Finally back in armor!

Yes, it's been a while, but I didn't have that much to write about. I have not been in armor since Crown attorney. That was two full months. I had not intended to stay out of armor for two months, but that was the way it worked out. As it turned out, that just meant I spent two months training for the rugged maniac. 

TRAINING: 

During that time I logged 61 workouts. These included weights, push-ups, yoga, dancing, running, and cycling: but no fighting. Then, on Saturday, I ran the rugged maniac. On Sunday, I fought at the Riverfest demo!

The maniac was tough! I had an early start time, but it was still too hot! Agrippa ran it with me and, bless his heart, he doubled back when he got ahead of me, and then stayed with me the whole time. He probably could have won our wave if he hadn't done that. I know this because we finished in about 45 minutes. Then, having had so much fun, she went out and ran it again in the next wave. He finished in 33 minutes. 26 minutes was the overall winning time last year. He is a monster.

I thought I had trained well for this one, but I was wrong. Even though I beat my time from last year, I found it more exhausting. The reason is simple: after Crown I toned it down. I was mostly running and cycling, and did very few of the high intensity fitness workouts I have done before Crown or that I had done before last years rugged maniac. Time to go back to CrossFit.

It also totally wiped both of us out for the next day!

FIGHTING:

Riverfest demo was a lot of fun. We fought a couple of melees and I fought challenges, while marshaling the Beau Geste. There was no technique: I just wanted helmet time.

 My toughest bout of the day was against Landon at the end of a Grand Melee. I won after a very long and intense bout with a simple hanging parry/sabre cut--what i had been going for the whole fight. It proved once again my current major shortcoming: by going to a defensive fight, I lose a lot of offense. But my defense is great right now!

I also had some other great fights. Landon and I fought mace and buckler, and we each won two fights. I had some good sword and shield fights and sword and Buckler fights with Ervald. I killed Tycho with a behind the back shot. Slew many in the melees. Mostly, it was great to be back in armor!

That behind the back shot is just what it sounds like. I set it up with a wraparound, well cheating my left foot off-line a bit. Then I leaned forward to that and with my arm around behind my back, striking with the false edge of the sword. I used to thrust my hips forward when doing it, but now it's more of a lean and thrust upward with my whole body. It's hard to describe.

 It is 18 days till Pennsic. My next time and armor will be this weekend at northern region war camp.

Crown #87

I can no longer say that I am “better” than Seichel. This is the second tourney in a row that she has knocked me out of. Our fight in the pool was not in earnest, at least on my part, because I had already advanced and I was messing around a bit. But we were in earnest in the third round, and she beat me good.  

In terms of numbers I fared much better in the last crown that I fought in than in this one. I accomplished only one of my benchmark goals, making it out of the pool. I am also keenly aware that I faced two knights and lost to them both. However, in terms of how well I fought, I felt much better than I did in October. Not only did I win a lot of fights but I felt in control of every fight that I won and competitive in every fight that I lost. I feel that this time, in spite of where I exited the list, that I was a legitimate contender. I lost to only three people all day long: Seichelgaita who went deep, Breeder, who went clean into semi-finals (and who has changed his name to Ionis Serpentius) and Sir Thomas, who was the other finalist, knocked Darius out of the list, and took finals to five fights.  I fought all three of them well. The training paid off, as I was in great shape throughout. My shield arm tired at the end when I had been on my knees for a long time, but other than that I was strong. I fought well and I think I fought honorably. I am happy.  

TECHNIQUE

It’s crown. My technique was to hit them before they hit me.

Well, that’s not entirely true. There were two other things worth noting. One, after my fight with Ivar I found myself using a tight a frame, almost like Duke Brannos. As usual I had little offense from it, but I was very active using it, which gave me a bit more. I went back to my regular style once I got out of the round robin.  The other thing is that I was very concerned all day with my ass—in particular whether or not it was sticking out. I have a naturally sway back and a bulging disc. So it kind of folds back with my hips sometimes thrust forward a bit. I also always want to emulate Radnor, who fought a leaning back style early in his career. I felt myself leaning back way too much, with my back folding a bit and my ass tucked in. This reduces your power. Throughout the day whenever I felt myself doing this, leaning back, I would roll my hips and pelvis under, straighten up a bit, and then stick my ass out a touch, taking a slight (very slight) forward lean. I wanted to be on the balls of my feet, not on my heels, and this helped a lot.

