OOps

Well, my training schedule is shot to hell.

First of all McCaren Park. Only three people showed up, Me, Gui, and Ervald, and Ervald wasn't fighting so Gui and I took off. Too bad. it was a nice night. BAT is simply a much better practice.

Secondly, my training schedule just got shot all to hell. I have a gaping hole in my back. I had surgery today to remove a sebaceous cyst from my shoulderblade. It had been there for years but recently started draining and I didn't want it to get infected. So, no fighting for two weeks. No pell work for two weeks. No weight lifting for two weeks. No bicycling for two weeks. No spin class for two weeks. No running for one week. No lifting anything heavier than a beer can till at least Monday. That's four practices out of my schedule shot. At this point there is little chance of reaching my goal of fifteen days of helmet time between labor day and crown. Grrrr.

BAT Practice training

So I have this habit. When I'm working with a new fighter, I mean brand new, first time in armor new, I like to borrow somebody's big shield and use that. It's not because I want to beat the guy. I don't swing much in that situation. It's mostly becuase I dont trust brand new fighters not to hit me in the knee, and because brand new fighters might not have much control. I did that on Sunday, and I also learned that I have no offense when I'm using a 36" heater, at least not one strapped with the hand way up in the corner.

BAT practice was good this weekend. It was mostly a teaching day for me, which is good and bad. It's good because concentrating on somebody else's fundamentals forces me to concentrate on my own. It's bad because if I start out an evening in training mode, lots of slow work, letting my student dictate the temp much of the time, etc., I am always a hlaf a beat slow the rest of the night.

There were at east ten people in armor at BAT this week: myself, Gui, Jarrod, Avran, Gil, Alexandre, Timur, Bill, Rav, Oscad. I think I'm forgetting a couple.

I started by working with Rav, doing slow work with him, and concentrating on his en garde position and returnign to it. He's got real potential. He has good mechanics and hits with power. Teaching mode. Lots of slow work. Just a few full speed fights.

Then I did slow work with Timur. He's more advanced than Rav, but it was the same thing. Did more full speed fights with him, which were good. He was moving his arm too far forward in his rest position. I was totally unable to get my thrusts going.

Then I fought Gil sword and buckler. Exactly what I needed for a good fun fight. But I found that I was reacting too much to him, not forcing him to react to me. I won most of the fights (though he did cream my ribs in one fight), but not like I should have.

Then I fought Oscad. This was the fight I really needed. He is doing about 30% better from what he was doing before Pennsic. It was pretty awesome. I was not able to control the fight at all. When fighting goofy foot, trying to use the Hauoc technique, he not only refused to make the attacks I wanted him to make but he had developed a really good leg shot for creaming my sword side leg, and it worked two or three times. As usual his defense is deceptively tight. I need to work more on face thrusts against him, as they seem to be more open, and they used to work well. I killed him three times, he killed me three times. Very good fights. Twice I hit myself in the shield arm with the flat of my blade. It still hurts. Ouch.

The I worked with Bill. He was crowding me a bit too much for his own safety. I did a lot of leg, kill trades, which won fights but put me in a lot of pain. Between that and the arm I quit after those fights.

After that I worked with Gui's nephew Josh, his first time in armor. Good aggression, decent power. He's got potential.

I find two things. One, I need to get back to my bread and butter, the hook thrust. I have been doing better and better with edge work, especially fakes, but my thrusts may be suffering.

Subject of Debate

As I predicted it would, the big shield issue has popped up in the West with a backlash against the people who are using them and winning tournaments (some of whom read this blog). Predictably, the most complete comments came from Duke Paul. He gave me permission to reprint them here.


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Just a couple of comments --

I have never said that small shields, or more specifically round(ish)
shields are better than other shields. My feeling is that using a small
shield (round, square, bunny, etc.) when learning how to fight aids in
producing a superior fighter. I further believe that this fighter will
fight in a more aesthetically-pleasing style than might be obtained from
learning with a larger shield. I think that in-kingdom tournaments -
specifically Crown and Coronet tourneys - are the pinnacle of this
training.

