Preflections on GWW 2011

Hey, see what I did up there? It's like "reflections," but from before? Before the war? ...oh, never mind.

So Dylan and I trucked on down to Altavia practice last night for some last-minute fencing before the war. I didn't get out to Darach practice on Sunday, because I was sewing ALL THE THINGS!, but Laertes and I had already planned on meeting up at Altavia.

We spent some time working on the headspace thing, and how I mentally treat practices one way, and tournies another. It's funny, it's kind of hard to take myself seriously writing about this, because it seems like such a silly thing to be hung up on, but there it is! I think I'm struggling with the fact that tournies are more definitive than practices. If you lose, you lose, and there are no do-overs or "Hey, try that again so I can figure out how to parry it!"s. They're not learning-oriented, they're results-oriented, which by it's very nature is a more stressful environment for me. Throw in a bunch of people watching and, well, I'm not aware of feeling self-conscious, but I probably do anyway.

Anyway, other than that, I'm feeling pretty good about my fencing game right now. Am I feeling skilled? Not particularly. But I'm feeling good. I'm digging my reaction time, the drilled-in instinct of parrying and throwing near-simultaneously, the integration of both hands and my feet, my sense of measure and tempo (now I just need to start working on either not throwing shots I don't have time to complete or throwing shots faster. Right now I'm throwing them, realizing they're a bad idea, and bailing on the shot halfway through. Thank God for parries.) Obviously, not all of these things are on at the same time, or consistently working at the caliber at which I'd like to perform, but looking back over the last two years or so, I know I've improved quite a bit. Progress isn't a small thing.

So Great Western War is upon us (and somehow I still have days and days of sewing to do... how does that happen?), and I'm pretty stoked. We'll be arriving Thursday, barring major developments, and leaving Monday--this gives me the opportunity to watch, if not participate in, all the fencing that happens at war! Woohoo! Things I'm particularly excited about include (in order of appearance):

• Running the rapier on Saturday with a lovely lady from Angels while the actual rapier steward observes Yom Kippur. I've never run rapier on such a big scale before, and never for an inter-Kingdom event, so while I'm nervous about how smoothly it'll go, I'm sure I'll learn a lot. Hopefully everyone's patient with us and no one acts like an asshat.
• The White Scarf Tourney on Saturday. I met a couple of really nice people at last year's WST (it got really good turnout from the West Kingdom's period-oriented fencers, and the ones I've met, I've really liked), and the tourney itself has sentimental value to me.
• The Ladies of the Rose Tourney on Sunday morning. Pageantry, pretty ladies, and a bunch of great fencing. What more can you ask for? I'll just remember to bring water to the field this year--last year the water bearers catered exclusively to the heavies fighters the next field over. :P

Hope to see you at war!

Of Angels Anniversary and Primary Secondaries and Secondary Secondaries, and Maybe Even Tertiary Secondaries (and now I'm just being ridiculous)

So yesterday was Angels Anniversary and it was a pretty darn good time. For those of you playing along at home, the Barony of the Angels is (unsurprisingly) most of the modern-day county of Los Angeles, so it's a well populated area and its events usually have pretty good turnout.

Angels is a great midpoint for me and Dylan (coming from Darach to the Northwest) to meet up with a lot of our friends from Lyondemere, Altavia, Angels, Gyldenholt, and Calafia. It was great to see some new faces yesterday on the rapier field as well. The Angels fighters are also sporting very spiffy new tabards.

The tourney format was a Swiss five, which is definitely growing on me--I enjoy getting to fight a lot and having a decreased focus on "I have to win my next fight or I'm out of the tourney" or "If I beat this guy, he's out, which leaves her and her and him and him and him to beat, which means at least five rounds, so I'd better conserve my energy, oh wait, I just drew that guy for this next round, so..." I enjoy the forced breaks in routine that come from having to choose different offhands in each round, and I enjoy getting to fight through a whole tournament up to semi-finals.

That being said, I didn't fight too terribly well yesterday. I had trouble with my dagger and buckler fights, but I did okay with case, cloak, and baton, which was surprising. Having trouble with my old standards seems to have become my new standard in tournies--I've been having trouble concentrating on my fights, as referenced in my last post, and I think mixing it up with some new offhands was good for me. It seemed to ground me and keep me concentrating--with case and baton I got my opponents' blades off-line and managed to get a throat shot (case) and a stomach shot (baton, while we were both on the ground). My cloak fight was fun--I don't remember much of it, but I remember enjoying it. :)

Fast forward to practice this morning, where I worked a lot on cloak with Don Alex K. Between Anniversary yesterday and practice today, something clicked--I was cloakin' it up big time.

