Or rather, that was the morning the cats discovered that the tatamis had come. They wouldn't leave the box alone. Every day that week, I'd come home from work to find them perched on top of it, stuffing their paws into the holes in the cardboard. Each vying for position, bouncing the other off the top of the four-foot tower, claws splaying to hold on when the other set the box to rocking on its uneven bottom. Or they'd be staking out the base of the box, making more holes with curious claws and exploring the place where I'd crushed the box by dropping it when it arrived. I came home one day to find Abbycat lying in a pile of shredded box bits, the lopsided base a little more lopsided than it had been when I'd left. My living room smelled like grass. Like nasty, dry, dusty, gross grass. Luckily, I was taking the mats to practice that Sunday, so I loaded the holey box into the truck before going to work on Friday. It was weirdly warm that day, but I thought nothing of it... until school was over.
Lovely, sunshiney day, full of warmth and light that mocked the horror that awaited when I returned to my vehicle. I opened the door, only to be hit with a wave of stink, nearly solid in its very awfulness. My truck smelled like something had died in it. Tatamis. Cripes, the smell. They had apparently been baking in the oven-like heat of the interior of the truck, turning the nasty, dry, dusty, grassy smell into a rotten stink the likes of which put that skunk the boys spooked a few weeks ago to shame. I can't even describe it properly, but can say that I was extremely glad to offload them at the Professor's on Sunday. And with a few days leaving the windows down in the cold, my truck no longer reeks.
The last half of Sunday practice was spent learning how to roll and bind up tatami mats and sharpen swords. Thankfully the fresh, cold air in the garage kept the mats from reeking too much. It was fun- the Professor set up stations. Half of us were on mat duty, rolling the tatamis up tight, fastening them with rubber bands. The others were focusing on the care and feeding of swords- learning how to de-rust them, sanding, polishing, sharpening. Then we'd switch. My baby Pavel (she still needs a name) was getting a bit of surface rust and a lot of dings, so it was nice to get her cleaned up. And Bacia the sharp got her edges honed and the dings buffed out too. Oooh, so now that I know how to care for them, the Professor can't claim I'd be a bad sword mom to the Brescia Spadona we've had our eyes on.
Old New Guy will henceforth be known as Harnisfechten. New New Guy is just New Guy. For now, anyway. So for practice, I was paired up with Harnisfechten. We were "defending the wall"- an exercise where one of us was the attacker, one the defender, and the only goal was to use the meisterhau to whack the defender in the head with a good, technical, strike. The defender was trying not to get nailed, using the vier versetzen we'd been practicing, along with anything else that would keep his head from getting crushed. We were to take turns, each of us getting hit ten times before switching places. I guess Harnisfechten and I were doing pretty well- we never did make it to ten hits when quitting time came :-)
We got to try cutting some of the mats the following week. The Professor had soaked them, and we all had to practice spiking them properly, then cutting. Note: tatamis do not feel at all like pool noodles. The pool noodles were great for sword alignment- if your sword wasn't angled exactly right, the noodle just went flying off- but you might not know exactly why. Just hitting the tatami gave great feedback. More snap was needed if you didn't make it through. You could exactly see where in your strike you turned the blade, or whether you'd thrown too much hip into it or didn't have enough power. We used the little chunks as apples to practice scheitels, learned about scalloping and mountaining and clean cuts, and to remember our purpose- even if the cut wasn't super-perfect, the guy on the receiving end would still have a really bad day. When cutting, as with everything else, I still need to work on my footwork. I still tend to fairy foot- I need to figure out a way to be sure I plant my heel every time. Maybe tap shoes would help. I can see it now, out on the porch or the concrete around the pool, trying to be sure to CLICK my heel down with every swing. It might work. I'm sure it would be entertaining for the neighbors and the dog anyway. Or annoying. One or the other.
We also practiced more of the vier versetzens and meisterhaus, trying to reinforce and drill responses into us all, and serving as a reminder for New Guy. I paired up with him for this one, and so we practiced listening to the windows, countering the meisters, and reviewing (and learning for some) the zorn ort play. I suspect the Professor might be wanting to use that one for the demo at my school next week. It's a fun play at least, and one I actually remember. Usually. Thankfully, New Guy doesn't seem to mind my weird mumblings to myself and odd interpretations. Actually, I think he GETS me, which is kind of fun too. At least, he understands my desire to take notes and reword everything. His footwork is still better than mine though. Grr.