So when I see top fighters switching to larger shields for use in our
crown tourneys, I do not feel that they are being unchivalrous, but rather
that they are abandoning a custom that has produced superior fighters and
a highly-aesthetic fighting style. By recommending such shields to their
students, and by serving as an example to newer fighters, they are
actively opposing something that has defined the Western fighter and, to
my mind, the highest level of the art.

I further believe that given an equal level of skill and prowess, the
fighter with the larger (to a point) shield will win the fight. So, if I
were to move to another kingdom, or attend an event like Pennsic, I would
modify my shield size to move towards the size prevalent in my new
kingdom, or at the event. In such a situation, I see no reason (unless
one has a "Western" chip on his shoulder) for using a shield that requires
me to actively block my legs, when it is not the local custom for my
opponents to do so.

I still believe that it is easier to move to a larger shield than to a
smaller shield. If roughly-equivalent fighters should meet with similar
shields (having become comfortable with the use of that size shield), then
the one trained with a smaller shield will have a more complete style, and
the advantage in the fight.

A small shield is a means to produce superior training, or to demonstrate
prowess. For a long while, Western fighters could use their small shields
successfully against larger shields. However, the world has, to some
extent, caught up with us. Perhaps we should move to larger shields for
inter-kingdom events. However, I think that if we continue the trend
towards larger shields in-kingdom, then we truly will pay the cost of
winning.

Training

I'm panning to go to McCaren Park tonight, but I'm not sure it will be worth it. I don't like to get into armor unless there are at lest three other people in armor, and it sounds like some of the guys are going to skip tonight's practice and go to Nutley instead. As I mentioned earlier, I got another Wednesday Night class, so Nutley is unlikely for me this semester. Not out of the question, since I don't have the late class this semester, just the one ending at 720. If I drive out with Gui I could still make it there once in awhile.

Gui and I have decided that we both want to push ourselves this fall, so we will try to train together.

I have been doing good so far. The show I was in has closed and the semester is about to start. I skipped spin class this Saturday but have been going on long bike rides and doing yoga. My new workout schedule is shaping up pretty well. Monday and Wednesday afternoons I have a long break between classes when I hit the gym (had this last fall and it worked well), Saturday I either figtht or spin. Sundays I will fight either at BAT or else in Jersey. Tuesdays I wil fight at McCaren Park. I'll start working pell work in next week (pell work is the tricky part. Last time I was doing pell work every night, hitting the pell 1,000 times, I messed my shoulder up bad and it took me months to recover).

McCaren Park August 19

As usual McCaren Park was small. There was me, Ervald, Timur, and Jarrod, the new guy from Trimaris. They all killed me a few times. However, I really need to fight some knights.

Timur is looking better and better all the time. He is back to using a modified Belatrix style, but he’s doing it with that leather-strapped center grip Mongolian shield, and it’s working well for him. The way that shield shakes and absorbs energy is quite interesting. He killed me a couple of times, mostly with offsides to the head and once to the inner shoulder.

Ervald is getting better, but he is coming out from behind his shield on his onside shots. When we started the bear-pit, he went to sword and dagger with the sword in his left hand. I found that he didn’t have a good attack outside of trying to stab his opponents in the gut around their shields.

Jarrod is taller than me (always a problem) with a big heater (another problem). He was able to get angles on my legs that were weird. Those long arms worked in strange ways. He is also a product of the Asgaard system. He even has the training videos downloaded to his Iphone. That is pretty cool. He is also very into drills. It is good to have a willing student who like to train not just fight. Timur is this way too. After practice they went off to do some of the Asgaard sword drills together.

Me, I was having too good a night. I got killed a few times, but nearly always it was because I was tired, was bored, or was messing around. Messing around often gets me killed. But I was also messing around and killing people to:

I got two (maybe all three) of them with tight wavy-rising snaps, almost just a double pump.

I got every body’s leg with a super hard double strike.

I killed everyone with a stutter-wrap.

I wasn’t killing as much with my thrusts. I got a couple of good hidden thrusts in on opponents on their knees, but I don’t think I got a single hook/thrust in, which is my bread and butter.