I am also coming to the conclusion that the calibration level for body thrusts has gone up recently. I am still throwing the hook-thrust as my main kill shot. I landed it several times on several people on Saturday. I had re-taped the tip going into the lists and many of those shots jarred my hand, but nobody was counting them. It was exactly the same thrust that I used to win 60% of my fights with over the past several years. It is landing clean and it feels exactly as hard in my hand, but nobody is taking it. I thought it might have been because my sword was shorter, but I put more than an inch back onto my sword. If I put two more inches on and used a sword like Darius/Omega uses, I could drive it home harder, but that would limit the rest of my offense. When I fought without a thrusting tip, and used the Western style, I liked a longer sword: but with a sword forward guard I need something faster and a touch lighter, and just a bit shorter. That was a frustrating part of my day.

WARMUPS

I warmed up with William McCrimmon, as I usually do for Crown. Bill has perfect technique, so if you make a mistake he will make you pay. He also fights like a Westerner so he is in my comfort zone. Ron watched out warmups and had three big critiques: I was leaving my arm too exposed, I was squaring up too much, and I needed to re-hang my shield. I certainly knew the last one, but I kept the other two in mind the rest of the day.

ROUND ROBIN

The round robin started inauspiciously for me. We had a really hard group (it was a top heavy list) with at least four fighters who fight me really well:  Seischel, Jibril, William, and Brennan. I can’t remember everybody else I fought in the round robin, or even the names of the people I do remember fighting, but there were either ten or eleven fighters in each group. I started out fighting Sir Thomas, whom I do not really know. I can’t recall ever having fought him before. He is an Easterner who moved to the Midrealm and then moved back to the East. I don’t know where he was knighted by his shield style is very Midrealm, with a big wide heater that he holds with the point sticking almost forward, and then rotate blocks to defend leg shots. We were both frustrated. He hit me low several times and seemed to be getting angry with me. Perhaps he thought I was blowing his shots off.  After he hit my low again (breaking my knee cop in the process) I paused and, as I was saying “low again,” he hit me in the face with a thrust and said “that one wasn’t.” I grinned and said “nope! I’m dead!” and walked off the field: my bad for stopping in the middle of a fight.

I fought Brennan and we had a good time. Here is a video of the end of that fight. I throw an off side head, step around to throw a wrap, then a quick snap. You can’t really see it in the video but there is the slightest little hook in there: (can't seem to embed it).

Me fighting Brennan:

My fight with Jibril was awesome. He always gives me fits. This time I was on. I worked on keeping my distance and moving to his shield side, but after awhile I raised my aggression level, jumped in swinging, and then threw  a stutter wrap, which he fell for. That was a great feeling!

At some point I fought William again and I took him apart. I have been avoiding molinees, but I pulled out a weird one against him, a low J-hook molinee that rolls into a leading-edge leg blow as I step off-line to the right. Once I had him turned out of the sun I jumped him. I can’t recall what I hit him with—it is really the leg shot that mattered.

I fought a good unbelted fighter named Ivan from Pennsylvania. He is tight and aggressive and hits hard. I have fought him before. After a time I took his leg (it might have been with the same shot I hit William with—I know I through it) and then, on the second attempt, I got him with a shield hook and snap as I moved to my right. Here is some video I found of the end of that fight.

Me vs Ivan: 

I fought  a lefty named Ivar. I took his arm then hit him in the belly.

I fought Seischel last, and she was my other loss.

I can’t’ recall the details of my other fights.

SECOND ROUND

My reward for getting out of my pool was a fight against Breeder. I came out with a slightly different stance than I had been using against him in practice, and tried simply to keep my shield covering my right side. I knew that circling to my left, like you would do against most lefties, was not a good plan against Breeder. After a few good exchanges I decided to try something new. I was going to strike and come off my back foot, elevating for a high wrap that I would drop into his left shoulder. Unfortunately, he was thinking “oh know you won’t either.”

Afterward we talked about what happened. We were doing very similar things. He is using a very sophisticated strategy, which he labels “defer/blind/confuse/strike.” It is very much like my press/release/attack method. He defers to my weapon by deflecting it, he blinds me with his shield, he confuses me by pressing against my shield as though going another direction, and he strike either a leg or a head based on my reaction. He could tell from my feet (big issue, if my footwork is telegraphing my movement) that I was going to go wide, but he didn’t’ know which direction. When he blinded me I didn’t care, believing him to be blind as well. We both pressed at the same time. I jumped forward throwing a wrap and impaled my face on his thrusting tip. It was a great fight, even if it didn’t end as I wanted it to.

