King's Hunt, 2010

Have refrained from ZARMing (that's what these posts have become in my head, ZARM posts) in the last few weeks because there hasn't been a lot of action at Isles practice (read also, I skipped Isles practice because it was finals week and spring break and figured there wouldn't be much going on there). I was having some trouble with the Angry Druids drill, but Laertes and I worked it out on Saturday at King's Hunt and I've got some more tools to improve.

King's Hunt left me with some additional drills which I will list here for no one's benefit but my own. :)

Angry Druids 2, now with more pointwork!
ZZ Top Lightening Bolt (parry drill)
Trapped in a Cone Box (narrow side)
Trapped in a Cone Box (long side)

This adds to the original drills:

Angry Druids
Figure-8 Cones (footwork drill)
Figure-8 Cones (footwork drill, backwards)
Arm and Wrist Strengthening (weights)

Fencing at King's Hunt was okay, pretty good, meh, and not great by turns. :)

On Friday night I sucked allllll over the field. I was stressed out about running the event, a little annoyed for reasons unrelated to this post, not concentrating or in the headspace at all, and had too much on my mind. I had fun, don't get me wrong, but I got killed like 3 times in the exact same way and eventually stopped before I was to disgusted with myself. :)

I asked Raphael how he killed me twice in the same place and he (to my eternal gratitude) was not at all condescending when he reminded me to move my offhand into a defensive position when I lunge. Doh. This was a good indicator that I was just plain not in the fencing headspace, and I'm glad I stopped while I was still serene enough to learn something from getting beaten so badly, rather than giving it another couple shots and getting really frustrated with myself.

Saturday was a bit better. I faced Cassandre and Edward (AKA Lord Pinky) in the Unscarved list and was out in two. That wasn't disappointing--they're both better and more experienced fencers than I am and I was neither one-shotted, nor tunnel-visioned, nor deer-in-the-headlighted at any point during the fights.

Cassandre said she'd waited for me to get a rhythm in my baton swings and sniped me in counter-time. What does this say to me? Well, better defense, so snipes don't connect, but also to fight more with single. The less I rely on my offhand, the more likely I am to be able to parry an unexpected attack, even if I have an established rhythm the opponent is trying to exploit. I think I just said the same thing twice. :)
As I've said before, one of the reasons I like to fight baton is that it makes me more confident and aggressive--and, unfortunately, one of the reasons it makes me more confident and aggressive is because it covers a lot of important flaws in my defense that simply can't be saved by dagger or buckler. Ergo, less baton, more single, and eventually more dagger. Fortunately, I have plenty of shiny new parry drills and a "Do not move ha ha" defense drill which should help with that.

Pinky even came up afterward and said I'd done much better than the last time we'd fought, which was a lovely unsolicited compliment that had me smiling and happy every time I thought about it. That, combined with the willingness of my opponents to tell me exactly how they had kicked my ass and how to make it more challenging for them next time, combined with some new tricks from the big L (and Don Alex B. as he watched us), made me feel very good about how the whole weekend turned out, fencing-wise. It was, as they say, a "learning experience," and not one of those nasty painful ones that culminates in a huge hangover.

On Saturday Laertes mentioned that this part (colloquially known as "the beginning") of the studentship can be extremely frustrating because people tend to learn a bunch of new stuff but not feel like they're improving. I have yet to reach that part of the experience--I'm still stoked to have the opportunity to learn more and do more, still stoked to be getting some tools which are geared to help me improve some of my specific weaknesses, and absolutely bomb-tastic thrilled to have been given this opportunity and the chance to exploit it in such a friendly, supportive community.