Thursday, September 20, 2018

Ducal Challenge and Roses

I've had a lot of good fighting recently, but I feel I've taken a step back. I'm not as crisp as I've felt recently. My endurance is ok, but I feel a bit sluggish.

Ducal Challenge was wonderful, mostly because Hanse flew out from the West to fight. He won, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was he was in my pool. I double killed with him, a really nice face thrust after taking his leg, but he got me with a nasty shot to my left nipple at the same time (ouch!). Later I fought him some pickups and killed him at least twice, both times with thrusts (the best was with the foot-stomp thrust I used in Crown). In my pool I won all my fights but Ionis and Hanse. That included beating Ryo. I lost knock out rounds to Lou and Douglas. Not bad, but not as good as I should have done.

Hanse also got me clobbered at Roses. I LOVE the Roses tourney. Teams of 5 match up. You fight three fights against one opponent (unless your team is short, in which case you can fight extras), then record them. Points are given for wins, losses, and double kills. By my count I fought 21 fights total. I lost two and won one against the prince, with bucklers. I was even--win, loss, double kill--with Kettle (this was when I got clobbered. I set up in Hanse's high/weak/open guard and Kettle counterpunched me hard, when I was wide open). I beat Sir Willem 2-1, which is pretty good, as he is a really tough lefty with a big kite shield. I also beat Baron Joseph, Euric, Durkin, and... and.... never got that last guys name. My off side body shot was really on. I got a killer ass bruise.

It's 44 days until Crown. My next time in armor will be Sunday in Iron Bog.

Bonus: me fighting Bill at practice: