I swear, I think our club owes more bruises to Captain otherJake than any set of techniques or people combined. Ever since Deadpool saw him pull a geisel on the Professor at the Short Point event, it's been the most obnoxiously popular move since. At least, I think it's geisel- like Dr. Theodore Seuss Geisel? Or maybe Gazal? Guesel? Gaizel? No idea. Professor said it was geiselhau, I think. Whichever it is, I have a lovely purple and black bruise across my knee from getting whacked with one. I think we've all been nailed with one at some point lately. Luckily, this week one of the maneuvers we learned can sort of counter it and maybe save our shins and kneecaps. Oberlauffen. When he comes in with a mittelhau or that nasty geisel or some other low cut, cross your wrists and rotate your sword down to parry it, then use the momentum from that to snap the blade around in a circle to pop your opponent on the head. More or less anyway, I think that's it.
We also learned Schwert nehmen. 'All your swords are belong to us.' It looks snazzy, and seems to work well when you can do it, and you end up just taking the other guy's sword away from him. I rot at this one, partly because I can't seem to let go of my sword. If I remember rightly though, when you're bound at the strong, you're supposed to take your dominant hand off the pommel and reach around to grab the other guy's sword, lift up to lock his pommel behind your quillions, then pull down and twist the whole mess up and under your arm. The other guy either has to let go or risk breaking bits off his hand. First time the Professor illustrated it on me, my glove got stuck and I kind of clung to my sword while he twisted around, and I got to experience the 'risk breaking bits' part of that little exercise.
I also got tips on what to do if I get charged in a match again, so next time I don't do panic splits in an attempt not to get shoved out of the ring. I'm supposed to pull back and drop my stance and sword down so the bull charges himself up onto it. I can't ever seem to remember that though, and my default "OMGwhatDoIdo?!" move when I get charged or someone tries to disarm me seems to be to turn lemur and just hold on to my sword and whatever's trying to push me over, no matter what. Apparently my tenacity COULD pay off when that happens, because I've been told two or three times that I've had the perfect opportunity to pommel someone in the head. That just seems like cheating for some reason though. Plus... mean!
After the new maneuvers, we worked in pairs on what ended up being a really fun drill. One of us went sparring while the other acted as coach. As coaches, we had to watch our fighters free spar for a minute or so, then offer suggestions on weaknesses that we spotted, or things that we noticed weren't happening with our fighters. We also were to watch the opponents, to look for openings or mistakes that could be exploited. After a round like that, we then had to pick out something our fighters were not doing, some move they hadn't tried, and work out a secret code. When we shouted out the code word, our fighter was to immediately try and work the move into his attack. Part of the idea was to point out the delay between the shouted command and when the fighter's brain actually processed the request and allowed it to happen. Part of it I think too was to realize that if you made a bad call as coach, you could get your fighter clocked. As a fighter, after the first time you heard the other guy's, you just knew what was coming. I came to dread "rice balls" or whatever the call was (C. was hungry), because it meant Dr. Seuss was visiting again. 'I do not like that whack to knee! I do not like it, C! You see?'
Poor Deadpool had me as a coach. While watching his bouts, I noticed that his opponent was constantly crossing his steps, leaving an opening where Deadpool could rush him and likely knock him off balance. It worked a bit too! (Thanks Lee, for the 'exploiting weakness' class- it's helping a lot!) We switched it up a bit, and I noticed one of our guys wasn't covering low very much. Apparently I'm better at noticing stuff when I'm not the one in the middle of the ring. It kicks over to just survival at that point, and I swear everything I learned falls right out of my head. Or maybe getting hit in the head knocks it out my ear and all over the ground. Regardless, I can't remember squat when I'm in the ring. Hopefully things will get ingrained enough that I'll be able to at least think while I'm in a match, and not just react. That passes, right?