My second fight with Seischel was intense. I finally noticed, after I don’t know how long, the her new shield is a bit longer and covers her knee when she’s on guard (I may have been missing this for a year or more—I don’t know). I got a good look at that because she took my leg almost immediately. After that she just worked me carefully, staying at the edge of her range and countering my attacks until she could cut me. It took a long time and I almost got her with a dropping slot shot, a la Houghton, but in the end I  reached for a blow and she killed me. At that moment it occurred to me that all three of the times I got hit (I can’t remember how she won out first fight—probably a face thrust, which would make four) I got hit as I squared up and came out from behind my shield, which I had been battling against at Mudthaw (it was how Seischel  and Jan both killed me there) and that Ron had warned me against.

I am really happy about this list. I felt awesome, I had fun, and I fought very well.  

I will never again autocrat a Crown Tourney that I am also fighting in.

I will now go out and have a beer.

I am switching to cardio, as I will begin training for the Rugged Maniac mud race in a few days

It is 80 days until Pennsic. I am taking the next couple of weeks off from fighting (mostly for travel). 

Taking Stock

I just hope I didn’t peak at Coronation….

The last week before a big event you should slow your training down. You want to give your body time to recover from all that training. All I have done this week is yoga and walking. I haven’t even been doing push ups. Unfortunately, this has been going on for awhile. First with my back injury two weeks ago, and then with the cold I had last week, I have had to slow my training down. I’ve also been getting sloppy with my food. I have tried to keep my dairy consumption down since Lent ended, and I’ve succeeded. While I’ve had some chees once or twice, it is nothing like eating it every day the way I always have.  Nonetheless, according to my scale I gained 5 pounds over night last night (went from 215 to 220). That is pretty distressing to see two days before a tournament. But that also comes from taking it easy. I had three solid meals yesterday for the first time in a long time, and ate some form of bread with every meal. I’m obviously retaining water.  My back is killing me the past couple of days, and I still have some residual chest congestion (that is probably allergies).   

Since my birthday on January 26^th, when I started training for Crown, I have had some form of organized workout on 75 out of 88 days. This includes home workouts, classes, yoga, fighting, bike rides, hikes, WODs, weight training--everything. The stats break down like this:

Total workouts (since I did multiples on some days): 87.  

Total calories: 40,630.

Total hours working out: 65

Total miles covered hiking, running, or riding: 93.6

Total resistance workouts: 15

Total Classes (this includes yoga and WODs):  23 (this number is deceptive)

Total bike rides: 12 (this counts some legs as separate rides)

Total walks: 18

Misc: 8 (runs, calisthenics, etc).

Days in armor: 11, including Mudthaw, Coronation, and three Beau Gestes.

I’m happy with all of this.

I wanted to be in armor 16 times, including 4 times at Nutley and 2 at Iron Bog (I did not make Iron Bog once). I fell short of that goal.  I wanted to hit the pell 5,000 times. I fell short of that goal. I wanted to have 10 resistance workouts, 10 WODs, and 10 classes. I exceeded that goal, but only technically.  I wanted to log 55 workouts. With the idea that it is better to log days worked out than individual workouts (since on some days I logged three workouts in one gym session due to the nature of my training ap) I still exceeded that goal by 9 (after subtracting the 11 times I was in armor). 

On the whole I feel good about my training going into crown.

I would feel a whole lot better if I had hit those four Nutley and 2 Iron Bog practices. Those are the only times, other than tourneys, that I get to practice against other royal peers. I managed some helmet time against Gregor, Tim, Omega, and Conrad (at coronation) but I need a lot more than that to be ready for that deep pool. As Mudthaw showed, I am fighting much better. I don’t expect to be the fighter I was 20 years ago, when I was great, but I can be almost that good, and I am not yet there. 

Still, I have a good shot to do well in this crown. It is top-heavy, as always (the list of combatants is here: http://seneschal.eastkingdom.org/springcrown2013.html) There are three Dukes, two counts (including myself), eight other knights, and a number of very tough unblets, many of whom have kicked my ass in one tourney or another. On the other hand, the only fighter in this list whom I have not beaten in a tournament is Omega. I might just have an awesome day. 