It took some minor adjustments ("Sorry! Parried my own sword again!") but the cloak made my parries and the connection between my swordhand and my offhand-hand much more fluid and functional. I'd still been having some trouble with some of the more interesting dagger parries (ie, anything that doesn't make the dagger look like a windshield wiper), but I found myself doing a lot more complicated and bold parries with the cloak for reasons I can't really explain yet.

Anyway, it was a useful bit of data--maybe my problem with my primary secondaries (ahahahahahaha SEE WHAT I DID THERE) is that I fight with them too much. Maybe they're just getting stale.

I'm not sure how much merit is in that line of thinking, because I know there are still hangups in there I need to work through. Switching to a different offhand for a spell isn't going to improve my dagger parries if all they need is more practice. If I'm having a mental block brought on by some fundamental incorrect assumptions about the offhand itself, however, mixing it up with something new might be just the thing. We'll see.

Keep trying, trying

So I've been to a couple of events in the last few weeks--Coronation/QC two weeks ago and Gyldenholt Anniversary this past Saturday. They were lots of fun, and a few notable non-fencing awesomes took place...

• At Coronation, my friend Nathanial Longbow and I were called up as Her Majesty Mora's Rapier Lieutenants, which completely floored both of us. In conversation this last week, we figured that between the two of us, we could muster up one reputable rapier fighter, but it'll be a near thing; 
• At Gyldenholt Anniversary, a young man from Gyldenholt proposed to his girlfriend during opening court, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house; 
• Again at Gyldenholt Anniversary, Their Excellencies Ursul and Collette announced their choice of Reeves for the next Baronial pair as Masters Giles and Giuseppe, which resulted in an equally loud cheer and much laughter and happy crying.

So all of that? Awesome. There were other awesomes, too, I'm probably just forgetting them right now. :)

Fencing-wise, however, neither event went terribly well for me. I've been having trouble getting into the headspace, both at practice and at events, and I'm not sure where that comes from--mostly because I'm not sure what gets me into the headspace to begin with. :) I don't consider myself a very competitive or aggressive person, so just being out on the field isn't enough to get me excited and focused enough to perform well.

Laertes and I have talked a couple of times about my working out a routine that gets me in the headspace quickly, and while I'm all for Pavlovian responses, you have to train the dogs to salivate before you can poke holes in their stomachs. That metaphor worked a lot better in my head. I guess what I mean to say is, figuring out a routine is going to be easier once I'm more used to getting in the headspace. Chicken/egg. All of this is a snarky way to say that I have a feeling practicing more is going to fix this problem just as fast as thinking about it is. Possibly even faster. ;)

I've been doing lots of little maintenance things to keep the fencing stuff level, but I think I need to focus up a bit more. I've read my way through a lot of the texts Aliskye gave me at Altavia Anny, which were great, okay, and amusing in turns (especially the one book about adapting period-oid techniques to stage combat for the early 1900s--that one was hi-larious). I've been doing my little squeezy ball at work (until yesterday, when it sprung a leak and sprayed sand all over my desk... oops) and my fencing weights and resistance band and making new garb and stuff, but none of that improves my actual skillset, it just provides a good balance of stuff to do when I'm not at practice.

And wedding crap seems to have overwritten the fencing crap part of my brain. Now my free brain time is occupied by feminist critique of wedding traditions and integrating my Pagan/Wiccan and his Reform Jewish beliefs into a ceremony and most importantly OMG WEDDING SHOES.

So obviously I need new stuff to think about. I keep meaning to buy copies of The Book of Five Rings and The Art of War, both of which have nothing to do with fencing but will hopefully be good at getting me in the competitive/winning headspace. I have a couple other fencing friends who have gotten good stuff out of the texts, so I'm hoping they'll have similar effect on me, too. And, you know, I hate buying new books, so it's good to have a reason. ;)

Maybe I need to mix up my practice routine a little bit. Hmm. The trip down to Altavia kind of sucks without a carpool buddy, and Dylan's not going to make the trip with me (given that he does 8 hours of manual labor a day and gets up at 4:30 AM, I have no idea why he wouldn't want to go to a practice and get home at 11:30 or midnight on the first day of his work week. I mean, really.) I could probably do Isles once every couple of weeks, though... Hmmmmm...

It's Official.

So I have one of these little IsoFlex stress balls at my desk at work. I picked it up today to do my usual round of squeezing, and realized the outside cover is splitting. I'm wearing holes all over the ball, which split open and tear further as I squeeze.

