Altavia Anniversary, 05/22/10

Oof.

Altavia Anniversary was lots of fun, but oh MAN, did I suck on the rapier front. It was confusing, it was annoying, it was frustrating, and it was discouraging. By the end of the day, I was so frustrated, I didn't want to fight anymore. I pretty much just wanted to dig a hole and sit in it for awhile. In short, I was sulking.

When I was in high school, I did a lot of performing. I sang in two choirs, did every school play, and the yearly musical. When I first started performing, I would spend most of my on-stage time making sure I was saying the right lines, doing the right dance steps, staying in tune, harmonizing correctly, and, when I remembered, being nervous. As the years passed, the stage fright and self-analysis faded, and it got to the point where I didn't even think anymore, I just did. The really good performances, I couldn't even remember once I got off stage. It wasn't that I was performing by rote or that I was bored--I became a vehicle for my technique.

I'm not at that point in my fencing game. I'm still in the first blush of learning new stuff, where a lot of my time on the field is preoccupied with thinking. I think about what I'm going to do, I think about my calibration and measure, I think about the person I'm fighting, I think about speed, I think about everything. This isn't necessarily at bad thing at the moment--as long as I'm not preoccupied with negative brain stuff, like nervousness or self-consciousness, it's okay. I'm supposed to be analyzing and applying my new skills and techniques, and if I have to think about them to do them right now, that's okay. For now. Eventually, it'll get to the point where I don't have to think about it (not one day too soon, in my opinion), but not today.

Well, yesterday, I wasn't thinking at all. I wasn't analyzing, planning, scheming, plotting, or concocting. By the end of the day, I wasn't even reacting. And it sucked.

That point, the part where I'm not thinking, I'm just doing, is the Zen I'm constantly harping on about. Sometimes I feel it--or, at least, feel it in the aftermath, because it sort of asserts itself without my noticing and I don't realize until it's gone that it was there at all. I know I won't have the Zen fencing every fight forever once I hit a certain point, but I'd like to have it regularly once I improve a little bit. For now, I'm stuck with my brain making noise most of the time.

I can't really remember any of my fights from yesterday. I can remember the fights from practice, I can remember the fights from Darach Anniversary last week, but I can't remember the fights from yesterday. I remember my first fight with Don Andre pretty well, because I was thinking and had a plan and all that good stuff, but everything after that was just awful.

As I think I've said before, I don't get annoyed when I lose, especially not when I lose to someone who's been fighting a lot longer and is a lot better than I am. I get annoyed when I lose and I can't figure out what I did wrong or how I got killed. That was my day all day yesterday.

Dons Andre and Alexander were kind enough to walk me through the fights afterward and, as always, Laertes was right there before and after to give me tips, pointers, suggestions, and encouragement. I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by very patient, encouraging, inspiring people who are willing to give their time and energy to help me improve my game, even when I'm being a bit of a brat about it.

I think this is the first hurdle Laertes mentioned I'd hit--where I'm getting a lot of new information and trying to implement it. He said the first little while of the studentship would be really frustrating because I wouldn't be improving, even though I had all these shiny new tricks and ideas to use. Quite possible.

Man, I wish I didn't get discouraged so easily. I've always been better at talking myself down than shoring myself up, and the more something matters to me, the harder I am on myself. I may not be a great fencer, but I have, like, a black belt in beating myself up.

This is something I notice in my personal life as well--the arsenal of things I have to make me feel good about myself is far outgunned by the arsenal of things I have to make myself feel worse. But that's a post for another day and another blog.

The solution to this, obviously, is more practice. Nate (Dylan, to those of you in the scene) suggested that maybe I was being too hard on myself and driving myself too hard to perform, but I think the opposite is true--I'm not practicing enough, or drilling enough. I know that results won't come overnight, but if I don't feel like I'm really doing my all, I have a reason to feel bad about my performance. If I feel like I'm working hard enough, I have no reason to beat up on myself. Slow and steady and all that.

