts, and all I threw was a straight headshot. Sometimes it was off the shoulder, sometimes it was from a closed high guard, but all I was throwing was basically a simple snap. With this, I managed to kill him three or four times. The last time was great because it included a top edge hook, a classic Bellatrix move. The whole point of the exercise was to work on timing and taking advantage of openings created when he moved or threw a shot. It's a good training exercise.
Next I Fought Avran, who was using sword and shield right-handed. The first bout I only threw the leg shot, and then when I took his leg I threw the straight on-side headshot until I landed it. The rest of our bouts I only through the headshot. He killed me once. For the last fight I went back to the leg shot, and he killed me again.
Then I fought a set against Aquillla, a really tall guy with a heater. Everything was working well, and I even got him with both a hook thrust and a butterfly. (that's an off-side body shot that starts as a rising snap then changes direction, based on Radnor's axiom that the third fake or direction change usually fakes them out).
I tried to get in fights with Stefan, I tried to get in fights with Gregor, I tried to get fights with Jibril, but their dance cards were full. The night was actually very bad for me, and I knew it at the time, because it was really good for my ego. Not a good thing going into a big tournament on Saturday. I needed to get hit a bit.
MUDTHAW
I never wake up until I've been hit a couple of times. That's why I love the pool format. Mudthaw is a traditional double elim tourney, and that was bad for me. I didn't get any warm up at all. Because we took Ivan off to Vigil, I had just finished getting into armor when they were calling the pairings. I was the first fight on my field. I walked out against an older two-sword fighter named Aethelhawk or Aethelred (something) and he came on guard in a fairly wide, square stance. I took my sword to my hip and, at the lay on, I thrust into his neck. Game over. I was still not even awake yet.
My second fight I drew Touri, a tall, strong fighter from VDK with one of those long peaked Lucan style kites. I seem to fight him every Mudthaw. This time we exchanged a couple of blows, then I used almost the same blow I used in the first round, a thrust from my hip, but it came in an arc instead of a straight line. It is essentially the lazy "flaoting punch" shot that Jade uses, and which I've had success with against Brennan. That ended the fight. Again I hadn't broken a sweat.
If you've been following my blog lately, you will have noted that I've been falling back into what I like to describe as my style, the modified high open form that dominated the SCA before lighter swords with low-profile thrusting tips came along. I've been enjoying that fight, and I've won a few times with it. Nonetheless it's been taking me out of my A-Frame defense, which is what I'd been working on last year and which had given me some success. In my third fight I drew Dimitry from Serpentius. He is a huge fighter with a huge peaked kite and a super-long sword with a thrusting tip. I could feel in that fight that my mind was totally gone. I was indecisive. I was trying too hard to stay alive. I was lazy and he almost took my arm as a result. I was mostly using the A-Frame, but I wasn't committed to it. In the A Fram I adopt a slight crouch, where as normally I stand up tall. I don't like crouching against a taller fighter because I'm giving up more height to him. He fights shield leg forward, like Lucan or Darius, so I tried a couple of times to get his leg (which had gotten me killed against Cullyn last Crown). I tried a stutter wrap, but it landed wrong. I was mostly just trying to stay alive. My indecisiveness may have cost me that bout. I think there were at least two times when I could have struck him, but I was too tentative. In the end he threw a truly beautiful shot--a high wavy fake with a nice deep on-side body wrap that hit me right on my kidney belt and I fell over. No loss to cry over, as he went very deep in the tournament and killed a couple more chiv. But I felt very frustrated.
Next I fought Bric James. He is another big fighter with a big VDK kite, but he's not quite as tall as the first two. In the video of this fight you can see that I am still indecisive. I threw a helicopter fake head shot that got into his face but without enough power. I tried it again, which is odd because that's two molinee shots in a row, which I have tried to move away from. The second time he was ready for it. Finally, I manged to kill him with a stutter wrap. That was a fight I felt in control of.
(for some reason, videos imbedded into my blog never frame properly, but if you click the link at the top of the fram it will take you to YouTube and you can get a much better view).
