A cold muddy day at Grants Tomb.

It was a cold muddy day at Grants Tomb on Saturday. We moved practice to Saturday because of the Super Bowl. As a 49ers fan I now consider that an empty gesture, but what the Hell. It was still good because Duchess Eilis, my SCA mom, was visiting from the West Kingdom and she came along to hang out with us. Afterward we went to Hill Country, possibly the best Barbecue north of the Mason Dixon.

R3EHAB
Yesterday I started doing rehab exercises again for my shoulders and elbows. Partially it was because of how tired my shoudlers were after single-sword work on Saturday, but mostly because I've now developed tendonitis in my shield elbow. It does not affect my fighting, it pops up other times.

WORKOUTS
I am having a bit of trouble (read slugishness) getting into a workout pattern now that the semester has started. I am a lot busier right now and more tired, plus I was planning to change my workouts to more of a fitness based rather than strength based workout at the same time. However, counting practice I managed to work out every day last week. I got in my regular arm workout on Sunday, yoga class on Monday, WODs and yoga on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then walking around the Lower East Side with Eilis on Thursday and Friday--a total of 6.75 miles in two days. Then I fought, and while I have skipped the last three days (other than some physical therapy) today I did a monster workout, with 20 minutes yoga and tabata sets of dumbbell exercises. Intense! (I ache!) I do need to go back to logging my food.

FIGHTING
Fight practice at Grant's Tomb was pretty small. There were two knights--me and Gui, and two newer fighters, Damien and Tycho. Gui and Tycho are both left handed. I started out doing sets with Gui and I won two and lost two. They were, as usual, long fights. He is using a center-grip heater, which for a lefty like him is almost cheating because it is such a good match, but he hadn't figured out his leg defense with it yet and I took advantage of that. There was nothing special in any of the fights I won. I simply caught him slightly out of position in between attacks. Against Tycho the best thing I was doing was the closing attack I started working on at Beau Geste. I flashed my thrusting tip at him and he focused on that, then I stepped around it and was suddenly in position. I also killed him with Lucky's move off line to the left combo: throw a snap, pass off line to the left with your right foot, stepping between your right foot and your opponent  exposing your head but guarding it with your sword recovery, then passing with your left foot, squaring up and striking at the head. It's like Lucan's passing shot but it starts closer and with the shield foot forward. It's effective against both right and left handed fighters. Damien has an unfortunate habit of using a downward chop, which we need to train him out of. A couple of times I took advantage of it by moving offline and deflecting it, so that his momentum exposed his offside to me, which I hit, but mostly I was defending and giving him targets to strike.

Next we did a bear pit exercise, where each of us fought the others in turn. Wounds were not retained. This was good endurance as we were rotating through quickly. Then we broke up for some single-sword training. To make it interesting, I took Tycho and Gui took Damien, so were were working with opposite handed opponents.

Most of the work involved footing. It had snowed the day before and the ground was muddy and slippery. Balance and footwork under those conditions was the hardest thing. Each of use slipped around a bit. i mostly worked on lifting my feet up and putting them down instead of letting my momentum carry me forward. This is good practice when it is dry.

It was an excellent practice for what it was, but I need to do some work at Nutley.

It is 80 days until Crown Tourney. My next time in armor will be at the Iron Bog practice this Sunday.

Beau Geste!

Ok, so the off season is about over and preseason is beginning, Asa indicated by the fact that we had a tournament yesterday. It was a reboot of our Beau Geste tournament, a monthly tournament inspired by the Crapaud tourney in the West. I picked up my sword and shield for the first time since crown. That I won was cool, but it was beastly hard, and I was the only knight in the list. We fought at Grant's Tomb, and it was a lot of fun.

REHAB
Ip have not been doing specific rehab exercises on my elbow or Achilles lately. They both seem to have healed.

WORKOUTS
my workouts are the same as last post. I have been concentrating on strength training lately doing a tradition free weights workout. Y weekly goal is to be in the gym three times a week lifting weights, doing arms and shoulders one day, chest and back another, and legs and abs a third. I have not missed an arm day, I have only missed couple of chest and back days. I have missed a few legs days, but I make up for that with all the walking I do. Other days I walk, run, ride, or take classes. I still post all of this on FaceBook and at www.mapmyfitness.com. My workouts have been good. I press and curl 80 pounds in my workouts, and I have hit personal records in squats, bench press, and deadlifts. Soon however I will change over to more of a fitness versus strength workout, with cross fit ( even though I can't do a single pull up) and aerobics classes dominating, plus Yoga class at least once a week. Feeling good. Definitely stronger.