The whole day was kind of neat, actually. We advanced that exercise, and the Professor told us we had to add in a two-step combo that the other had to do on command. I can remember the durchwechselns and absetzens and abnehmen stuff perfectly well when I'm sitting here writing, but on command I can't seem to recall anything useful. But I like zwerchs and can remember the meisterhau, so unfortunate Deadpool had to follow my directions, and when I yelled out, he had to unterhau into a zwerch. I don't even know if those two things go together at all, but it WORKED! That may end up being my strategy- whatever crap I can remember gets strewn together when fighting, whether or not it's actually in the right place. Maybe the combination of weirdness will work to my advantage. Regardless, Deadpool managed to pull it off, so yay! When it was my turn, I was fighting T., who is at least a foot taller than me. Deadpool told me to durchwechseln him when he came in for an oberhau, which is kind of T's favorite strike these days. I know the durchwechseln thing, that's the one I practice with the cat, trying not to get my finger sliced up. But for some reason, it translated into a duplieren in my head. So when I went out to meet T., his oberhau came down as expected and I tried to double it over. The problem was, with the sword way above my head to meet his, I couldn't angle it right to double over anything, and ended up just like halving it instead. Or something like that. So it's no wonder that it didn't work.
After a quick break, we each took turns either sparring with the Professor, being marshal, keeping time, or acting as coach for whoever's turn it was to get beaten. That lesson was on providing specific, useful information to your fighter- something beyond "don't get hit." The idea was for the coaches to watch their fighter and the opponent, and try to provide specific tips on what to try, weaknesses or openings that were spotted. "He leans forward when he's about to throw an oberhau, so watch for that, get ready for nachriesen," that sort of thing.
It was awesome. On my turn, the Professor channeled some of the fighters we'd seen at Longpoint: Captain otherJake with his pretty footwork that looks like dancing, Axel's constantly moving and tapping the ground, Mr. Marsden's seemingly disjointed and laid back style that's amazingly effective, Roberto's incredibly low stance... There were others too, but those I recognized right off. My coach during the round was giving me advice on each pass, but pretty much summed it up with: "ya, I don't even know what to say about that." Hehe. I know I get more carried away with the fun than with the proper techniques, and I think my lack of seriousness exasperates the Professor sometimes. I totally admit I was fascinated by the mimicry enough that I barely even tried any attacks of my own during my match. I just wanted to see who'd come next, so pretty much got horribly beaten in every pass- but it was such fun! When the Professor decided I'd had enough, he even rode his sword-horse off to the sidelines in homage.
After practice, the Professor laid down some ground rules for next time. C. isn't allowed to start in pflug ever again. T. isn't allowed to throw oberhaus unless he does an unterhau or a thrust or something else first. (Ya, they need better nicknames, I know.) I'm not allowed to use left-handed guards or wards any more. Apparently I guard my left fairly well, and the shots from that side work as they're supposed to, but I may as well paint a bullseye on my right side, because I get nailed in the chest every time I miss. I'm not showing you people, but I've got the most colorful breast you can imagine- glorious shades of purple streaked with blue, ivory giving way to green-tinged gold speckled with brown, pale pink blossoming into giant red starbursts... pretty sure the whole rainbow is represented at least twice over. I bruise easily, apparently, which doesn't help either. Anyway, the Professor said I was getting too comfortable using my lefty advantage with the boys, so now I have to practice the off side, which feels all weird and wrong and makes me all twitchy. Hopefully that will get easier too.
In the meantime, I'm trying to stifle my sinister superiority and am practicing my right-handedness. I'm working more on my cutting, because I was seriously impressed with the cutting tournament at Longpoint, and I want to do that someday! When I go out, I'm tending to wear longer sleeves to hide the bruises, so that I don't get concerned advice from little old ladies who worry about my choice in men. Oh! If you ever find yourself confronted by Jehovah's Witnesses, as I was this morning while practicing, you can actually render them speechless when you answer the door with a sword in your hand. Just a tip. :-D
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