Then I fought a fighter named Wee Collin. You can imagine how he is built. It was more or less the same thing, except he was using a huge center-grip kite. In that bout, once again, I am clearly indecisive. I felt I was fighting better, controlling range and tempo, but I was wrong. As you can see in the video, I was not committing to a stance. In the video you can see that I go from the high guard to the a frame and back, but when I go back into the High I DON'T PUT MY SHIELD BACK INTO THE HIGH-GUARD POSITION. I didn't realize that till the third time I watched the video. I thought I'd thrown that last blow from the a-frame, but I didn't. My left side was fighting A Frame but my right side was in a high open form. When I threw that snap (a pretty weak one, actually) I also blocked for an anticipated snap from him, but Collin had a good counter to it--more or less the same one Cullyn used against me at Crown in Canada. Taking advantage of the fact that I set up with my shield covering the left side of my head, he brought his sword straight down the slot and nailed me. This was TERRIBLE technique on my part. If I'd thrown a flatter snap and stayed in the high guard he'd have no blow. I'f I'd thrown the shot from the A frame I'd have likely been covered with my basket hilt. AWFUL!! Go to tape:
My poor performance can be attributed to a lot of things--me still getting used to the A Frame defense, the winter lay-off, meeting a type of guy that always gives me trouble, but mostly it was a head thing. I was trying too much to stay alive. I was indecisive. I was switching defenses. I was throwing pretty weak blows. Afterward, when I went and fought pick ups, I was fighting much better because I wasn't trying to stay alive. I killed somebody with that back-edge torque shot for the first time in my life. I fought Master Carl (long peaked kite but shorter than me) and I killed him with timing shots, a hook thrust, a butterfly, and a stutter wrap--pretty much my whole arsenal. Really, I had a great time, it was as always a huge, fun list. I did not fight up to my usual standards, and there is no way I will contend in Crown if I fight like this in a month, but I had a bit of an epiphany regarding my fighting. I felt I'd found a good combination of offense and defense, and an aggression I was certainly lacking earlier in the day. I need to work it out at practice this week.
All told, I did not live up to my personal standards.
As a sage once said, half of this game is 50% mental.
And buy duct tape!
It is 34 days until Crown Tourney. My next time in armor will be this Wednesday at Nutley.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Nutley Practice 3/11/15
CLICK THE LINK TO THE RIGHT, BUY DUCT TAPE!
It's good to get out and to hit and be hit. It's what we do. In the SCA we literally earn our stripes. Last night I earned three good ones on my thighs, one across my forearm, and--the worst/best one--a deep stripe across my left calf that, through my Demi-cuise, gave me a wicked Charlie horse, one that will make walking up that hill to CCNY more annoying than ever.
It's good to get out and to hit and be hit. It's what we do. In the SCA we literally earn our stripes. Last night I earned three good ones on my thighs, one across my forearm, and--the worst/best one--a deep stripe across my left calf that, through my Demi-cuise, gave me a wicked Charlie horse, one that will make walking up that hill to CCNY more annoying than ever.
WORKOUTS
Have been the same. Push ups and walking. This was my third time in armor over the last three weeks and, already, I can feel my wind improving and my sword and shield endurance returning. What is needed is to start lifting the kettle bell and swinging the Indian clubs regularly, since pell work in a New York apartment is difficult.
TECHNIQUE
I came into practice with a plan: to work on watching the fight--improve my vision. This is something Wulf Sagan Von Ostense talks about, how you have to see a fight clearly before you react to it. The point of it is to observe the openings created when an attach is made, so you can exploit them. The problem with this is that you get hit a lot. That plan went out the window right away. I did, however, concentrate on edge work, and used my thrusts sparingly.
FIGHTING
I only fought four opponents: Arn, Breeder, Vasilly, and Sir Jan Janovitch.
Arn is a fast rising unbelted fighter with great speed, and he has developed a strong offense. He is currently using a center grip pavise that is about 12" x 27" (that's a guess). He moves it really well and fills in the gaps created when he moves it with sword blocks, as you do. Because I was working on edge work I made this fight harder than it needed to be. As is usual with long thin shields, it opens a lot of windows for thrusts, especially when he uses a really deep leg block. I only threw four thrusts, but three of them killed him.