FIGHTING
yesterday I won the Beau Geste tournament, which was a blast. I get a spiffy medallion to wear around for a month. There were seven fighters and the format was round robin, best two of three for each round. I advanced to finals without a loss, meaning I four twelve fights in the round robin. There were three lefties in the tourney and some really good unbelts. Because it was a tourney and I wanted some practice for Mudthaw, I fought with my regular sword and shield instead of buckler or greatsword.

I honestly can't remember exactly what I did in each fight. They all kind of ran together, but there were a few specific things I worked on that went well, and some at didn't, and there are some general observations. First, as I knew would be the case my blows are strong and my sword arm really didn't tire, but my shield arm did because nothing at the gym replicates holding and moving a shield. I definitely felt rusty and sloppy. Third, I still need to re hang shield, which I will do before I use it next. Fourth, although I am in good shape, I have been neglecting aerobics lately and need to get back to it.

Specifically, I worked on the technique I talked about in the last post, flashing the thrusting tip and then circling around it to close distance. It worked sometimes, not because people focused on it and not on me, but because people defended themselves and blinded themselves with their shield. Most of the time however they just backed away (a lot of people run away in this kingdom).

I had some trouble mentally staying in sword forward guard, which is how I had been wining tournaments the last few years. I kept going back to old school Bellatrix form reflexively. Need to stop that.

Need a lot more helmet time with sword and shield.

Twice I followed the fake thrust and hit took the leg.

There is a very good young filter named Zach who has a great counter to a face thrust or a snap. It just come behind at an angle, but he times it very well. He killed three people with it and it nearly worked on me. I caught a bit with my basket hilt and the angle changed as a result.

Tormundr is taller than me, and he throws that high off side and the high snap really well. He killed me with snap in warm ups. I should remember the thumb lead offside against lefties, like Duke Anton throws.

Even though I went through cleanly, the finals were a real chore. Agrippa/Landon, who is still the hardest hitter around here, made it to the finals against me and we had some drag out brawls. The first was a single sword fight where we double killed, and that one hurt (as did the two times he hit me in the leg but he is why I wear Kydex). Our second fight I won but I don't really know how. Our third fight I lost. After a long break for a single sword meat grinder, I had my best fight of the day. It took three, maybe it was four blows. I faked high and he tilted his shield out and I took his leg. I through an off side, sword blocked, and threw a molinee at his head that killed him. That was that.

It was a good day and I get a cool medallion, but I have a lot of work to do.

It is six days until Birka, but I will not be going.

The Art of Deception

What makes Duke Radnor the best fighter I have ever seen was not just the speed, the flexibility, the technique, or the number of fights we won. What separates Radnor from other people who were fast and strong and flexible is that, even now, he has all those qualities together. But he has something else: he has perception that leads to deception. He can read an opponent better than anybody. As he put it "we wait for our opponent to tell how how he wants to be killed." He is more than just a counter-puncher, however. At the height of his game, in the 80s and 90s when he was putting together his streak, SCA combat was transitioning from an active offense that built opening to a counter punching offense that waited for them, and while Radnor was the master of the misdirection fake, there was a mental component to his game that is harder to explain. He could get you to look away from his sword and then hit you. Some of the things he told me over time were.

• Always break a pattern on the third (or fourth) pass. 
• Strike through the transition window, when your opponent's mind has cycled off of defense
• All fights are won in between beats (on the upbeat)
• You can win a fight before you swing a bow, before the lay on, before you take the field
• You can think a guy to death
• Hit him when he's not looking

This last one was the trickiest (not the Jedi mind trick of thinking someone to death, which simply involved visualizing hitting him in the leg and then not doing so, hitting him in the head instead. It is shocking how often that will work on newer fighters). It involved the art of deception, a kind of slight-of-hand that is baffling even to people in the gallery. 

