I'm getting close to that 100th Crown.
To those of you who read this blog a lot, I'm sorry I haven't been writing in it much. At first it was because I was not fighting as much, taking time off to play Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest. After that it was because I did not feel like writing about my training.
I trained for this crown in much the same way I had the last two. My daily routine includes walking between 8,000 and 12,000 steps most days (my fit bit broke. I use my phone to track steps, which under counts), plus 100 strikes on the pell, 50 push ups and 50 squats. Since I added the pell work last august, I have not missed a day. Once again, I added running to my routine as Crown approached. I ran five times a week in the 6 weeks approaching Crown, except the last one. I did not fight nearly as much as I would like (I never do), but I made practices at Nutley, Iron Bog, Midland Vale and Aedult Swim, plus events in Tourney of the Daffodils, Mudthaw, and Balfar's Challenge. I went to semis in Mudthaw and I won Daffodils, so I was doing ok.
Crown was in Halifax. Every time I've gone to a crown in Halifax, I've had a good time. It's a fantastic city! I highly recommend it. We stayed at the Hearthstone Inn in Hamilton, which was nice, with a Victorian theme and a good pub.
This Crown was great, but I really need to win another of these things. Randal, who's 5 years older than I am, was only one blow away from winning, which is encouraging. I ended up fighting nearly everyone I prepared for: Avaldr, Marcus, Zippy, and Wilhelm. I also fought Mathew McGuyver, Reinhardt, and one other (I cannot remember the name of my second round opponent). There were 22 participants in total. The list was double elimination and rounds were being fought best two out of three. This included the semi-final round, which meant that the fighter out of the winner's list could win fighting only two fights, but the fighter out of the losers list had to win four, and could end up fighting six fights. Yikes!
I thought the format would be hard on me. Most of my rounds went three fights but my endurance was good enough that I really never felt that tired, and certainly no more so than my opponents. Well, maybe I did against Reinhardt. I lost to Avaldr in the third round, and to Prince Wilhelm in the semi-finals. The format actually helped me out, since I lost my first fight twice while going on to win the round.
I was particularly proud of three things. The first was my one win over Avaldr, even though he won the round. He'd beaten me in our first fight, but I killed him with a hook-thrust in the second. Next was my third fight against Reinhardt. He is really good. He fights with a fairly small center grip scutum, and he blocks his legs with a window parry. I killed him with a foot stomp and thrust. I didn't sell it really big. I shrugged my right shoulder, took a half step, stomped my foot and dipped my shoulder, then thrust him in the face. Third was my final fight against Marcus. I had been working on King Brennan's off-side leg shot a lot lately. I threw it at Marcus in our second fight and noticed he picked it up early and cocked the point of his kite over to cover his off-side leg, so in our third fight I faked it by throwing the setup (a cock that resembles a snap to draw the shield up and to the on-side) took a slight step off line to my left, then stepped back to my right and threw a leg wrap.
All my fights were excellent. I had really hard rounds the further I progressed. I never lost my focus. I did not kill myself by getting lazy or silly or playing with my food. I Went to semi finals and lost two straight to Wilhelm. Those were both great fights, a lot of fun. I had been beating Wilhelm in most of our encounters the past three years, and it was interesting to see what he'd done to respond. First, he's lost about 50 pounds. Second, he seemed much more focused and precise. When I tried the set up for the leg stomp it was obvious he was ready, so I never threw it. He got me with a straight body shot in our first fight. After he'd taken my leg in our second fight, I threw the same thing I'd killed him with at Roses in November, coming up high on my knees and then, as he stepped in, sitting down and throwing a body shot--an old William of Houghton technique. He obviously remembered it, because he this time as he stepped in and I threw the shot, he brought his sword forward in a guard to block mine, then he killed me the way I would have, with a top-edge hook and a snap.
So here was the funniest thing coming out of crown. At Balfar's Challenge two weeks before I had spent a lot of time watching Zippy and Avaldr, as they were obviously training very hard. They were the last two knights to leave the field from pickups. I left after somebody hit me in the calf and I decided not pushing the injury was smart. I was fighting with my Crusader pot helm because Cet was doing a repair to my conical. My pot helm is heavy, not very comfortable, is super tall, and has lousy visibility, so I only get so much out of using it (mostly aesthetic pride). Avaldr was using a center grip kite, the first time I'd ever seen him use one. It closed off his biggest window, but was obviously a bit easier to move around. At Crown, Avaldr was back to using his regular strapped kite. Afterward I ran into him and Nomi leaving, and they were carrying his center grip kite shield. I said to him "I spent the last two weeks preparing to fight your center grip because I saw you training with it at Balfar's." He said, "Yeah, that's why I was using it. I figured you were doing the same thing with your other helm." I replied, "I wasn't, but thank's for the compliment!" It's really funny to know that we were indeed scouting each other.
There are 72 days until Pennsic War. My next time in armor will be Sunday at Viking Day in Brooklyn.
MONETIZATION
In an effort to monetize this blog, I'm including this link to a riveted mail shirt:
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