Next I fought Breeder, whom I must stop obsessing over. He is one of the five or six guys that, while I can occasionally beat them, I am unable to crack in a tourney where it really counts. The only time I've beaten Breeder is in Birka. However, I started out intending not to try to beat him. I set up and rotated through all of my standard leftie set-ups to see what he would do. I wanted to see his opening technique--his first-fastest shot. I began in the A Frame for two fights, and he killed me with two-shot combinations right away. I was surprised at that, because I was set up in a strong defensive position. He uses a rainbow offside for his second shot, (I need to figure out if it is a back-edge hit, probably, in which case I think it would be the blow Duke Anton from Atlantia used to throw), and that dropped well over the top of my shield, and it was lightning fast. I had similar results setting up in a classic Bellatrix (though I made a mistake with that--the same one I was making against Zack on Sunday), a high guard a-la Phillip Harlech of Exeter, Gui's cross guard style--wherein my shield is pushed all the way over to the left and my off-side head is guarded by a sword placed way over to the right, my boxer stance, and a classic "ox" guard, with the sword held high at a downward angle and the tip threatening his face. I've had the best success against Breeder with the boxer and the ox (at least since I switched to this heater shield: my best success against him in total was using Gui's ward with a center-grip kite shield). This is my old bad habit of not fighting my own style and trying to copy others, but in this case it was more for information sake than trying to win fights. Some of our fights went longer, some were fast. In all of them I was trying to see what he would do. Where he used the same one-two combo he had dusted me with when I was in the A-frame, but he wasn't married to it. The thing he seemed to keep coming back to was a very good on-side head followed by a thrust, relying on the fact that his opponents are usually staying out on him. I closed once and had some success. I did take his leg by stepping wide to throw a short wrap, but he killed me. The only time I killed him was on my knees. He was over blocking a lot, and I hit him with an off-side head has he stepped in for a deep wrap, which I managed to block as I threw my blow. My boxer was not very effective at all the one or two bouts I used it in. He said that, like Rangaldr (who is the main source for that technique) I was squatting to much, and it was causing me to square up. A couple of times, I stepped wide to go for short wraps and he nailed my left leg. It just doesn't work very well with him. I end up to square and he nails me.
Vasilly fights like a bull. He's stocky and incredibly strong, and he uses a short heavy sword. He wants to rush in and cream you, and he hits very hard. I got him with a couple of shots as he was coming in, once a stutter wrap. Backing out, I was able to get him to expose his legs a lot. His defense is tight when he's on his knees, so I ended up getting frustrated with edge work and just using a thrust to either kill him or set him up. Big problem with these fights was he hit me low four times, including once in the calf that, through my demi-cuise, gave me a charlie horse that is killing me right now.
The last person I fought was Jan Janovitc. At some point in my fight with Vasilly, my nice mandrake thrusting tip tore off the end of my sword, so I was forced to fight without one. Jan fights a very western-influenced style, so I kind of fell into old patterns, and I did very well. My sword was too short for a lot of my techniques and I ended up just missing or hitting just with the tip on blows that in the old days would have worked. As always, I was bailing out of my off-side leg shot and pulling it, and I landed a beautiful slot-body shot that he did not feel much of at all: but I was having a lot of fun fighting my own style, high semi-open form with a light sword and only edge work. Jan doesn't have the one shot that really destroys me in that style, because he starts with his sword too far back to throw it (it has to start from in front and preferably from an A frame--which, since so many people around here do use an A-frame, I've had to abandon the way I grew up fighting). I enjoyed fighting a style that I could vary open/closed, long/short, high/low, throw complex combinations, big fakes, and vary my timing with. It was fun with both of us fighting so that most of our blows followed Radnor's axiom of starting from behind the head and decide what to target as your hand gets in front of your head. Probably my best fight of this pass was our last, when I managed to come in close, tie him up, step out and take his leg along the way and, then, after lots of different attempts to break him down (and lots of catching myself thinking about a thrust, stepping out, and having to remember what I used to do without a thrusting tip), kill him the way I killed Radnor in practice back in 94 or so (the time I realized that I could actually beat him with intention and not just luck), by throwing a flurry of blows that finished with a top-edge hook and an on-side head shot.
As an added bonus, here is video shot by Tina Degenhart, not from Nutley but from Sunday in Iron Bog. No sound. My fights with Sir Mord start at 6:07. My fights with Zack start at about 9:06. You can see clearly where he hits me in the cup. I think in that last fight, where I was just trying to be super aggressive, he kills me three times before I can say "good." In these videos I look slow, my targeting is way off, and I wonder why I keep doing this stuff.
It is 51 days until Crown Tourney. My next time in armor will be most likely be at Wantagh practice a week from today.