This very cool article in the New Yorker about Master Pickpocket Apollo Robbins helps explain why.  Pickpockets are slight of hand artists who use many of the same techniques as other magicians. They attract your attention to a spot and then do something elsewhere. You miss it because you have focused on where the action is not. Radnor had a few techniques that worked this way. He would shimmy his hips and then throw a blow (once we were fighting on a children's playground plank bridge, and what he was doing to us all was comical. His shimmy would shake the whole bridge, and as we looked to our feet he'd hit us). My foot stomp, where I begin an exaggerated rising snap, lift my foot high, and throw the blow as I stomp on the ground, comes from Radnor by way of Rolf. It was an edge technique in the pre-low-profile days, but Duke Edric from CAID has turned that into a wicked thrust. I learned from Radnor a trick to play on a guy who has been legged: float the tip of your sword in a downward arc in front of his face and then tap the ground and shoot up for his helm with the edge. Maybe thirty percent of all fighters will watch that tip as it heads for the ground, and the direction change will catch them off guard. I also use several techniques to lull my opponent into a rhythm and then changing it, from switching from fast counter hip returns to slower teardrop returns, to striking as I inhale instead of as I exhale (usually accompanied by an in-time movement of my sword that I break out of). My favorite of these techniques I have described here before: Radnor was King of the West and went to West/CAID war (this was in that two decade period when he won every tournament he entered). He hadn't brought his shield because it was a war, but it turned out that there was a prize tourney, so he entered fighting with two swords. He ended up in the finals against a really good short-sword fighter from the Outlands who had taken out Guy of Castle Kirk in the semi finals. At the lay on Radnor threw his regular three direction change leg shot that he used as a sword and shield technique. The guy went to his knees and Radnor stood there in a left foot lead. He drew himself up to his full height and raised both his swords up to a cocked position above his shoulders, a la Bellatrix (What we used to call his incredible inflating Duke trick). When he reached his locked and loaded position he wiggled his left heel, just an inch either way, and the poor guy on his knees stared right at Radnor's toe. Boom. 

All of this is just an elaborate version of Duke Rolf saying to Robert Kynslayer "Rob, your cuise is unbuckled."

This is the kind of thing Apollo Robbins is talking about. Read his description of closing distance on someone without making them nervous: 

“'If I come at you head-on, like this,' he said, stepping forward, 'I’m going to run into that bubble of your personal space very quickly, and that’s going to make you uncomfortable.' He took a step back. 'So, what I do is I give you a point of focus, say a coin. Then I break eye contact by looking down, and I pivot around the point of focus, stepping forward in an arc, or a semicircle, till I’m in your space.'” 

Now imagine that the point of focus, instead of a coin, is a thrusting tip. He talks about hiding an action behind a newspaper, when you can also hide one behind a shield. Most importantly, he talks about making someone believe they are in control when you are controlling them (watch the video). Neuroscientists have started working with Robbins on studying how attention works. Radnor could teach them a thing or two. 

Read the article, and then read some of the stuff on attention and cognition (and pick-pocketing).  According to Sir Artos, Radnor's transition windows technique was based on something he'd once read about cognition, as was his rule of three. I still don't know why the Jedi mind trick worked. 

So, who *is* buried in Grant's Tomb?

We have been planning to start up a practice at Grants Tomb in Riverside Park, Manhattan for a while now. It is across the street from the former Viceroy's apartment and close to most of our people who live in Manhattan (north of 96 street is much more affordable). Gui decided that we should do a trial run on Sunday. He went up and scouted the location, and then we advertised it and pushed it hard. The result was the best practice we've had since BAT closed, and maybe for a while before that. It was well attended, there was parking, and both Alail, who came from Jersey, and Tycho, who came from Suffolk County, said it was easy to get to.


There may be a problem with how I approach practice. Normally, I will start with a technique I have a lot of faith in and try to win the fight as though it were in a tourney. As soon as I get one technique to work I try something else, both because I don't want to pattern myself and because I want to try several things. But if you look at the great fighters--Jade, Torgul, Lucan, Paul--they tend to have one technique that they practice over and over again and, particularly Jade and Paul, they repeat it constantly in armored practice as well as at the pell. My best techniques are the hook-thrust and the downward slot out of a weak high closed form (described below). Id practicing other techniques a waste of time? Does it make it harder for me to succeed in tourneys? Maybe I should just do one or two things -but then people will always know what I am going to do. That doesn't seem to hurt Jade much--though I have seen it work to Paul's disadvantage against Radnor.(Radnor has the deepest bag of tricks in the world, and he is the fighter I always wanted to grow up to be).

REHAB
My elbow feels great. My Achilles feels great. My left elbow hurts a bit, which is odd, but that is not my sword arm and it doesn't affect my fighting.