Or I might not make it out of the round robin. That is the beauty of it. I love this game!

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

Poleaxed

When you train as hard as I have trained for this crown you get beat up. Today was the last day of training. I got Poleaxed. It was awesome: but I think I'm going to take it easy for the month of May.

REHAB
I have been using rubber bands and Indian clubs. They are working. My elbow feels great. So does my shoulder, the only thing to hurt it lately was a class I took in flyfishing. Dangerous sport flyfishing.

WORKOUTS
As with last week my workouts hit a snag. What I thought were allergies turned into a wicked Springtime cold. Workout since last Sunday have been very light. Just a couple of days of yoga push-ups and bicycle riding. This coming week of course I won't be working out much at all: you need to rest before Crown.

BEAU GESTE!
I scheduled this month's Beau Geste as a warm-up for Crown and in that sense it was great. Because we were starting at 11 and it was just before Crown there were only three fighters present: myself, Anton, and Tycho. I set it up as a round robin in sets of three. We each had to fight the other two with sword and shield three fights: then two weapon, then poleax. That meant 18 fights for each of us. This is about the number it would take to win Crown, and would give us some practice with multiple weapon forms. An added bonus for me was that they are both lefties.

As usual it took me a while to get my focus. I beat Tycho in our first sword and shield fight but lost the other two. My mind was all over the place. I kept thinking about footwork, distance, and what I should do next, instead of thinking about the fights. By the time I fought Anton however, my mind was good. I kept my feet in line, cut him off when he tried to move, and use my distance well.

In the two weapon fight, Tycho took sword and ax well I fought with sword and dagger. I found that my usual technique against that style did not work against a lefty. I won one fight with a frost, and the other after taking his acts arm. He killed me with a short punch to the face with his ax blade. Even though I won the fight, using sword and dagger was just a mistake. With that in mind, I took two arming swords against Anton. That was fun! Using the Bellatrix style, I took his arm and took his leg then hit him in the body. Using the Milwaukee style was a failure. He got me with a short punch to the face. In our third fight, I mixed it up and presented my points and I got them with a body thrust.

That left great ax, a form that I love but don't always fight that well. Against Tycho I did well and two of three. Anton however is a pole arm fighter. He killed me all three fights. The last one was such a good hard blow I almost did not want to get back up off the ground. We got into a bind with his axhead above mine. He stepped back and swung for the fences almost pick axing. It was epic. The round Robin ended with 10 victories for Anton nine for me, and eight for Tycho. Very even, very fun.

Gui dictated that the last fight would be daggers which he put 20 paces away and forced us to run to at the drop of a flag. I was not about to play that game. I walked, and let Anton grab the dagger and do what ever he was willing to do. After some thought he picked up the other dagger and handed it to me and we fought. I love dagger fights. I'm pretty good at it and so is he. The fact that he is a lefty messed me up a bit. I held my knife with the point up and was doing very well. I almost got him under the arm. But when I switched my knife to a dagger grip, with the point down, the fight was really his. I thought that might be the way it would go, but I wanted to mix it up. Fighting dagger against a lefty is a bit odd. He stabbed me right in the throat. What a fun fight!

I am done training for crown. More on that later. I have worked my ass off and gotten beaten up in the process. I have loved every minute of it.

It is six days until Crown tournament, and that is the next time I will be in armor.

Grant's Tomb April 14 2013

Coming down to the wire in training for Crown, you start to worry about injury. You don't want to over do it, but you don't want to slack off. It really doesn't matter at this point. The real work was done in January and February, if you are worried about your training only now you have lost. What matters is how much you have worried about it for the last three months.

REHAB
Is good. Indian clubs seem to be working. No pain in the elbow while lifting this week.

WORKOUTS
on Monday I did a WOD that invoked box jumps, and half way through my second set of fifty, as I landed, I hurt my back. That is why you are supposed to avoid high impact when you have a bulging disc, dummy! I rested on Tuesday and changed my routine for the rest of the week. When I have hurt my back I like to switch to more yoga and, if I lift, do circuit training because on the machines I am isolating muscle groups and not working out my vote muscles, which includes my back. I normally hate machines because they isolate muscle groups and don't work out my core. Did circuit training on Wednesday and Friday, plus a little yoga. The only other thing I did was walk.

