Sundays are nice, lazy days for some. Mine aren't so much like that. After I wake up with a cat pawing at my face (with claws extended, generally), I take the fuzzy boys for a walk, then I've got church. Honestly, I'd skip a lot more if I weren't in the choir. That was kind of the point of my joining actually, but there are days I kick myself for it. At least I quit trying to do both services with Sunday School in between... I may be going to purgatory for it, but swords are much more fun than double church. So I sing, then book home after church, let the boys out again or load them into the truck, change clothes, then start off on my drive to West Virginia. There's about five minutes of leeway in there, but that's about it if I'm going to make it on time. Normally I don't mind the drive, because it's an hour and a half of backwoods beauty, passing through vineyards and orchards, past fields dotted with fat black cows, horse farms, and then that one weird goat/sheep/emu place too. It's a lovely drive, and at the end are sharp pointy sticks and new stuff to learn, then more fun and games after too. I love my Sundays.
This week though, I was already running a bit late. When I went to put the swords in my truck, Tonka the wondermutt decided to go walkabout. He's figured out how to open doors, so he just let himself out, and I had to spend a while tracking him down and getting him squared away. Finally I got him back in and was on my way. This Sunday was gorgeous. Cool and breezy, sunny and clear. Perfect weather for sword practice. And apparently it was also perfect weather for driving along at 20 miles an hour under the speed limit. I swear every vineyard I passed was having a wine tasting that day, or an open house, or a civil war reenactment. Every elderly couple in Virginia was out for a drive. One of those fat black cows had managed to escape his fence and was standing in the road, blocking traffic. And since the drive is an hour and a half of backwoods beauty, more than half of it is marked with the spirit of Gandalf- YOU SHALL NOT PASS! Luckily I'm pretty good at patience, so tried to kill the frustration of tooling along at 35 miles an hour by singing along with the radio stations that kept fading in and out as I drove through the mountains.
When I finally got to practice, the guys were working with daggers. Apparently I'd already missed abnehmens and something about winding. Grr, I hate being late. Someday I want to try the daggers, but I'd missed the whole beginning part, so just sat and watched. The Professor's really good about not only explaining the historical background for what he's teaching, but also applying it to everyday life in practical applications- like self defense. Although I sincerely hope I'm never in a position where I need to defend myself, he's made sure we all have at least a basic understanding of how what we're learning could be used in such cases. Generally speaking though, cows don't do a lot of mugging, and at least one of the dogs has a nice scary bark, so my practical applications will probably stick to stuff like shoveling or trimming trees. Regardless, it's always interesting to listen to the Professor's lectures, in part because they're usually punctuated by him using one of us as an example. As long as it's not you getting beaten on, it's usually pretty entertaining.
After the boys got tired of playing with knives, we went out back for some archery practice. About ten years ago, I used to do archery with some friends. One of them was training for the Olympics, so she's the one who taught the rest of us. It was a lot of fun, and I got into enough to want a bow and arrows. I found a lovely little recurve on eBay, which the seller listed as being a left-handed bow. It's not. But rather than deal with shipping it back, I just went with it and learned to use it right-handed. I had a dozen arrows made for me and used them for practice. We'd go every week to the archery range in the damp, moldy basement of the gun club and practice. Fast forward to today, and the Professor has us doing medieval-style archery. On one hand, it's great- no aiming. On the other, it sucks- no aiming. We've lost nearly half my lovely arrows. I suspect they're buried in the ground, but who knows. I'm thinking I ought to paint the rest of the fletchings with glow in the dark pink paint or something. Either that, or tie strings to the end of them so we can find them after they've been fired. I figure at some point I'll borrow my papa's metal detector to see if we can locate the missing.
After archery, we pulled out the swords again. We've got lots of people to play with now, which is nice. We're an odd mix, which gives us practice vs. lots of different types of fighters, which is awesome. We've got the short and tall covered. Very tall. The young and the... older than young. (That's me, so shush.) We've got both lefties and righties, and a few of us who try to do both. We have both girls and guys. We have veterans and new folk, people with martial arts experience and those more familiar with culinary arts. (That'd also be me.)
The rest of the class time was devoted to a gauntlet for Twinkie, our birthday boy. One minute matches for each of his mighty 18 years. I was last in the rotation again- not sure quite how that always seems to happen, but it's becoming my spot. I kind of like it though, because I get to observe and study, pick up on idiosyncrasies that we each have. Anyway, when it was my turn, I told him I had little sympathy- I'd had to do... well, a lot more bouts than he did. He laughed, and we got down to it. I was pleased afterward- I got in a few good shots in the initial round. But then...
Professor: "Did I just hear you apologize?"
Me: "Ummm... no?"
Laughter all around.
Of course I apologized. I apologize every time I hit anyone. I apologize when I bump into bookshelves at school. Doesn't matter if it was an intentional hit or no. The sorries just slip out like word vomit. There's no help for it. It'll probably be printed on my headstone when I die. "Sorry!"
Poor Twinkie. He was all cocky and cute in the beginning, taunting his opponents and throwing out playful comments left and right. His enthusiasm never dampened throughout the gauntlet, but his stamina definitely did. He got in several good hits, and he tends to be pretty mobile when he fights. That part definitely faded as the matches went on. It was pretty fun to watch, actually. There were six of us at practice, so he had to face us each three times- plus the Professor in between rounds. As time progressed, there was more and more grappling in each match. I think he was wrestling with us all at that point just so he had an excuse to flop down on the grass for a bit. Several times people got grappled to the ground, and decked with a sword that way. A few times, people got grappled to the ground, and the sword missed. There was some definite fatigue going around.
The comments stopped about halfway through, and the talking completely ended by the time we got to our second round. More apologies, some double kills, a couple good shots from each of us. Lots of bad ones. At one point he grabbed the front of my bra and pulled it down. I'm not entirely sure if he was trying to keep himself from falling, trying to pull me down with him or what, but at least I'm fairly certain he wasn't trying to sneak a peek down my shirt- the poor boy looked whipped. We tumbled to the ground with our swords all tangled up during the last match. I extracted myself just in time for the Professor to step in and finish him off. But he managed to survive intact, slightly bruised and battered, but still enthusiastic enough to get jazzed about cutting, which was how we finished the day.
We found out later that Twinkie earned himself exactly 18 bruises. Now isn't that the perfect birthday present!?
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