WORKOUTS
I had some troubles last week getting everything in. The week of the second I was able to get all three of my weight workouts in (Arms and Shoulders on Sunday, Chest and Back on Tuesday, and legs and abs on Saturday), plus Yoga, a three mile walk, and Nutley Practice. Last week Christmas started to get  in the way in a couple of different ways. I managed my arm workout on Sunday but did a simple aerobics and yoga workout on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday I skipped because one day I had a party to go to and the second I was recovering from said party. Plus something was making me queasy most of the week. I got in an amazing 1 hour 45 minute class on Thursday--weights, kickboxing, abs and stretching, but nothing on Friday and just a two mile walk on Saturday. This week is starting out pretty good, though.

FIGHTING
Awesome!

There were nine fighters total at practice and I was in armor from 12:30 to 3:30. I fought sword and buckler and fought sets with everybody else who armored up. I used all my sword and buckler techniques. By the time I got to fighters 7 and 8 I was a step slow and making some mistakes. I also did some unarmored training (more on that in a sec).

As mentioned last time, I fight three primary wards when using sword and buckler. I use a high-open form, a la Bellatrix, a weak high closed form, a la Hauoc, and the first ward from I:33. My primary style is the weak high closed form: "high" because the shield is held high, right in front of my right cheek bone; "closed" because my sword is forward to close off the off side; "weak" because I stand with my sword foot forward. This opens up pretty much everything from my elbow down on the on-side. The idea is to invite a shot to the on-side leg which, because you are goofy footed, your opponent has to reach for. The block is a rotation block with the buckler and the sword coming over to protect against a rising snap. Most people when reaching for that leg come out from behind their shields. As soon as anything is struck, you throw a shot at the space just to the inside of your opponent's shield. This blow comes in half time--extremely fast--(Radnor said all fights are won in between beats, or on the up beat), and when done right it is almost a continuous motion. It is not block/strike. The blow is a molinee that, if it happens to end up blocking a blow, merely deflects it incidentally. The timing, though not the technique, is like the deflection block in Fiore's long sword  Usually you will either his shoulder, helm, or bar-grill as they lean into their shot.

Occasionally I have trouble with this shot. As I detailed after the Spring Crown in 2010 Artos found a problem in my delivery of this shot, my hand traveling straight down instead of punching toward the belt-line. Lately I think I have been bailing out while I throw it, afraid of a second shot (which makes no sense, as there is very little chance of one). I need to stand in and move forward as I throw it. This is what Hauoc does.

I probably lost more of my fights with Landon, Lou, and Alail than I won. The newer fighters I was mostly training instead of fighting. Because he is up in An Tir where they fight that Torgul inspired weak low closed form (which is supposed to be Viking but is really a renaissance Spanish style) he is now a sucker for a rising snap.  I managed to get Lou out of the Iron Gate. I like to knock the tip of his blocking ax away and thrust his belly. That didn't work, but as he parried my thrust I cut out and took his sword arm. We fought single sword with me using the Fiore sword in one hand technique until I took his other arm. Best moment, however, was when I killed him with a lazy over-hand thrust from the hip, shield down, as I closed--a technique I learned from Jade. Stabbed him right in the throat.

It is 37 days until Birka. I don't know when my next time in armor will be.

Back in armor!

Ah! The soft sting of rattan!

Last night was my first time in armor since crown.  It was painful, fun, and even a bit exciting and new. Every once in awhile you have to make it new. I decided after crown that I was breaking up the time between now and next Spring crown (which I may not even be able to fight in, which would suck!) into clear blocks with clear moments and goals. I tell my students that the life of an athlete, from the time they start playing pop-warner or little league till they finally retire, even if they retire as a professional, never really changes. It revolves around the seasons: off-season, pre-season, season, post-season, and the end of the year banquet (this is all my lead in for discussing professional speakers on tour). This is one way to look at fighting. Right now we are in the off season. Birka (Or Estrella) begins the pre-season. Mudthaw or White Shield begins the regular season. We don’t really have a post season in the SCA. Meanwhile I have great things to report.

REHAB

Rehab is going great. As detailed below, my Achilles has improved greatly. It is better than I had thought it would be by now.  I need to concentrate more on shoulders at this point.

WORKOUTS

First order of business is my workouts. In the off season, also known as the fat season, I decided to radically change up my workout regimen and do something I have avoided for a long time in fighting, go on an actual body building spree. I don’t expect to gain a lot of muscle, and I actually don’t want to gain any weight, but I do want to get stronger.  It is a big change in philosophy for me.