FIGHTING
I approached today's fighter practice as mostly a drill. There were five fighters in armor: me, Landon, Gui, Joe, and Lou. I started out working with Landon. I worked it like a Bellatrix session. Instead of just bashing, we did parry 5, 6, 4, and 3 drills. Then we did offense defense drills. The second time we limited ourselves to specific shots: one on side head, one on side leg, and a thrust. Then we fought three fights like it was Crown finals. Finally, we did a 1-6 pell drill and strike/thrust drills.

After that I trained Joe, our new fighter, who is not only energetic but big and strong.

Then we did a bear pit. We stayed out till we couldn't continue. Mostly I got my ass kicked. Landon was getting me the way Jan and Seischal got me at Mudthaw. He got Me to chase him and he either thrust my face or hit my leg. In fact, that's how Alden took me out of March Acrown last year.

My fights with Lou were good. I got him with a nice shoulder cut off a block.

My fights with Gui were brutal and painful. He hit me so hard I am considering skipping Nutley this week. The only time I got him was a belly shot past the back edge of his shield. That is where most of my kills against GUI have been lately.

Exhausted.

It is 14 days until Crown. Although I may be at Nutley this week it is unlikely. The next time I will be in armor for sure will be next week at the Beau Geste.

Queen Kiena's Martial Spectacular

Mine is an odd specialty. I am an expert on medieval spectacle and its recreation. It is a performance studies discipline that, naturally, I entered via the SCA. In my book, *Medieval Fantasy as Performance*, the best chapter is be third, where I discuss how the SCA recreates many forms of Medieval theatre, including ceremony. I spend a lot of time on coronations (mostly Sir Guillaume's in CAID and Thorsen and Svava's in the East). I note that in both of these coronations, the incoming royalty used theatricality to create a performance wherein they were the lead actors in a drama which, by moving through, they enacted their assumption of royal authority. Others do a good job at this from time to time. today was Gregor Kiena's coronation, and her majesty had a vision of what she wanted the festival to look like. It was essentially a Renaissance martial festival. It had an archery tournament, a rapier tournament, equestrian games and a heavy tournament going on simultaneously throughout the site. Then, in the horse arena, they had two combats at the barrier, one for rapier and one for heavies. Then a set of melees for both groups. Then the King's and Queen's champions fought. All of this built up to a big finale. Her majesty being an avid jouster had invited several SCA and IJA jousters to giveaway demonstration. There were seven jouster making passes with light lance, and all of hem were excellent. They included Charlie Andrews, one of the IJA founders and seven time champion. I loved it. The horses were awesome (Sir Ankara has a Percheron that Tandy 19.1 hands and looks like an over sized Roman equestrian statue). The day was fun. Mostly, I got to fight a lot.

PHYSICAL THERAPY
I have been using Indian Clubs exclusively, and have seen some improvement in my left elbow lately.

WORKOUTS
Workouts since Mudthaw have been light. I have gone on a few bike rides. Most days I do 50 pushups. I have been to Yoga class. Wednesday I did one of the tougher WODs, Grace, which consists of 30 clean and jerks for time (mi was a dismal 12 minutes at 95 lbs). Still aching from that three days later.

FIGHTING
The tourney format was a Birka style bear pit, with one point for each fight and one point for each win. I started out with a loss to Evaldr but I came back to beat Conrad and then run through four other guys. My next time in I beat Evaldr and Jan Janovitch and went on another nice run. In the middle of my third run we broke to do the melees. When we came back my runs got shorter but I was still winning. When the jousting started I quit to go watch. In all I killed Conrad three times, Evaldr twice, Jan twice, and some other good fighters. I was sticking my hook thrust. My defense was tight. Conrad said I looked better than he had ver seen me look, that I was crisp, fast, hit hard and was patient. Good stuff.

In the melees I had fun. I was chosen as one of the five for the King's side at the barrier. I killed some guys. Balin was running it and changed up the rules, at one point saying we could only fight brought he barrier. I dropped to my knees and stabbed three people.

The team melee I still had a life at the end and I killed some good fighters. In the Grand melee, Conrad, Cullyn, Brenan and Evaldr formed an alliance and the first thing they did was come after me. So that hurt.

TECHNIQUE
Was a tight defense, hook thrusts, and short fast snaps. I got several hook thrusts in and worked both my regular defender and an A frame. Both worked. I had a great time, but I found that, as I got more tired, I squared up more and that cost me a few fights. Against Conrad I had to Struve for height, and my defense was still good.