I wasn't feeling great at the beginning of Darach practice today, and my first fight with Askell was terrible and very discouraging, but Don Alexander worked with me for entirely longer than he should have at playing with constraints (I've gotten how they worked just fine, it's the what to do after I get up in the face part I've had trouble with). After that I was back in the learning headspace and feeling a lot better.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends...

(Also, I have some new drills. More on those later.)

Darach Anniversary/Altavia Equestrian (05/15/10)

This past weekend was Darach Anny/Altavia Equestrian (also the debut of the boyfriend's new haircut, the advent of which was the cause of much bemoaning and suffering on my facebook wall by the female population of my flist... poor ladies. I still love him, though).

First of all, I have new drills! The Angry Druids drill now has part two, which resolves my off-balance problem (although it introduces some new footwork complications). And lo, there were also large coasters. That one should be fun, once I figure it out.

Secondly, fencing was not terribly productive, but still satisfying and fun! Died a lot courtesy of Don Eogan and Edward, but I knew why I died and that was all good. Laertes mentioned that I was much more aggressive than usual against Edward, and I knew it was because I'd fought him a lot in the past, was more comfortable, and knew that I wouldn't have a prayer if I didn't take the initiative on him.

Thirdly, I think children under 6 should be banned from SCA events entirely and forever! If there hadn't been so damn many ADORABLE BABIES at Darach, I totally would have been more productive. Yeah. Yeah, that's it.

Fighter Practice, 05/05/10

Did a bit of fencing at fighter practice last week. I went up against Alke, who hasn't been around recently but is always a fun fight, and Zhivana.

I wasn't really in the analytical headspace while fighting, but I did do some musing on drills, which I'll share and expound on below:

The Angry Druids Drill

This drill involves an attack in 2nd/3rd and small forward motion, much like the standard Italian lunge. The key difference is that instead of going straight forward, I pop my foot out to the side and let the motion carry me laterally, essentially moving my body in a 45 degree angle toward my opponent, rather than straight at them.

I've practiced this drill a fair amount over the last few weeks, and am slowly getting it into the autopilot section of my brain, where my first reaction to a forward attack from a right-handed person is to wait for them to withdraw and counterattack by popping out to the side, or engage an incoming attack with an off-hand parry and simultaneous counter in the lateral position.

So far, the results have been good. I have yet to pop out into an oncoming blade, or do one of the spectacular blade-bending pratfalls that elicits sympathetic "OOH!"s from the audience in my head. I've even, like, killed people with this shit. Bene, si?

Well, it still doesn't feel quite right. The problem is, I feel like it takes significantly more effort to get out of the lunged position than it does to get into it. It could be a couple things, and I'm not sure which one it is:

1. My weight is too far over on my left leg when I land, or
2. I'm leaning forward too far and throwing my butt out behind me to compensate, or
3. My foot isn't correct, which makes my knee not right, which throws my hips out of alignment, or
4. My foot isn't right and because of that, I'm losing my center and getting too much weight over on my left side, or
5. Some combination of 3 and 4 (I think it might be this one).

Whatever the issue is, I don't feel like I can recover from this position fast enough to protect myself--it's about as fast as a regular lunge, but because my weight gets redistributed oddly, I feel stuck in it and have trouble drawing back up to my regular position.

I appreciate that the proper execution of this drill is made and broken by the position of the hips during and immediately after the forward foot (for my purposes, my left foot) hits the ground. At first I really wasn't moving my weight enough, or I'd move it too much--I'd either end with my left leg sort of pointing off in the distance somewhere with no significant change in my torso compared to a standard lunge, or I'd end up with 80% of my weight on my left foot, my knee bent just absurdly far, my right foot almost coming off the ground behind me, and way lower to the ground than I usually am when I lunge. I imagine I looked extremely silly.

In short, I feel like I'm doing much better with this drill than I was, and I find it really effective and useful--but something about the execution just hasn't quite clicked yet. Ponder ponder.