The cornerstone of the Bellatrix style is that it should require no upper body strength. Paul is one of the strongest human beings I have ever met, but he intentionally de-emphasized his strength. Every one of his techniques I designed to be just as effective when used by someone who weighs 120 pounds as by someone who weighs 250 pounds.  William the Lucky, another of my Avatars, used to say people who are extremely strong will have poor technique because they never had to learn it. I am still not someone who believes in being super-big and strong like Omega or Wolfhier of Stonemarch, but the simple fact of the matter is that all of the dukes around here are stronger than I am, and if I want to join their ranks I probably need to beef up a bit. Plus I had people blowing off some shots at crown, so there is obviously something wrong with how I am throwing them, and maybe it’s that I just need to be stronger. There has been some variation: at thanks giving I didn’t have a gym, so I ran, did Yoga, and improvised a WOD with a cinder block.

As a result, for the off-season, I have gone to a good old-fashioned weight workout and pushed myself in several areas. I break it down to three days in the gym: one for arms and shoulders, one for chest and back, one for legs and abs. I break each of those down into groups of exercises: warm-ups, tone, and strength. Usually (I play around with the first two) I will warm up with dumbbells, tone with machines, and then build strength with barbells. For instance, Monday’s workout included hammer curls, triceps extensions, and dumbbell presses, graduated weight on the spider curl machine, the triceps machine and the shoulder press machine. Then I went for bulk, and built up weight on the straight bar with curls and military press, and a straight-bar cable push. I ended with the fighter dumbbell combos, but sometimes I will do a feat of strength, like dead lifts or a Turkish lift or a clean and jerk.

The results have been pretty good. My max weight on presses and curls is up to 80 pounds. My deadlift weight is now 235. I still haven’t made 135 on the clean and jerk, but that is coming.


FIGHTING

Last night was Nutley Practice. It was the first time since Crown in October that I have put on armor. For the off season I have decided not to worry about my primary form, sword and shield, and, when I get into armor, fight with other stuff. I may pick up the heater between now and Birka, and I will very likely fight with the bunny round at 12^th Night, but mostly I ma just having fun right now. Last night I fought sword and buckler.  I used the Hauc style, pure Bellatrix, Squared up a la Connor or Gemeni, and a little I:33. I had a good time. I don’t know if I was hitting any harder, but I felt stronger. I fought four opponents—Alail (visiting from An Tir), Douglas, Vasilli, and John the Breeder. I killed each of them a couple of times, each of them killed me more. Alail I killed with old-school Westie stuff like a wavy-rising snap. Against Doulas, a two stick fighter, I just tried to stay alive. I did keep him at bay using the iron gate, but it didn’t rally set me up to kill him. My best shot on him was a simple off-side body shot. On Vasili I got a good cut when we were both on our knees and he squared up too much. I did a falling shot to his ribs, which kind of shocked him. Against B reeder I slipped in a face thrust, a body thrust, and I got him with a really old-school technique, what used to be my bread-and-butter shot, Radnor’s wavy-low molinee-slot shot. He over blocked and I hit him in the face. That will never happen again!

I have a great bruise Breeder gave me on the shoulder from a shot he swore was not good

I feel awesome!

It is 50 days until Birka. I don’t know when my next day in armor will be. 

Crown #86

I must admit to feeling a bit discouraged. I fought well, but I did not accomplish three of my five bench mark goals. I did advance from my pool, and I did go five rounds, winning more fights than I lost. In total, with the smaller pools, I won seven fights and lost five. In the end, I was frustrated by four things I thought I was prepared for. The format did hurt me. I only lost two sword and shield fights, but i lost both my pole arm fights and my one two weapon fight. My endurance was good, but a long fight in the 4th round is part of why I lost in the 5th. (that is counting the pool as round one) I was having trouble getting people to take my blows throughout the day, both cuts and thrusts. And I still had trouble with the northern region fighters with their huge shields. These are all things I should do better at.

POOL PLAY

There were five people in our pool, myself, Jabril, Julien de la Point, Wolfir, and a two sword fighter named Asa.

I challenged Jabril first, knowing he was the toughest in my pool. I managed to take his leg and hit him. Against Wolfir I hooked the top of his blocking spear and hit him in he face. Julien killed me with a face thrust. Itook Asa's leg then finished her off with a body thrust. the pool ended in a three way tie between me, Julien, and Jabril. After Jabril killed Julien I hit him with a simple saber cut. Jabril and I advanced.

