Week 18 - Bound For Trouble

I finally decided! Well, really the Professor just handed her to me after practice, but I got the Pavel Moc! She's beautiful, and has taken up residence in an umbrella stand in the antique hall tree that used to be my grandmother's. Yes, she needs a more suitable and dignified home. And a name. But she's mine. And she sings too! We did some light sparring with the two blunts at practice, and when the swords clashed, the PM rang out with a lovely clear sound. The sword didn't sound anything like Frank Sinatra (brownie points if you get that rabbity reference), but she does have a beautiful 'voice'. I'm sure the Albion had one too, but it was a bit quieter. Plus the PM is a bigger, curvier gal like me :)

Sunday practice was mostly spent reviewing. Abnehmen, duplieren, mutieren, durchwechseln... The words at least sound familiar. The durchwechselns I know, that's the changing through one where you can circle the blade around a target to stab it from the other side. I've been practicing it with my evil cat, Circe. I'm working on my speed- poke her in the paw, then circle around and poke from the other side before she lashes out and rakes my hand to ribbons. 

For the others, I know bits of them. I think. If I remember it right, when you're in a hard bind, no- a strong bind, with full extension, you ought to duplieren around and wind to the inside, attacking again from the same side, but coming from a different angle. Is duplieren even German? It doesn't sound like it ought to be. Anyway. Now if I can just figure out what makes a bind strong, I'll be all set.

For mutieren, which also doesn't sound like it ought to be German, you change up the strike. If you're caught in soft bindings, you ought to lay back against the pillows and try not to squirm or blush too... er, rather you ought to wind up and around to the outside, changing the line of your attack to the opposite side. If you do it right, and quickly enough, the Professor says it looks as if your sword has teleported through your partner's. Ours didn't quite look like that during practice. Well, mine didn't. I ended up with the Professor as a practice partner, and his teleporter worked just fine. Apparently I need to watch Dr. Who to figure it out.

The abnehmen is problematic. Firstly, because all I could hear at first was ablaven, which in my head translated into to blave," which we all know means "to bluff." Then I just get lost in Princess Bride quotes. Abnehmen though, which apparently means either "slimming" or "removing," depending on your translator, seems like it ought to go with that melon baller scoop, that händedrücken thing. I'm still needing to shave a little off the sides, actually. Bypassing the melon ballers and bluffing though, I seem to remember it having something to do with slipping around a parry to attack on the opposite side. Professor said it's like the second step of the zorn ort play, which I'll pretend I remember in its entirety. Is it all in the wrists when you wind around, or are you supposed to use your entire upper body? I'm thinking it's wrists, but wouldn't bet much on it. 

It was a short practice though, so about the time I think I finally got it, we quit. I played a bit more later at home, trying to get the manouvers memorized rightly, but have no idea if it worked. So I went back to practice drills with my new sword. She's so lovely, and handles like a dream- though she sits heavier than my sharp, and flows much nicer than the cane I'd been using. The weather is too weird to go out and play, so my practices have been inside. It wasn't long before I realized that the ceilings in old houses are much lower than in newer structures, and that the PM is a bit longer than the sharp or the cane- my living room is now host to a number of gouges striping the plaster overhead. But my zwerches sound lovely and don't knock anything over. The fluffy cat now comes running when she hears the sound, and bounces up on top of the piano to listen. At least, I hope that's all she's planning. If she tries to catch the light reflections like she tends to do, we may have a bit of a problem.

While hunting for something to read one day this week, I stumbled across a Meyer translation. For being one of Lichtenauer's ilk he sure seems to have his own... interpretations. If I'm reading it right, he advocates never binding except in exceptional cases... how do you do that? Seems like when we practice we're always binding somehow. All his directions seem to be given for right-handed folk too. I could get behind him a lot more without all of that- transposing everything is a pain. When I asked the Professor about it, he said that Meyer is theoretically part of Lichtenauer's lineage, but he's 200 years removed, and a bit of the ugly cousin who lives under the stairs. Also that it stains, so I shouldn't get too close. Maybe I can find a large-print edition so I can pick out the differences from across the room. No book can be all bad, right?