It is 21 days until Crown. My next time in armor will be hopefully Wednesday.

Mudthaw, March 2013

MUDTHAW!
Mudthaw is the greatest non-crown tournament I have fought in. That includes Eigils Tourney, Ducal Prize, even Silver Dollar Tourney. Mudthaw is awesome. Part of it is the Chaucer Factor: when spring comes round, the ice melts and the mud begins to thaw men's thoughts turn to the clash of arms. Unless we've traveled to warmer climbs the only big tourney we've seen in three months has been Birka, which is inside. I did not get the count of the number of fighters in the lists but I figured to to be in the 90s. The fighting was great. There are a lot of videos of it here. (unfortunately none of me. I should have had a camera person there, ). 

REHAB
My elbows are in good shape, my back not so much. I am working hard and feeling good.

WORKOUTS
It's only been four days since my last post, and I have been intentionally avoiding working out. I waled five miles on Friday--walking to the Brooklyn Public Library and back--but that's it.

TECHNIQUE
I was not working on anything in particular this tourney other than tourney fighting. I was simply trying to fight my best. If anything, I was working on being patient, waiting for my shots, and being tight.

FIGHTING
I went seven rounds. I killed every unbelted fighter that I faced. Most of my fights, until I got into the fifth round, were relatively short.

I warmed up with three sets and then rested most of the day. I laid down and closed my eyes in between fights and waiting for the pairings to be announced (as in common in the East, all fights for each field are announced at the beginning of each round). They were using a single tree double elimination, like they use in the West and CAID, instead of the two-tree system they usually use in the East. We started out with six fields then collapsed to four and then two. Their were long waits in the first three rounds.

I used to carry a Meade composition book and journal my fights right away, but since I started keeping this blog I wait a day or two before I am sitting at a computer with both time and energy to write stuff down. It makes remembering my fights a bit harder sometimes, especially when I am in a tourney, but I think I've got all of them.

I ended up with a bye in the first round because there was  a mistake at the lists table and they wrote out two cards for the same fighter, so they scheduled him two fights in the first round. I fought a short lady fighter and killed her quickly. I don't remember her name.

I know in the second round I fought Galfrid but I don't recall how I won.

I fought Stephanno, a knight from Acre in third round, and I know I killed him with a thrust. It was a tough fight. He is really good. (he likes to remind me that when he was sixteen I was the first SCA knight he ever fought, at an Acre War on Long Island).

In the fourth round I fought Mathias, who has given me tough fights before, and who beat me at King's Rattan Champions last summer. I was pretty tight. I fought mostly at range and we traded blows for a long time. I eventually took his arm and then killed him.

My next fight was against Jan Janovich, and that was a frustrating fight for me. I kind of knew what would happen going into it, but I did not stop myself. Jan and I fight fairly close to even. I think I have a slight edge on him most of the time, at least since I've lost weight. He totally kicked my ass in last crown, however. The main things is that fighting Jan can be like fighting a mirror for me. He prefers a sword back Western style, having trained with Ronald for so long, and that's my favorite game. Trouble is, it is not the game  I have been practicing. I decided that if he set up with his sword back, which he did, I was going to fight that way too. Often that is a good idea for me. I have some of my old fakes in that position, which won me a lot of fights back in the day. Sure enough, I opened with a wavy-rising snap and almost killed him. He ducked and I tracked my sword to where he was ducking. I hit him low on the helmet, toward the bottom of the cheek plate, and he did not take the blow which is not too surprising--it lost power when I changed direction and drew it down. I tried a few other things--an upsilon leg shot, a hidden leg shot, but Jan was too slick for that. Eventually I got him with a hook thrust but he hit me in the head at the same time and we double killed. Like I said, we are close to even. After that I tried to tighten it up a bit but he hit me in the leg then worked me till I chased him, coming out from behind my shield, and he killed me. Lesson: don't chase Jan while you are on your knees.

My next fight was against Wilhelm von Ulm, a big, fast, hard hitting knight from Blood Guard who is a perennial Crown contender. This time I fought the fight I had been trying to fight--a defensive counter punching style with a tight high closed-form defense. It was an awesome fight. We were in that chess match mode--move, stop, back to one, throw one blow, re set, block one blow, back out. It was a long fight that gained in intensity as it went on. Eventually I took his leg. I tried a couple of things on him and was working him good when his shield broke. He withdrew from the fight. That is frustrating, because I didn't actually beat him, but I did win the fight, and I was fighting well.