KNOCKOUT ROUND
My first fight was against William McCrimmon. After a couple of tries I took his leg and then I hit him with a butterfly in he arm pit. I threw it with kind of a half step of. Wrap fake, kind of like Ed's version, but with a shield hook and without stepping all the way around.

Next I drew Gregor. Our first fight was with pole arm. I fought with a left hand lead, so our poles were in line instead of crossed. I tried to strike along his pole but did not commit enough. It was a good long fight and I felt good about it. It was my choice for the next fight and I chose two weapon. It is not a form he uses a lot, and I felt it gave me my best shot. We both used two swords, but I had thrusting tips. It was a good fight. I tried a couple different techniques.

I tried a high-low strike but he stepped out of it. I was defending his attacks very well.

I tried the Bellatrix attack I learned from Radnor 30 years ago. The Bellatrix two sword style is based on cross blocking. Right hand will block right hand strikes, etc. so you are cocked for a strong strike with the left. Radnor taught a patterning technique, where you strike right-left-right-left-right-left setting up a pattern where you are crossing sticks kind of like Morris dancers. On the 6th and 7th strike you block with the left hand twice, then strike down the middle with your right hand. Unfortunately, Gregor was jam blocking instead of cross blocking, so it didn't work.

Then I started using my Milwaukee technique, jam blocking, cross blocking to guard my head and double striking. At one point i struck left hand, right hand, cros blocked his shot at my head, then double struck right hand toward his head left hand toward his body. I was very proud of that exchange, but he baled out.

Later he stepped in and wrapped taking my left arm. My one sword was no match for his two and I dropped into the losers list.

I fought Damien Von Drachenklau in a long fight. He always fights me hard and this time he was all over me. He launched an extensive flurry and I defended it well. It was intense but a bit wild, and eventually he opened his head up and I hit him.

Then I got mugged by Edward MacGuyver. I always have trouble with him, but this time I was embarrassed. Our first fight was with pole arm and that was where I made a fool of myself. He has one technique, no matter what weapon he is using. He bull rushes you and pushes you around with his body. With the pole arm he just jumped on me and tried to butt spike me in the face. He had be backed into a corner. I tried to bale out but did it terribly, spin away, ran away like a frightened little girl, and got hit from behind in the ribs. It was awful. In our second fight he chose sword and shield. His sword and shield style is about the same. He charges forward and shoves his shield into your shoulder and rains blows upon you. I noticed the he cocked his shield tip out as he closed, so I hit him with a belly thrust. We both chose sword and shield for the third fight. He adjusted by moving his tip inside cutting off that thrust. After a couple of passes he took my leg. That's when it really got hard. He walked in and just shoved me around with his shield. He pushed me over. I tried to take his leg but in doing so I fell over several times. Finally I gave that up and he hit me.

The list itself was fun. It was clean and exciting. Gregor won on the day after his 50th birthday, which is encouraging. With the way it was set up, with neither semi finals nor finals going past three fights, we did not see a shield in either round. I had a really good time, and loved most of my fights. It was a long and expensive drive, and well worth it. It was also great to see Tux, hang out with Bill and his squire brothers, see Alethea, and to fight.

Tux said I was looking tired from the middle of my fight with Damien onward. I certainly felt it before my first sword and shield fight with Edward. She said by the time I got to my first sword and shield fight with Edward my hip mechanics had left me. Alethea said I looked like I was in pain, and although I didn't feel hurt while fighting, my shoulder was sore after the round robin. I think in a standard list, without weapons requirements, I might have gone one more round.

In spite of these problems, this was a great list for me and for everyone. I loved fighting in it.

This was the 86th crown tournament that I've fought in. My next time in armor is likely to be next Wednesday at Nutley. If next eastern crown is the first Saturday in May as usual, I will miss it for a wedding in Cali (so I am hoping it will be early like this crown was). I may fight in West Kingdom crown in March if Obidiah allows me to.

It is 88 days until Birka.

So here we are...

Once again I accidentally posted a post to the wrong blog. Gotta keep that straight. Taped it into this one, since it is kind of important.