Next I fought Breeder, whom I must stop obsessing over. He is one of the five or six guys that, while I can occasionally beat them, I am unable to crack in a tourney where it really counts. The only time I've beaten Breeder is in Birka. However, I started out intending not to try to beat him. I set up and rotated through all of my standard leftie set-ups to see what he would do. I wanted to see his opening technique--his first-fastest shot. I began in the A Frame for two fights, and he killed me with two-shot combinations right away. I was surprised at that, because I was set up in a strong defensive position. He uses a rainbow offside for his second shot, (I need to figure out if it is a back-edge hit, probably, in which case I think it would be the blow Duke Anton from Atlantia used to throw), and that dropped well over the top of my shield, and it was lightning fast. I had similar results setting up in a classic Bellatrix (though I made a mistake with that--the same one I was making against Zack on Sunday), a high guard a-la Phillip Harlech of Exeter, Gui's cross guard style--wherein my shield is pushed all the way over to the left and my off-side head is guarded by a sword placed way over to the right, my boxer stance, and a classic "ox" guard, with the sword held high at a downward angle and the tip threatening his face. I've had the best success against Breeder with the boxer and the ox (at least since I switched to this heater shield: my best success against him in total was using Gui's ward with a center-grip kite shield). This is my old bad habit of not fighting my own style and trying to copy others, but in this case it was more for information sake than trying to win fights. Some of our fights went longer, some were fast. In all of them I was trying to see what he would do. Where he used the same one-two combo he had dusted me with when I was in the A-frame, but he wasn't married to it. The thing he seemed to keep coming back to was a very good on-side head followed by a thrust, relying on the fact that his opponents are usually staying out on him. I closed once and had some success. I did take his leg by stepping wide to throw a short wrap, but he killed me. The only time I killed him was on my knees. He was over blocking a lot, and I hit him with an off-side head has he stepped in for a deep wrap, which I managed to block as I threw my blow. My boxer was not very effective at all the one or two bouts I used it in. He said that, like Rangaldr (who is the main source for that technique) I was squatting to much, and it was causing me to square up. A couple of times, I stepped wide to go for short wraps and he nailed my left leg. It just doesn't work very well with him. I end up to square and he nails me.
Vasilly fights like a bull. He's stocky and incredibly strong, and he uses a short heavy sword. He wants to rush in and cream you, and he hits very hard. I got him with a couple of shots as he was coming in, once a stutter wrap. Backing out, I was able to get him to expose his legs a lot. His defense is tight when he's on his knees, so I ended up getting frustrated with edge work and just using a thrust to either kill him or set him up. Big problem with these fights was he hit me low four times, including once in the calf that, through my demi-cuise, gave me a charlie horse that is killing me right now.
The last person I fought was Jan Janovitc. At some point in my fight with Vasilly, my nice mandrake thrusting tip tore off the end of my sword, so I was forced to fight without one. Jan fights a very western-influenced style, so I kind of fell into old patterns, and I did very well. My sword was too short for a lot of my techniques and I ended up just missing or hitting just with the tip on blows that in the old days would have worked. As always, I was bailing out of my off-side leg shot and pulling it, and I landed a beautiful slot-body shot that he did not feel much of at all: but I was having a lot of fun fighting my own style, high semi-open form with a light sword and only edge work. Jan doesn't have the one shot that really destroys me in that style, because he starts with his sword too far back to throw it (it has to start from in front and preferably from an A frame--which, since so many people around here do use an A-frame, I've had to abandon the way I grew up fighting). I enjoyed fighting a style that I could vary open/closed, long/short, high/low, throw complex combinations, big fakes, and vary my timing with. It was fun with both of us fighting so that most of our blows followed Radnor's axiom of starting from behind the head and decide what to target as your hand gets in front of your head. Probably my best fight of this pass was our last, when I managed to come in close, tie him up, step out and take his leg along the way and, then, after lots of different attempts to break him down (and lots of catching myself thinking about a thrust, stepping out, and having to remember what I used to do without a thrusting tip), kill him the way I killed Radnor in practice back in 94 or so (the time I realized that I could actually beat him with intention and not just luck), by throwing a flurry of blows that finished with a top-edge hook and an on-side head shot.
As an added bonus, here is video shot by Tina Degenhart, not from Nutley but from Sunday in Iron Bog. No sound. My fights with Sir Mord start at 6:07. My fights with Zack start at about 9:06. You can see clearly where he hits me in the cup. I think in that last fight, where I was just trying to be super aggressive, he kills me three times before I can say "good." In these videos I look slow, my targeting is way off, and I wonder why I keep doing this stuff.
It is 51 days until Crown Tourney. My next time in armor will be most likely be at Wantagh practice a week from today.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Iron bog fighter practice March 8, 2015
Okay, so two hours each way is a long time to drive just to fight four people. But I had a great time and Iron Bog today, and I got a lot done. There was a great deal of teaching involved for me today. I taught a couple of guys how to properly throw a snap wrap, I gave a 20 minute lesson on footwork that really primed my own for the rest of the day, and we did a lot of work with Zack on how to throw a J-hook and a tight wrap. Plus, it was just a really nice day!
