The Weekly Warfare   Musings martial from across the SCA

It’s been a little while since I’ve been chock-full of introspection and self-assessment, but why not get back in the saddle.

The big news is that I left my job.  I’ve got a month til I start the next one.  There was a point when Valinn was between jobs that Alejandro asked him what he was going to do with himself.  “I don’t know,” he answered.  “You could fence 8 hours a day,” I suggested.  “No,” said Alejandro, “that’s your dream.”  And it really is.

So I’ve spent the last week hitting up lots of practices (fenced twice in the past two days).  I’ve also been doing regular solo fencing drills, pell drills, an every-other-day running habit, and basically shit-tons more self-improvement (though, I do have goals outside of the SCA.  Just one or two).  The result: Beautiful stesso-tempo and messo-tempo attacks consistently delivered.  Who knew, practice actually works.

Running

My first Monday out of work I stopped by the local running store, and sat down with the guy who worked there to figure out if there was a running shoe that could prevent me from getting shin splints.  We tried out one, it didn’t work, then we tried out another, and it did.  And it was half-price.  So early the next day (11am or so) I got up off my butt, and hit the trail.  No shin splints, minimal asthma, and less and less as the days go by.  Whether or not this plan actually works at getting me up to being able to run a full 5k is yet to be seen.

Armored

Saturday I went to baronial practice to fight heavy.  Had an interesting time of it, and remembered two things:

1. Not all new fighters should start fighting melee on the first day
2. You can throw way too much stuff at new fighters, way too easily

Giganti

Gavvin-Joe is reading through Giganti.  We’re applying peer pressure to Letia to get her to buy a copy, too, so that we can turn 5:30-6:00 on Thursdays into “Class Time”.

Path Forward

Rapier drills on non-practice days
Pell work on practice days
Jogging every other day
Bike riding on non-jogging days
Re-reading Giganti so I’m up on my game (and to continue improving the theoretical basis of those pretty, pretty tempo attacks)