I wanted to fight one more time last week. I fought on Wednesday and Thursday and I wanted to fight once more on Saturday. I tried to get people together but everyone was busy. I did not want to rent a Zipcar to go to Carillon because renting and driving to Crown is going to be expensive. I ended up not fighting at all. As the last full week of training for Crown, however, it was pretty good. I worked out every day. I fought twice. I am finally down below 215 pounds. THis week I slowed down. I did Yoga on Monday, pell work and mace exercises on Tusday. I should get in some yoga today (Thursday). I feel good, but I am not at all satisfied with the results or where I am in my fighting.

REHAB
The only things I have been doing is soup-can exercises for my elbow and stretching for my Achilles. The Achilles has been a bit sore with workouts every day.

WORKOUTS
This was a great week according to my workout tracker on www.mapmyfitness.com.. I biked 49.5 miles (actually more because I didn't track my whole ride on Tuesday). I did yoga on Monday, I fought Wednesday and Thursday, I did the WODs plus some yoga on Friday and Saturday. The biggest result of all of this is that, while today is supposed to be a rest day, I really want to bike down to Coney and workout on the par course!

TECHNIQUE
The last fighting before the tourney should be about focus and endurance, but I was working on greatsword technique, with varying success. I am moving away from the Bellatrix techniques I used to use and employing a long-point technique that comes from Count Marc, but is related to the Japanese based bastard sword techniques I learned from Elrik. But I am also employing the standard high-center technique favored in the East Kingdom these days, and Gui's horse stance technique.

FIGHTING
I fought at Nutley on Wednesday. I fought like ass. I started out with a greatsword set against Lou. I was doing pretty good. I used mostly the high center technique and won four or five of our fights. Wavy fakes were
Working best, however.

Next I fought Stephan. I did not lay stick on him once. Tim said I looked really good, and Stephan is the best fighter in the kingdom, but I did want to hit him once. I am certainly not where I need to be to win crown if my offense can't break the best fighters at least a few times. As Sagan says, you measure yourself against the best and by that measure I am still lacking.

After that I fought Vasilli, and that was where I thought I was not doing well at all. He took my leg and then pounded me in our first fight. He uses a short heavy stick and bull rushes, and he is really strong, but he is wild with a sloppy defense. He was taking my leg and hitting me with short stick slot shots. I should be able to defend that. In our last three fights I made some adjustments, I killed him with a hook thrust once, with a cut, and then by standing his rush up and attacking him on the of side helm, which beat him.

Then I fought John the Breeder, a true recipe for pain. I fought him really well. John is the new kingdom phenom, probably the best natural we have had since Stephan: fast, strong, great instincts, but also with a huge kite shield and fighting left handed. He has won ten tournaments in the last year. I fought him really well. I think we only actually had three fights but they were all long. I beat him once, by triggering off his leg shot. I took his arm, which was not my plan but it worked. Three times i had him dead to rights but could not execute. Twice i missed open thrusts and once a cut. In our last fight it cost me. My thrust was off line, my follow through opened up my right side and he creamed my ribs, which is why i rarely thrust against lefties. The amusing thing about John, not only has he started to break down and analyze fights like a knight, but I learned
This week that his footwork, which is excellent, is based on a cha-cha step. I love dance based footwork. That warmed my heart.

I discovered, as I had before, that I probably need to rehang my shield again. The problem with this theory is that one reason it is hung as it is none is specifically for John and Gui, to give me a defense against lefties that approaches that of my old center grip kite, which was the best shield for lefties I have had. But I do need to raise my arm a bit. I am also squaring up too much. These combined make it harder to defend my leg. I should not be losing my leg so much with a 36 inch shield. But the other reason I was dissatisfied is that I am just not seeing he fights well right now. It is a mater of focus and reaction. I literally do not know what to do from one pass to the next. I am not targeting openings as fast as I should be, and I am not reacting to what I see. Hopefully, that is a product of seeing more stuff than I was six months ago, but if so then my computer needs to pick it up and process it.

Thursday night was all about the greatsword. I left my shield at home. I fought against Landon first, him using sword and shield. I won our first fight then lost the others. I found that if I closed with him a la Bellatrix I was doomed. Later I fought Damion, our new guy. That was probably not a good idea just because I was not in a training other people mood. I was in a training me for Crown mood. However, he is a beast, in the best shape of any of us there, and gets off on the contact, so they were still pretty good fights and he enjoyed them. I fought Landon again, this time with greatsword, then Gui, then Tormundr. In between Gui was teaching Tormundr greatsword techniques, mostly using long point in he way Marc uses it, thrusting, controlling strong to weak, winding, cutting along the blade. Then he went out and fought me and did all those incredible Yoda shots he does and wiped me out. In those fights, when I closed with him and he could use his superior blade control, I was doomed. When I fought at the edge I was winning our fights. Gui says I need to put a pommel on my sword to weight it better. Funny, because I used to love counter weighted bastard swords, but I am really proud of my old school stick o rattan these days. Anyway, if you want to train for greatsword, Gui, is probably the best person after Gregor to train against. It was a great night.