In other news, a different drill is working great for me. I can't practice it by myself, but it's incredibly easy to use against an opponent (although that same ease of use makes it difficult to use in all the guards, because I'm only using it for the guards my opponents attack me in). It's a simple flick of the tip as an attack is coming towards you--effectively, it's a small parry with the false edge of your blade that becomes an attack with the strong through a quick turn of the wrist.

It's difficult to describe in text, but incredibly easy to use in real life, and works much better with my brain than the classic Italian "parry that is also attack" style. I don't often trust myself or my skills enough to parry-attack correctly, and I think the self-doubt and hesitation results in me getting killed a lot more than improper technique... :) The simultaneous parry-attack is one of the first things I learned in fencing, and I know I do it right--I just don't believe it when I do it, if that makes sense.

So, pluses and minuses. I know I'm making progress, although it feels much slower than I'd like. :) Onward and upward.

Fighter Practice, 04/28/10

So this week I actually made it to fighter practice! O frabjous day!

Isles practice is not as satisfying as it once was--people who go there tend to show up later, because many of them live within 5-10 minutes away from the practice site and when I have an hourlong commute to consider and work to get to the next morning, fencing from 8 to 11 really isn't an option. The time between me (and Nate) getting there and everyone else getting there, however, is long enough for me to do all the solo footwork and pointwork drills Laertes gave me.

I also spend too much time socializing, and not enough fencing, but that's my fault, not anyone else's. :)

So I spent some time fencing with Vernon. Specifically, we did the box drill, which I had done a few weeks earlier with Juanica. I've pretty much gotten to the point where I can do the cone footwork drills backwards, forwards, and in my sleep at top speed without feeling like I'm losing my center, so I usually do them for warmups (or I'll take a newbie through who's having trouble with their footwork). Here's a hint for footwork, kids: If you feel like you're walking like a duck, you're doing it wrong.

Anyway, the box drill. The box is made of four cones and is rectangular--two long sides, two short sides. The only rule of the box drill is you can't leave the box. Sounds easy, right? Well, when you're me, Chief Warlord and Supreme Ruler of Going Backward to Get Out of Trouble, no, it's not easy. That box is also small. Like, probably two feet on a narrow end and three on a wide. It's basically big enough for me to do a tiny advance and retreat when I'm standing in the center facing a narrow edge, and a tiny right or left step when I'm facing a wide edge.

The goal of the box drill is to improve defense by removing the ability to move. If you can't move, you've gotta have good hand and sword parries, fast reflexes, and good balance. The balance thing isn't really important until you don't have it--then that great big head void becomes you falling on your ass and feeling, in a word, dum. No, you don't even get a B on the end of that. That's exactly how dum you feel.

So all was fine and dandy in Boxland until Vernon offered to let me come back into the center of the box. I hadn't even noticed, but I'd stolen a couple tiny retreats until my back heel was planted happily between the two back cones. I knew I couldn't go backwards anymore, so I didn't. This said some nice stuff about my ability to gauge distance when I'm not looking... but I was still trying to go backwards. Just less.

So I moved into the center of the box, resolving not to move again. Instantly, everything fell apart. I was getting hit right, left, and center. I was so hung up on NOT GOING BACKWARDS that my reaction time slowed, my reflexes shorted out, and my brain totally shut off. In short, I was thinking too loud. My Zen was gone.

I realize it's a ridiculous thing to have happen, especially since I was fencing fine without going backwards before it was called to my attention. I think part of the reason I moved backwards in the first place is because I do place a lot of trust in my ability to maintain balance, so I wanted to get back to a more comfortable engagement where I felt like I actually had room to void and move a little.

The brain-fartery carried on when we changed positions and I was facing a wide end of the box. I started including my right hand in parries, rather than just my sword hand, and ended up grabbing Vernon's sword like an absolute newbie, or perhaps a bad Highlander reenactor. At that point, I lost my temper a little, kicked a wall, and forgave myself for not being perfect all the time, even if I wanted to be.

Better this week, I hope.