WORKOUTS
workouts amounted to the same thing for the last two weeks that they have amounted to for most of the last three months. There were a couple of yoga classes, an average of 11,000 steps today walking, and 50 push-ups every day. I do need to start doing more intense workouts.
TECHNIQUE
Doing a 20 minute footwork drill with one of the unbelted fighters prompted me to start thinking about footwork and some combined techniques and that I haven't used in a while. One of these was an off-line passing step to the right. This is accompanied by a brief shield press. The purpose of the press is not just to freeze the shield but also to provide resistance to the other fighter so that he keeps his momentum moving forward. This is a really strong technique.I decided to work on all of my passing shots and my off-line attacks and retreats this practice. It was pretty effective.
I conceive of footwork as an eight pointed star, not where the center of the star is at the center of mass of the fighter, but where the center of the star is under the toe of the fighters lead foot. Every point of the star is a place to step two and a different technique. Are you also use The Oldcastle technique of advancing using increasing steps, and then passing so that you intersect your opponents are going to tack on a tangent. And Bellatrix is circle in the box.look it up. The star conception allows me to move in every direction that I need to move with the set distance for each of my steps. I can pass or shuffle back-and-forth in a straight line right and left on a horizontal line I can increase and decrease on a diagonal line and I can pass forward or back on to the other points of the star. The goal as with all footwork, is threefold: first defense by waiting shots or moving to where you were shield or sword will intercept them; the second opening up angles of attack by moving off line; the third is, as Fiore do Liberia puts it, to gain the place so that you are squared to your opponent and can piss down his leg. Once you're there you have won the fight. I managed to gain the place several times today.
FIGHTING
I only fought four opponents, Gunar, Mord, Zack, and Stirling. Although I lost at least one fight to each of them, I pretty much dominated, controlled all of the fights, and was doing really good work. The toughest of my opponents was easily Zack but I had some advantages that I used.
Gunar normally uses a long center grip tight, but he had switched for his fight with me to a 32 inch heater shield. This is not too short for his body, as he's several inches shorter than myself. However, I was able to use misdirection to hit him. I used to the shield press and passing technique that I described above against him and it worked perfectly, I also usedLucky's passing step, where you throw a snap to the head and, assuming it is blocked, pass with your right foot off-line to the left so you're actually turning your shoulder towards your opponent but your sword is cocked up by your head to defend yourself then you stop around squaring up and throwing an offside headshot it works great against lefties good against righties. I took his leg with Martin the Temprate's Hidden leg shot, and with an upsilon, and with the double strike. I also got him with both Radnor's and Gendy's butterfly techniques.
Sir Mord was fighting really aggressively, but he was too focused on my leg. He did knowledged that and said it was what he was trying to do, but it made hitting him in the head too easy. I did use the slide to the left foot work technique to get over the top of his kite shield once. That was very useful.
Zack thinks I totally had his number, but that's just not true. He hits so hard and is so fast and has such interesting awkward moves, that it's really a chore to fight him. My biggest problem was that I am focusing too much I'm getting ready to fight John the breeder the next time I see him, and Zack and John are two very different fighters. They may both be strong fast lefties, but they fight totally different styles. I did concentrate on using my boxer/A-frame style, but I also went away from it. My worst problem was getting power into my offside head shots after he had taken my leg I think I landed at least three of those and they were clearly not good. His problem was that he was throwing long deep wrap shots, that were very easy to pick up just from his shoulder movements. I also made a total rookie mistake in our last fight I decided to jump in and press him really hard to begin with, then I backed out and was fighting a sore back kind of Western/Belatrix style. Problem was, my feet were in the wrong position to do that against a left-handed fighter and my shield was way off to my left side he took good advantage of this.
Then I thought Sterling, who has a very frustrating habit of leaning out of the way when I throw my hook thrust shot. We only fought three fights. I killed him with that outside thrust that comes from the hip over the top of his shield -- the very sneaky one that Duke Jade is so good at. He killed me by taking my leg and then hitting me in the head, and then we had a nice long fighting which we both lost our legs and eventually I killed him with an off side head shot. That was my best kill of the day, because I used to really advanced Radnor of Guildemar technique to get it. I changed my interior timing, by changing the pattern of my breathing by holding my breath for a split second and then firing on the exhalation. I hit him in a transition window, just the way it's supposed to work.
Hopefully there will be some video up soon.
There are 55 days until crown tournament. My next time in armor will hopefully be at Nutley this Wednesday.
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