I came home after sword practice on Sunday completely worn out, so crawled into bed. It was chilly, and normally I love that for sleeping. When I got up though, it wasn't any warmer. I cranked up the heat before work, but came home to find it just as cold. Figures when the temperature reaches a high of 33 outside that THAT would be exactly when my heat goes out. The heater gets an attitude in winter, and starts sucking in extra air until it can't seem to do anything else. I tried practicing my meisterhau to keep warm, but it's too flipping cold outside, just as cold in here, and I gave up after dropping my sword twice. So I figured I'd write instead, but it's even colder when you're not moving. Luckily though, my custom-made SPES AP gambeson finally arrived this week, so I'm wearing it and my undergloves to blog right now. I'm hoping that to break it in a bit, because as of now it's REALLY not comfortable. Everywhere I gave a measurement seems to be ok, but the in-between bits aren't so much. But it is warm, so right now it's serving a vital purpose :)
The last thing I discovered this week doesn't really fit in anywhere, so I'll just tack it on last. At practice, the guys are always trying to set up practice sessions during the week. I'd love to join, but an hour and a half each way is too much on a school night. So when I practice, I have to go solo. I need to get a pell or something so that I'm not just faking everything. I can beat my imaginary partners handily every time, but unfortunately they apparently suck, because when I spar with the boys on Sundays, I don't do nearly so well. With it being so cold outside, I've been trying to do at least my hundred cuts daily- all the meisterhaus from left and right. On the up side, being forced to be right-handed for the last few weeks has been great for getting me used to fighting from either side. But just doing the strikes didn't seem super-useful. I still practice my durchwechselns with Circe, but she's getting cleverer, and has gotten much faster, so it's getting trickier. Abby just lays around and stares at me like I'm a nut when I practice. But Tonka, my dear Uberfluffen, he's always right nearby, hoping to play. And with his help, I hit on this weird but genius way to practice.
I'd been trying to practice the moves that I'd learned with RJ at Longpoint, trying to move my sword without revealing my intent. When I'd told the Professor about it, I couldn't remember the right terminology. Basically, I wanted to practice not foreshadowing my moves, I'd told him. Not giving away my intent with tells. It wasn't feinting really, just trying not to let people know what I was doing. Trying to pop the point of my sword and get moving without forecasting or telegram-ing my plan. You know when things are right there but you can't for the life of you get it right? TELEGRAPHING. I was trying to not do it. But practicing in a mirror doesn't really help, because you KNOW when you're going to move, even if you try not to let on.
Anyway, poor Uberfluffen is missing his pal Roscoe, and he's hating being stuck inside on cold days. So he's dying to play, most of the time. When he gets too bored, he goes on these crazy tears, running all around the house, circling rooms and furniture at top speed, crashing into things when he doesn't turn tight enough, then slamming to a halt right in front of whoever's in the room. He sits there, legs splayed, rump in the air, all tense and waiting for someone to make a move so that he can go tearing around again. He'll do it over and over again until he collapses in a panting heap. As I was playing with him, getting him wound up and sending him tearing around the place again, I noticed that he didn't always take off the first time I moved- if he saw it coming, he stayed frozen. If I startled him, he'd take off like a nutcase. To test if it was consistent, I grabbed a stick and tried it again. Sure enough, if I moved before the stick, he stayed still, tense and staring. If I managed to pop the stick so it moved before I did, it sent him off like shot, zigzagging all over the place and bouncing off the furniture. The next day, I tried it with a stick dragon. Same deal. If I managed to move the dragon without the rest of me giving it away, he was off and running. If I leaned forward, or made any indication that I was going to move, he just stayed there, staring. Finally earlier this week, I tried the sword. It worked! So now the fuzzy boy gets more exercise running around like a freak, and I get to practice not telegraphing with someone who doesn't know what I'm thinking. And he never reminds me about my fairy feet.