At different times I used a butterfly, an upsilon, a cut from five, the foot stomp, and even the fast Eddy/Radnor direction change (on someone who was standing no less) to win fights. I was even using old MacEnruig style figure eights and molinees as misdirection, and they were working. While most of the time I used my classic high open form bunny round, a la Fabian, I also at various time channeled Jade, Artos, Connor, and Radnor, all to good effect.

In other words, I felt like a God. And that is definitely going to get me killed if I go into crown feeling this way.


Also: the best laid plans of mice and men go awry. My third class at BMCC is, once again, a Monday/Wednesday evening class. It gets out at 720, which makes Nutley very unlikely till January. Grrrrrrrr.

Weight Training

Ok, only a bit. There is no BAT practice today. Yesterday I did my Saturday spin class for the first time in months. After spin I lifted. My lifitng is pretty simple:

Military press, 50 lbs, two sets of fifteen
Curls, 50 lbs, two sets of fifteen
Overhed extensions, 40 lbs, one set of fifteen, one set of ten

That was it. I just forgot to do upright rows. I ended up with some pushups.

A word about weight lifting. There are two ways to lift weights. You can isolate muscles or you can do toal body lifts. The best way to isolate is using a weight machine that doesn't allow you to move anything other than the body part/muscle you are working out. You can also do it with free weights, like dumbells or barbells if you, say, sit on a chair and do curls on a bench. But with free weights you have to keep the weight steady, not move it from side to side, so you use more muscles. The other way to lift is by using as little support as possible, so your whole body has to keep you steady.

My regular lift these days is a simple barbell workout. I actually do an old fashioned standing military press with a straight bar. I stand throughout my whole workout. This not only works out my shoulders and my arms but also my core. The core muscles are far and above the most important muscles used in fighting (and fighting is a good core workout). That's why a lot of dukes do Pilates. If you do a standing barbell workout you can't help but exercise your core, and this, more than my arms, is what I'm going for. I am not trying to gain weight or build bulk. All I want to do is tone without losing flexibility.

I didn't do a leg workout because I had done spin so my legs were dead tired. I didn't do abs, which I normally do before spin. I did do a bit of yoga, because the spin instructor always ahs me lead the stretching after spin, so I usually throw in a few yoga poses. But I didn't do a lot.

There are great exercises that isolate the muscles used in fighting, and I'll cover those later. But right for now I'm sticking with my usual spin, abs, and barbell workout, with Yoga most days. This week I work in a bit of pell work.

Georgia on my mind

Is John McCain crazy? Does he want to completely undermine the President? Can he really be shooting craps with foreign policy by meddling in Georgia? He is dictating policy. He is sending his advisors, almost like a shadow cabinet, to Georgia. In other words, he is doing exactly what he accused Barak Obama of: being presumptuous and assuming the mantle of the presidency. But where Barak was only delivering a speech in Berlin (and not, by the way, at the Brandenburg Gate), John McCain is doing it in a war zone, a war zone where Russia is operating. Not presumptious: reckless, dangerous.

Or is he just a genius? Let's face it: the average American doesn't care about citizenship and she doesn't care about meddling. The average American doesn't think it's improper if a presidential candidate starts meddling in foreign policy. I think people want their candidates to insert themselves into the world. I think they like it. And in middle America, where Ronald Regan is still a God, I think John McCain standing up and saying "we are all Georgians" elicits memories of Ronald Regan at the Brandenburg gate and at Reykjavik. This is Russia after all. Mr. McCain will be seen as standing up to Russia, the evil empire (nobody knows or cares about the difference between the Russian Federation and the CCCP). Foreign policy is beyond most Americans. We don't care that much. Nor do we care that McCain's talk foreign policy adviser is in the pay of the Georgians. We don't care about surrogates. We care about tough guys talkking tough to bullies. That's John McCain.

He is being presidential. And it will play well in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Colorado. And it could make him president.

And, by the way, do you get the impression watching the real secretary of state, Condi Rice, is jumping up and down inside screaming at her own imaginary Putin "Finally! It's about F#$king time! Seven years I've been waiting for you guys to start shooting at something! What took you so long?"

Maybe Putin wants McCain to win and dialed