Bonus Post! October Crown, 1992!

BONUS POST

With Crown coming up in two days, and me winding down my training, I decided to post on some other things.

TRAINING:
I have done 15,000 steps a day for the last three days. That includes a run I took part in at school. It was supposed to be the BMCC 5K, but there was construction in Hudson Park where the run takes place, so it became the BMCC 3.8 K. I ran it in 22:20, which is a pace of 9:22, better than my usual. I also have done 50 push ups every day, and some yoga and indian clubs.

OLD TIMEY VIDEOS!

So I wanted to put these on YouTube so I cold embed them, but I couldn't' get them to convert properly. Michael Doyle, AKA Eirik Ulfson, has lately been posting some photos and even a couple of videos of the West Kingdom in the late 1980s and early 90s to FaceBook. Among them are these two gems.

This first:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sne1qdlclxa9p9n/1991-10%20October%20Crown%20Kylson%20vs.%20Valgard.mpg?dl=0

Is one of the most memorable fights I've ever had. This is me versus Vsc, Sir Kylson Skyefire at October Crown in 1991.

One of the things I remember most about this crown was in the line up before the lists. I was standing in the knight's line with Kylson, Radnor, and (I think it was) Michael Hugh Stuarts. At 6'3" I was the shortest one of us four. An unbelted fighter walked up to us, looked at the line, and said "man! You guys are huge! I wouldn't want to fight any of you!" I said to him "Oh, you don't need to worry about us. If I were you I'd worry about him," and I stepped aside to reveal Viscount Sir Edward of South Haven. Edward was fairly short--a full head shorter than any of us. He was also a knight before any of us. He had great big Popeye arms and one of the fastest off-side head shots I'd ever seen.  He sort of looked up at us, his hands folded in front of him, and smiled as if to say "who, me?" Radnor, who hadn't noticed that he was there, looked down to his right and said "What? Oh wow! Yeah!" then he leaned forward and said quietly with a little smile "he'll do stuff to you none of us even remember how to do." The poor unbelted fighter went away very confused.

Kylson was one of the fighters who truly intimidated me. He was huge--I'm 6'3" and he towered over me. He fought with two big heavy swords and I absolutely did NOT want to be hit by him.

Watching this video is mind bending for so many reasons. I remember a lot of things about this fight. I remember that I lost my leg. I remember him asking about the shot that hit me in the hip. I remember dying. I DON'T remember switching to a thrusting ax after we were both legged. I didn't even own a thrusting ax at that time. I hate thrusting axes. I know why I did it: impact weapons are often good against florentine fighters because they get indie their blocks. This is how I won crown a few years later. But against Kylson it was just plain stupid.  I was doing much better with the sword. The hip shot that I took, which he asked me about, looks from this angle like it hit me in the ribs, but in fact he was rolling it up and it hit my hip first. I do not at all remember that head shot that I don't take right at the end. In fact, I don't remember dying in this fight, though I remember that I lost. The head shot from Kylson's left hand hits me on the outside of the head. It looks like it could have been good. It was clean. If it was in the face I definitely should ahve taken it. It might be, I can't tell. We talk about it. It looks like it glanced. Regardless, 23 years later, I am looking at that and saying "should I have taken that?" The blow I die to doesn't look as good, but it definitely hits better, and it stops instead of glancing down.

This second video, however, it the prize.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qlg0dnd91gg6bpo/1991-10%20October%20Crown%20Finals.mpg?dl=0

This is the final round from that tournament. It is probably the most memorable SCA finals and series of fights hat I have seen in 36 years. It shows two of my favorite fighters--two of the best ever--at the absolute hight of their abilities. Kylson died about ten or eleven years ago. He was one of the best fighters I've ever known who never won crown. He lived up in Alaska and did not make it down to Crown tourneys in California more than three or four times. The first time he came down he ran into Jade in the finals. The second time (this one) he ran into Radnor in the finals. To travel all that way to fight the two best fighters in the kingdom, and arguably the SCA at that time, was probably pretty frustrating. That crown against Jade was the first tourney Kylson had ever fought in that he had not won. That's how good he was.  This fight is one that I think about and describe all the time. I've written about it in this blog. Although the video doesn't show the end (Radnor won) it shows the two biggest moments.

