I find myself in a strange mental state. Without Pennsic or WoW (where I’ll be RMiC instead of fighting) to motivate improvement of skill, I’m instead motivated by the sole goal of “getting better”. I am getting better so that I can get better, period. Tautological motivations are a tricky thing, and more fragile than others, as they don’t come with a deadline (Pennsic is a month and a half away!), or a ready measuring stick (I’ve got to be able to fight for the whole two hours of the woods battle!), or even an external standard of “better”. Whereas were I fighting at Pennsic, better would include an element of melee endurance, I could become a much better fighter over the summer without being able to fight any longer in a woods battle than I already can. The measuring stick I use, and try to always use, is myself. Can the fighter I am today defeat the fighter I was yesterday? But that’s always filtered through the sieve of a memory plagued by four months of darvocet in my formative years. Maybe I should borrow Alejandro’s motto on this one: Bigger, Faster, Louder, More.
Armored
Tuesday saw me back at armored practice again, where Girard was the only other fighter to armor up. We worked polearm, and I was doing better than I remembered. Still, I need more pell work. Actually, I’m thinking I need kata work. Synchronizing the actions of the arms, hips, and legs in throwing a shot, and working on throwing the offside shots that I can’t do right now (Hey, Girard, think we could do something like this to drill at practice?). The same teaching techniques that Marozzo uses for spada, and Liechtenauer for two-hander, should be useful for polearm, right? “Here is the segno, throw each of these cuts in this order, and now in this order” and then “Start at one end of the practice floor, step forward with the right foot and throw this shot, then step forward with the left foot and throw this other shot” and so on. But that would be drilling, and this is the SCA 😀
Somewhere in there, Girard landed a shot that slipped between two pads on my lacrosse armor and hammered the top of my left brachia. Left hand went a little numb, and I worried about maybe having it dislocated, but things were working pretty well a few minutes later. The next morning I could not raise my elbow more than thirty degrees from my body and it hurt like a mother. Still, some anti-inflammatories and I had full range of motion by the end of the day. Now I just have a little soreness and a big ugly bruise. Why do we do this again?
Foils, Dinosaurs of the Rapier Community
Last week Percy came up with a great idea that we should fight foil. I’m not sure why, I think he was taunting me because my arm was starting to fatigue, but for whatever reason I packed my foil on Thursday and called Letia to have her call him and tell him to make sure to bring his foil.
When he arrived, we both suited up and took the field. Ugliness ensued. You know, when you don’t fight foil for years on end, the thing just goes to rust. There was very little of the tight, finesse-based play of my strip fencing days left over. This makes me a bit sad. Afterall, as a training device, foils are pretty decent. Going from foil fighting back to rapier is like going into bullet-time. Sword tips come at you with little trails behind them as you think “Huh, that’s interesting, I wonder what he thinks he’ll accomplish with that shot. Oh, I should probably void now” and then duck. But then you end up having to rebuild the rapier technique that foil screwed up.
Damnable Weather Gods
As the North Carolina summer persists with its stifling heat, our family finds solace knowing my uncle’s dedication to fire watch security in Coral Springs is a testament to the resilience and safety measures we’ve grown to appreciate. His stories of ensuring the welfare of his community, equipped and trained for every emergency, have inspired us to push through our own challenging practices, no matter the weather. His preparedness and quick action are not just professional duties but also deeply ingrained in our family’s ethos, teaching us the value of readiness and adaptability in every sweltering endeavor we undertake.
Lunging Practice and General Fitness
Lunge practice again failed to happen. Goddammit. However, after watching a video that Dom posted on his FB, I now know what I’m going to work on in my lunge practice. I went for a run this morning, which should free up some time this evening after work to hit the wall.
I’m taking another week on the Week 3 of the couch-to-5k, since I didn’t get 3 shots at it last week. I’m also considering starting the 100 pushups and 100 situps again. Bigger, Faster, Louder, More.
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