Woohoo! Private Lesson! Well, not really, but that's kind of
what it ended up like since nobody else showed up. Excellent- I'd have
one-on-one instruction. I'd get the chance to learn something the others
hadn't yet, and for the first time might actually be ahead in class.
Unfortunately,
it didn't take me long to realize the down side of this perfect
teacher-student ratio. There was absolutely nothing to deflect the
attention from me. There was no opportunity to watch the others to
figure out what I was supposed to be doing. No chance to work things out
with a sparring partner. No listening to hear the questions the others
were asking. And I hadn't practiced anything all week. I hadn't even
brought the sword in out of the truck. (That earned me some funny looks
when I went to pick up my niece, I must say.) Not so excellent.
So I was trying to recall the steps of the Döbringer Flourish, and actually remembered something about koalas krumphauing over plowed platypuses or whatever it was, and managed to muddle through it, more or less. "There it is! Now do it again!" he
calls out. I live for those comments. So I do it again. And again. And
another few times, just to be sure. Once he's convinced I've got that
down, we move on. I suspect this is going to be like standardized tests
the government demands the kids take at school- I've got it for now,
long enough to past the test. The real proof will be whether I still
remember it next week.
After the fancy donuts, we moved on to Durchwelseln. Durchwelselns? Durchwelselni?
No idea. I thought he'd sneezed at first, anyway. I have to write these
things down so I have word associations to go with them. How do you
pluralize all these German terms anyway? No idea. So the Professor says
we're moving on to sneezing with swords, and I feel woefully unprepared.
But then I always seem to, so that's nothing new.
Durchwechseln - changing through
Here's
where we see if I remember what I learned this week. If I'm weak in the
bind, I kind of flick my wrists and pull my sword out of the bind, then
slip around to the other side of my opponents' sword, then am
(theoretically) perfectly in line for a thrust. Or if I'm fast enough, I
slip around his sword before it even reaches mine to bind. Then I wind up into an absetzen to poke him in the throat.
Correction to previous post: Absetzens do NOT make my heart fonder. I do not like them here or there, I do not like them anywhere. I flipping hate absetzens. "Get your arms up!"
Much grumbling under my breath, which hopefully he didn't hear. The mask
is good for that at least- hiding my inventive but whispered growly
threats. Why the apologies can't stay hidden too, I don't know.
We
keep practicing, the Professor telling me to strike at him so he can
show me what it's supposed to do. But he has no mask on! I don't know
what I'm doing! I mean, I know a little bit, but not enough to inspire
confidence. Sure I know I probably won't be able to hit him
intentionally, but it's not that part that worries me. I'm more worried
about doing it wrong, or doing something unexpected accidentally and
thwacking him. I'm already running around with a sharp pointy object,
which my mother warned me against as a kid. It seems like actually
trying to strike someone who's unprotected with said pointy stick is
just asking for trouble. You know, it's all fun and games until someone
loses an eye or whatever. "Hit me! We don't train to miss!" Grrr... Fine. I snap my sword forward and come down the edge of his shoulder. I gasp out a "sorry!" and he whacks me on top of the head.
Ok...
I was raised that if you did something that could hurt someone else,
whether you meant to or no, you apologized. If it was bad enough, you
needed to try and smooth things over and make amends. Usually that
involved baked goods and hand-written notes. Normally this serves me
quite well, and I usually manage to avoid getting into situations that
require apologies and making up. I'm normally one of those folks who
goes out of the way to make people comfortable. The "Bunny" nickname
thing partially came about because of that- if you asked my friends to
come up with three words to describe me, gentle, caring, and sweet tend
to be top of the list.
The long and short of all that is this- apologizing is second nature by now. All the other kids at sword practice have gotten them time and again.
If I score a hit, an apology follows. It might be under my breath if I
remember in time, but they usually just slip out. So when I'm sparring
the Professor and he's telling me to hit him, and I actually do score a
blow, I can no more stop the apology slipping out than I can quit
breathing. And that earns me a shot on top of the head and a snapped "Quit apologizing!" Every time.
It
kills me, that disappointed growl. It hurts worse than being clocked
upside the head. But I can't seem to knock off the apologies. I know the
whole point is to try and hit people. I know I'm doing what I'm
supposed to be doing. I know they all chose to be here too and take
their chances getting whacked with big metal bars. Knowing all that
doesn't help. The apologies still slip. Maybe I need to learn to do it
in other languages, so they're not recognizable as sorries. For the
foreseeable future though, I'll just be trying to keep them quiet,
hoping the mask will muffle them.
So... if I end up
facing any of you in a match someday, just to be clear: I am not
entirely sorry if I hit you, but I do still feel a little bad about it.
And to make amends, I'll bring cookies.
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