The first is that first fight where Radnor one-shots Kylson. Kylson had this habit of posing with his blades wide going into a fight. You can see it in his fight against me. It was dramatic and intimidating and it gets him killed. We all thought we could take advantage of it, but nobody could until Radnor drew him. He did not count on Radnor's timing or his reach. My memory of this fight has always been that Radnor passed on his right, took a lunging step forward, and hit Kylson in the face, but that's not what the video shows. It shows Radnor closing range, first with a passing step (radnor believes in Musashi's dictum of "attitude without attitude"), and a gathering step, and then throwing a shot as Kylson's swords get wide, right at theier widest point and right at end of Radnor's range, but the kicker is that he leans forward a bit by coming off his back foot as he throws the blow. This is why it lands. Radnor used to talk about transition windows, striking at that moment when a fighter's mine had shuffled off of defense and onto either movement or offense, and this is an example. He catches Kylson at that moment where is mind is on his swords and not Radnor's. It's also an example how perfect Radnor's range perception is. I feel like kow-towing and saying "We're not worthy!"

The second moment is when Kylson beats Radnor in the second fight. Radnor has a great record--he won every tournament he entered for a period of 20 years. He rarely ever lost a fight, so to see him go down was shocking. Jade turned to me and said that was the first time he'd seen it.  I can recall Radnor in that 20 year period losing once to Paul, once to Philip Harlech, once to Thomas the Incomplete, and this time to Kylson.

Watching these two videos is an interesting look at what Western fighting used to be in the 80s and 90s before big shields, sword-forward guards, and low-profile thrusting tips. I liked this style of fighting a lot. It was prettier, more fluid, and more fun in some ways than how we tend to fight now.

BIG TIME ENTREATY! We are producing a production of Arsenic and Old Lace this summer in NYC, and we are crowd funding it on Hatchfund. Please visit our site, watch the video, and donate. It's tax exempt, and you'll be supporting independent theatre in New York City! http://www.hatchfund.org/project/arsenic_and_old_lace

It is two days until Crown Tourney. The next time I will be in armor will be at Crown.

Last practice before crown.

This weekend is East Kingdom Crown Tourney. It is also the Pacquaio vs. Mayweather fight. Pacquio’s announced schedule includes one more sparing match, today (Monday) and then a drive to Las Vegas form LA. He won’t be training right up until Friday or Thursday night. He is going to wind his training down. Boxers do this to recover, to heal any small injuries, and to be rested by the time of the fight.

I haven’t been training for this crown. I took most of the winter off, suffered an injury in January, and have been pretty slow to get back in. I am as rusty as I can recall ever being. I’ve got my timing back, but I’m still making silly mistakes based on rust and lost muscle memory. But I’m still done training. I won’t fight at any of the practices this week. I did get down to Iron Bog yesterday, though. I didn’t think I would be there, but yesterday morning I got a text from Gui asking if I wanted to go down with him. I really needed it.

WORKOUTS

Have been limited to yoga, bike rides, and push ups. This week I will run a 5k on Wednesday and to Indian club work twice, plus pushups. I’m still averaging 10,000 steps a day walking.

TECHNIQUE

This practice was alla bout edge work. I did not throw a single thrust the entire day. Other than that I was working on everything.

FIGHTS

I fought four people. One guy with a Viking name, whom I spent a lot of time working with to warm up; Mord, Gui, and Sterling. That was plenty of fight. Ron was there to coach me against Gui and Sterling, which I needed. I need to repair my regular legs, so I was wearing my gamboised cuisses, which meant a lot of pain a couple of times. 

I approached this practice like a training session. I got together with an unbelted heater fighter who wanted to learn some stuff. I ran him through several warmups and drills. We did several minutes of  slow work, concentrating on form and vision. Then we did the two sabre parry drills (parry 5 and parry 6—the hanging parry and the window parry). After a short rest we did offense/defense drills. In the first one we did a drill where the agent could attack all he wanted, while the patient agent only had one blow—an on-side snap. We fought this for a bit over a minute on each side. After that we did Paul’s offense/defense drill, where the agent has all attacks and the patient agent has three blows, a snap, and off side and a leg shot, and the exercise is over when the patient agent has thrown each of those blows once. This is always a great way to start.

After that I fought Mord. We fought three fights, and I won two out of three. The one he won I threw a blow and stepped forward on the right into his counter. I don’t know if he planed that, reacted to me, or just got lucky. I’ve been dropping my shield on my recoveries, and this was the main thing I was trying to concentrate on. A couple of my wraps lacked power.