CROWN UPCOMING AND FINAL REPORT

So, here we are. It is two days until Crown Tourney. I have not been training as hard this week as I had been. Training for Crown is like training for a boxing match, not like football. In the normal course of things, like fighting in an active tourney season, you treat it like a football season or even tennis. You practice once or twice a week, condition yourself, and fight on the weekends, either in wars or tourneys. This is the way I used to approach the SCA, back when I was basically just a stick bum and my body was less battered. I would fight at practices, sometimes four a week, always at least two, and then go to a tourney or war on most weekends. The spring/summer that I was knighted I fought in four champions tourneys (and won two of them), two crowns, a coronet, one prize tourney, whatever fighting there was at Bletane that year, (and Purgatorio after I was knighted) and two foreign wars. I am pretty sure there was a principality war in there as well, and a couple of other small things, like love and honor tourney or a baronial war, that I am missing. And, of course, I was knighted at an inter-kingdom war that July. It amounted to about fifteen fighting events in six months. which is almost three events out of every four weekends. All of this led up to my winning Mists Coronet that September, the best day I have ever had on the field (won every fight, did not even lose my leg, in a royal tournament). That is the fighting constantly model.

Now, mostly because of the kingdom I live in (it is much more spread out) and the fact that I don't drive anymore (living in Brooklyn it is an overall waste of money) I get to maybe ten fighhting events a year, less than one a month (of course, this includes Pennsic, and there is nothing like Pennsic on the West Coast, for fighting or for anything else). That includes, normally, three Crown tourneys a year, two in the East and one in the West. As a result, I not only fight differently but I train differently. Instead of looking on fighting as a continuous season of events punctuated, like Golf, by a few majors (once again we come back to Paul's dictum that the sport most like SCA fighting is Golf), I concentrate on training just for those three crown tourneys, with everything else being just a fun tuneup. It has taken me years to realize that both my living in the East and my age required a change in how I do things. I train like a boxer trains. A few weeks out I will decide what my training regimen will be, focus on the event, and train for that. And, as with training for a boxing match, you train down the last week in order to recover a bit, heal, avoid injuries.

In August, nine weeks out, I said I wanted to work out three times a week and ride at least two more times, plus fight at least once--that is six workouts total per week. In those 10 weeks (let's call it ten, to be fair) I have had 97 workouts. That is almost ten a week. It does include a lot of combined workouts, though, where I counted aerobics at the gym and weights on the same day as two seperate things.

I wanted to do 450 miles before crown. I totaled 386. That is good, but I failed.

I had ten Yoga sessions, most of those actual classes, some on my own, plus combining it with other workouts. This was an accomplishment.

I was supposed to do 18 resistance workouts. I only did 12. That was a failure.

As I suspected, pell work was the hardest thing to actually do. I did it two or three times. Complete fail.

Counting the tourney, I was in armor ten times, an average of once a week. This was a failure, mainly because of the concussion, which kept me out for two weeks. My bench mark had been slightly more that once a week. I'm going to call this a qualified success.

I have probably trained harder for this crown than for any specific event. If i go back to Pennsic and to the obstacle race in June, which was kind of a pre-training training, I have done good. I am not where I want to be nor even where I could be. I feel great and I'm proud of how hard I have worked.

I am not one of the favorites for this event. With Gregor going for it, and with Kenrik and Marcus, who are much better than I with glaive or great sword, I am in trouble. This format does not favor me. With eight pools instead of four, especially if they are truly randomly seeded, pools could be really tough. I might not even advance. But I love crown, I love great fighting, and I love fighting in tourneys with the top guys like Gregor. And I have beaten Gregor in a tourney, and Jan, and Marcus, and Kenrik, (never Ivan, interestingly). I can do this. And if I don't it has been a lot of fun training for it and it will be even more fun to fight.

It is two days until Crown, which will be my next time in armor.