School starts in two weeks, and the first kid who asks me for a Dr. Seuss book may find himself crowned with it. Geisels galore this week, again. And every single time, I saw it coming and thought to myself "hmm, I should go for an ober lauOWWW." Three times I got caught with that stupid geisel, and I never did get the ober lauffen around in time.
This week we got a new student to join us. New Guy seems very sweet so far and is familiar with harnessfechten, but the blossfechten stuff I think is new to him. We started off reviewing the zwie hangen, and had an assignment to go find illustrations of them somewhere in a manual on wiktenauer, to explain to everyone next week. We practiced with our partners the ober lauffens again, and did more reviews of the basics to be sure New Guy had them down.
We also spent a while doing more of the spar/coach/judge exercise. The Professor had us switching off again, this time mixing up our partners more so that we had a chance to coach everyone at least once. We're getting better, I think, about being specific with our criticisms, which truly does help a lot more than "don't get hit!" It's a lot easier to spot openings when you're not the one getting pounded on. It was also apparently the week of Bill channeling. So many hand shots! But if people are going to leave their hands out there, they're going to get whacked, I guess. I caught one shot to my pinky, but it was on a thrust- can't block with hands. Holy crumbs did it hurt too- much worse than my ring finger getting crushed at Longpoint. That one is still achy too. And still a little crooked. It's all weird now :(
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Week 24
SOOO much fun! Triangle of Death drills! This week was all about getting the muscle memory to actually become memory rather than "OMG stop hitting me like that!"
After a review of each of the wards and the ways to counter them, we practiced with a partner to be sure we actually could match them up and successfully use them in sparring. This is where those flashcards I need to make really would come in handy. We had to practice each from both left and right, and using left-handed and right-handed stances. (I sort of hate to admit it, but the Professor not letting me use my lefty stances actually really made this one easy. And his not letting me be lefty helped me see how I'd been opening up my right side, which is why I'd kept getting stabbed in the chest. Happily, this week I have NOT ONE SINGLE NEW BRUISE to add to my collection! Kind of nice to prove him right, I guess.)
Once we had the basics down again, we moved to a new game. There were only three of us left at that point, so we had to triangularize (don't care if it's not a word, I like it) ourselves. Each of us had to pick a ward, then we circled to the left, using the appropriate meisterhau to break each guard. Starting off, I picked my backwardsnonleftyweirdfeeling pflug, Ezio (formerly known as T) chose vom tag, and C (who still needs a better nickname) went with alber. So we zwerch, scheitel, schieled our way around the triangle to the left, and as soon as the one guard had been broken, we had to pick a new one, and continue going around and around, taking turns and breaking guards. Then we had to do the same, but it was two vs. one- two of us would guard, the third would break them both. Then the Professor popped into the middle, and we went round robin again, this time with him breaking all our guards- which got really funny when he started calling them out as he'd break them. After a while, the schietels started getting schieldy and the krumps were going wild, and I think he got a little dizzy. It was cute.
While we took a break, he pointed out that nobody ever actually stays very long in a guard, once they know what they're doing anyway. But in the middle of combat, you hit those guards while moving from one cut into another, or while parrying a strike and moving to guard yourself, and have to be able to recognize when one of those meisterhau might be useful. So next up on the practice field, we had to do some sparring, trying to break the guards when we saw them. We did the coach/fighter thing again, and the coach gave us a sequence of guards that we were supposed to use, always watching for the moment that we could break the other fighter's instead. I went first, but had apparently totally missed the finer details of the exercise. I got my orders from my coach, and when the match began, went into my sequence of guards, looking for my opponent to do the same. But none of his guards showed up as such. There'd be something that looked a little like an ochs, but in the wrong place, and while I was trying to figure out what was going on, he'd throw a strike I had to parry, or end up getting hit. I got creamed that first one. Apparently I'd misunderstood, and we were supposed to just spar and look for opportunities to break the wards if we saw them in the midst of the fight. Makes a big difference when you actually understand what you're supposed to be doing.
We finished up with another review of the zwie hangen, and a reminder to do the homework that we hadn't reviewed as we were supposed to. So I spent a few hours getting lost in the Wiktenauer this week, looking up plays where you might find hangen, along with every other thing that caught my interest along the way. "Here's a great illustration from Pseudo-Peter von Danzig's blossfechten gloss... hmmm, why's he called Pseudo-Peter anyway? Cool, he might be Ringeck! Yikes, that one must be a cataloguing nightmare. Oh what's this rossfechten stuff? Ooooh, horses!" This is why librarians know bits of everything.
Then some random notes on swording, learned thus far from practicing at home:
a. Practicing indoors no es bueno. Aside from the previously created gouges in the ceiling (only one was mine thank you- the Professor made one too), it is far too easy to damage furniture. I was practicing my stucken and managed to clip the piano. Took me twenty minutes to buff out the mark.
b. Nephews are heartily impressed by an aunt who keeps swords in the house.
c. Corollary to b- When speaking of swords with nephews, be quick to mention that some are sharp.
d. Addendum to c- Be sure to have sparkly, girly band-aids on hand, in case one's tongue is too slow to remark upon the sharpness of swords, and nephews decide to test the aforementioned on their own skin.
e. Practicing outdoors is no good when furry beasts are about. Especially when the furry beasts are the kind that like to stay right at your feet.
f. Practicing durchwechselns with the evil cat with one's fingers no longer works. She is evil, but smart, and is amazingly quick to counter. Sparkly band-aids will be required to continue.
g. Corollary to f- durchwechselns work surprisingly well with the cat when using a blunt- the four foot length of steel is just barely enough to keep one out of claw range. It actually gets her evil chubbiness some well-needed exercise as well.
h. Triangle stepping is interpreted by puppies as an invitation to play.
i. There are a lot of crummy videos out in the interwebs about footwork. (How do you triangle step by moving your feet only once?) Definitely gives one an appreciation for folks who actually look to sources to figure it out.
j. Passing steps are interpreted by puppies as more invitations to play.
k. When ordering the fifth box of pool noodles in one summer, the pool guys come to really appreciate visits, and seem to enjoy asking about how the noodles go with swords. Especially when one brings cookies.
l. Practicing cutting on a pool noodle tied to a weather gauge works great... once.
m. Manuals are difficult to interpret, even after you get past the guy who can't seem to draw human limbs correctly and makes them bend in seemingly impossible directions.
o. Motivators are interpreted by puppies as a definite invitation to play.
p. Getting blogs out in a reasonable time period is directly proportional to the amount of time spent at home. I'll try and be quicker next week :)
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