Then I fought GUi. I fought him really well. I took his leg twice. He won all three of our fights, but not easily. I hit him twice without power – once a cut to the belly, once on the leg – because I wasn’t powering through the shots. I was defending my leg really well against him, which is tough for me.

After that I fought Sterling. He took my arm because I was hanging it out. I took his leg twice and I killed him twice. The trouble I was having was taking advantage of his ducking and burying my wrap shot. I hit him once with the stutter warp with no effect.

In all of my fights, if I had used my thrusting tip, I would have done better than I did.

Ron confirmed that I was dropping my shield too much, and getting tunnel vision in my fights with Gui. He suggested a fake that forces Sterling to duck and then a hammer blow. He also said that I was ignoring Sterling’s off-side hip and body, which were open, and he was correct. I didn’t think once about throwing there.

This was a great tune-up practice for Crown.

It is five days until Crown Tourney. My next time in armor will be at Crown. 

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Arsenic and Old Lace: WELCOME TO ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (or "The Spirit of Brooklyn"). 
Last year I produced a successful production of Hamlet, and financed it through Hatchfund. Along the way, Hanna Edwards joined as co-producer, and Craig Hutchison came on board as director. Afterward, we were casting around for something else to do, and Hanna had the idea of doing something tangential to Hamlet (we even thought of founding something called "The Hamlet Tangential Theatre Company"). One thing we discussed was doing a 20th Century American comedy, since it was about as far away from Renaissa...

A Very Late Nutley Post, regarding 4/1

So it's been two weeks since I was in armor, at Nutley Practice on April Fools Day. I had foolishly thought that I would practice at least twice during spring break. Of course, I was wrong!

WORKOUTS
I have been working out regularly, though. I've don'e pushups every day and since March 29 I've logged 75 miles walking, running, and biking (that includes a 12.3 mile bike ride last Sunday). I've also been using my indian clubs to rehab my shoulder.

TECHNIQUE
So I decided that I was going to carry my epiphany from Mudthaw forward. Since I am using a tip heavy sword at the moment, that is what's drawing me into more of a stand-up Western style. That style gets me beat when I fight the upper echelon fighters here in the southern region, so I've tried to move out of it. I'm working on keeping my right hand up more in my a frame, instead of in a lower, boxer-style guard.

But the bigger thing is that I'm trying to be slightly more aggressive. That was what was winning me a lot of my pickup fights at Mudthaw. I may have carried the defensive boxer fight as far as I can.  I won a lot of fights last year by just waiting people out, but I'm trying to push the issue a bit more now. That caused me some big problems with the top fighters (see below), but won me fights agaisnt every body else.

FIGHTING
Honestly, and I'm sorry, but I only have a clear view of two of my fights that night, against Stephan and against Brennan, and those I remember primarily for my mistakes. The unbelted fighters I fought, I don't remember those fights as clearly. I's been two weeks, so cut me some slack.

I jumped in and fought Stephan right away. My usual take away from a fight with Stephan is that if I can hit him once I've had a major accomplishment.  I was aggressive, I pressed the issue, I got my ass kicked. I realized after the third time that I was making a rookie mistake and dropping my shield on rebounds. That is Stephan's meat--he is a counter-punching fighter who triggers off either hand or shield movement, and he was creaming me. After I adjusted for that I had some good fights, in one of which I took his leg. I thought Ah ha! Now I have a chance. I decided that I would close with him like Horic, Stephan's knight, who I ahd been working with a bit on my close game. I struck an off side, which he blocked, and jumped in. Horic will move in close and go either toes-to-knees with a legged fighter, or move off line to his left just a bit, and launch a series of hard fast attacks, several of them with the back edge but to the front of the helmet (a wrist breaker or torque shot). I didn't get that chance. As soon as my toes landed, Stephan pushed off on his un-struck leg, leaned deeply to his left, and hit me with a rib shot I am still feeling thirteen days later. I also noticed that Stephan, in his A Frame, fights with his sword edge up, not forward, so his wrist is cocked back slightly. I'm starting to try this to see what the advantages are. So far it appears to allow for a little more snap on the onside  head shots. I think it's because it gives it a slightly better angle when it lands.

My fights with Brennan were better, in that I actually won a few of them. But in trying to fight in close with him and be aggressive, I was losing my leg a lot. I was also not getting the kind of short, quick shots I needed to in close like that because of the balance on my sword.  

It is 18 days until Crown Tourney. My next time in armor will be tomorrow night at Nutley.