My last fight was against Tzeichel Gaita von Halstern. We practice a lot at Nutley and in tourneys I usually win our fights, but not always. I think I am better than she is, but I was not yesterday. She was on. That was an incredible fight--long, intense, heroic. It was fun. Both uf us were trying to be defensive and fighting at range. We both had thrusts that landed and died because they were too far away, and a few tip shots. I had re-affirmed, as I did last year in a few fights (Brion at 4 Tourneys, Jabril in Spring Crown) two of my best money shots are not working right now. I hit her with both the hook thrust and my stutter-wrap, and did not stick either one. I had failed with both of those earlier in the day as well. Eventually she killed me with an extremely awesome shot. I was moving forward and she popped me in the face with a thrust. It was similar to what Alden had done to me (exactly) a year before in March Crown--got me chasing him then thrusting into my face. This one was actually better. I saw her kill Evaldr with the same shot the next round, and she used it earlier in the list two. It is a lot like my fall away snap, which I learned from Duke Ronald when we were still squire brothers. You move either away or to the right, plant with the right foot, step back with your left but this allows you to rotate your shoulders so your right shoulder is moving forward. It looks as though you are still moving away, but in fact you are rotating into a shot and your sword shoots out forward. It is a very deceptive movement The difference is that where I throw a snap out of that, she has turned it into a thrust. It is an incredible shot, and it took her deep into the lists. She was on fire yesterday, and she kicked my ass.

That was my day. I went and fought some pick up fights. I fought a few more with Galfrid, and at least I know how I beat him then. He fights a center-grip heater really well, but I noticed that he was placing it way out in front and catching my snaps on the front quarter, so I throw a snap-wrap (very old school) and nailed him. I also fought a few fights against Wolfhir, who was using his big black great sword. he was not prepared for what I was doing to him. I like to present my tip, like I am fencing sabre against his greatsword, and let him thrust at me then come under his sword stepping forward, and try to control him,. It worked pretty well. Then I fought somebody who hit me hard in the back of the hand and I decided it was time to quite. Great great day.

Breeder killed Gregor in the finals with a very pretty body shot.

Other things worth noting: William McCrimmen was a killer yesterday. And I loved watching Joe fight with his little shield. I was hoping we would draw each other. I was looking around for a tiny shield to take out against him. He was fun to watch. Ever the perfectionist, he said "I wanted to be the last unbelted out." I pointed out that, since and unbelted fighter won, that would be a pretty good day.

So here is my post mortem: if you don't go to the semi finals of Mudthaw you are not ready to contend for crown tourney, and that is where I am at. I fought really really well. I went seven round in a very tough list. I killed the fighters I was supposed to kill, but I was trading even with the knights who are all on the edge. Jan has been to finals in Crown twice and Wilhelm has been to semis (if not finals). Tzeitchel has gone deep (this is the best I have ever seen her fight). However, they--and I--are not of the calibre of Breeder, Gregor, or Kenric, let alone Lucan, Ice, and Omega. So that is where I am today. But I have a month to get better.

Still it was a great day. The best moment may have been after the tourney when Breeder came up to talk to me. He said I fought great, which a lot of people had been saying, but he also said "you were more patient than I have ever seen you," which was really the point.

After the fight, Agrippa asked me what I could have done better. I had focused well, I was in shape (in spite of the fact that the fight with Tzeitchel was one of those "we are both exhausted" fights), I had slain mightily. My answer was I needed to fix a problem with how I was using my shield. Twice against Tzeitchel and at least once in an earlier fight, I threw a shield hook and threw a blow but hit my basket hilt against the top edge of my shield. I had planned to re hang the shield in January but I never did--I am not the world's best tool user. The way it hangs now is great for fighting left handed fighters and for defending against those quick off-side face shots that are so popular out here.  Trouble is, it gets in my way and it leaves my leg more exposed than it should be with a 36 inch shield. It also blocked at least one thrust yesterday. That is a stupid equipment thing that I know I should have done something about. Now, however, just a month out from crown, I am not about to go change my shield. I will have to practice with it and then consider changing it after crown. That is the main thing I got out of the list yesterday.

It is thirty five days until crown (I think, I keep getting this wrong somehow, and all I am doing is counting). The next time I will be in armor is at a demo on Tuesday for a Combat of the Thirty party.