It's official.

I have become the Hulk.

Altavia Anniversary 2011, garb plans, and an awesome present!

In a word? Muchbetterthanlastyear.

(Also, look! I've figured out how to use Blogger's jump break feature!)

That'll do, pig. That'll do.

I had a very good day. :) Here, have a song:

Bigger post later. Very sleepy now. 

*Gulp*

Tomorrow's Altavia Anniversary. I'm trying not to get in my head about it.

Last year's Altavia Anny sucked. I mean, I had a great time and saw all my friends and Dylan got his Duelist and glitter and kittens and flowers and a rain of beer and wenches. But the fencing part? Sucked. Sucked. Sucked.

Rationally speaking, am I in the same place, fencing-wise, that I was last year? No way. Absolutely not. No. A no so mighty it deserves more vowels. And perhaps to be in red.

And yet, I'm still a little antsy about it. Well, antsy and fatalistic and excited, because I'm determined to have a better time, period, regardless of how my fencing goes, and I'm 98% sure I'll be more satisfied with my performance this year than I was last year. But still. A little bit of the in-head-getting.

I don't want to take myself too seriously on this one--the more I worry about it, the bigger a deal it's going to be, and in the grand scheme of things, this is not a very big deal. Anyway, regardless of how the fencing goes, I'll get to see some awesome fights and hang out with my buddies and have fun, and that's the important stuff, right? Right.

Here, have a dose of the song I like to listen to when I'm taking myself too seriously:

Double Rainbow Autotune.

What does this meeeean? It'ssobright. It'ssovivid. Doublerainbow. Doublerainbow. It's so intense (tense tense tense tense).

King's Hunt 2011, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying (kind of) and Enjoy the Ride.

Not going to lie, folks. Despite the Zen I was cultivating during the week, I did not get a lot of sleep on Thursday night. We were due to leave immediately after work on Friday, and there was still some last-minute prep to do before and during packing, and then there was maggots (yes, you read that right), and at 12:45 AM I realized I'd forgotten a fairly major last minute bit of packing, which, once that was fixed, left me laying awake thinking about what else I might have forgotten and and and...

And everything turned out fine. Yep. No emergencies, no injuries, no temper tantrums, not even any uncomfortable calls or discussions.

Saturday
Saturday we ran Blood of Heroes, and it went great. It was very clean and fun to watch, with good behavior from everyone. I was a little nervous about the active marshaling that's often required in BoH (no one likes to get yelled at for apparently no reason, after all) but everyone was really receptive and willing to go with the flow. I cleared things up quickly with the folks who I thought might be confused by the calls I made, and everything seemed to go well. Overall, it was a really responsible and skilled group of people (and I had some very experienced and sensitive marshals working with me), so there was nothing to complain about at all. :)

After a break for lunch, the White Scarves took over to run a tournament for the unscarved fighters. This is something of an annual tradition in Caid--it's basically a tournament the White Scarves sponsor and choose not to participate in. This gives the other fighters an opportunity to showcase their skills, as well as giving the White Scarves a chance to compare and contrast fighters from different areas and track individual fighters' progress without having to worry about having to keep their own heads in the game, fighting-wise.

First of all, it was really hard to transition from the marshal brain to the fighting brain. It took me longer than usual to warm up and drag my brain from the marshaling vision (looking at everything and making judgment calls) to the fighting headspace (looking at nothing specific and reacting automatically). I hadn't expected that at all--hadn't given it any thought, to be honest, but in retrospect it seems like a pretty obvious thing to have to compensate for.

I was pretty pleased with how I fought during the Tourney. I had a nice warmup with Laertes and Don Alex Baird, which sort of helped get my head in gear. My first fight was against another lefty, and we double-killed the first time with identical shots to each other's ribs, which made us laugh. She ended up getting me the second time around.

My next fight was against someone I used to fight a lot in Isles, but who I hadn't fenced in awhile. She does great buckler work, and I really enjoyed our fight--I ended up making good use of the side-shot Laertes and I have been drilling and ended up taking her arm, giving up my offhand when she switched, and eventually taking her out. It was a really nice, clean fight. It helped that she was faster than I'd expected--it helped pull my head into the fighting space a little bit more and overall gave a really enjoyable fight. Afterward, Alex Baird congratulated me on maintaining control of the fight and gave me a small token of acknowledgment, which made me smile.

Fight numero three was against a fellow I hadn't ever fenced before. It was simultaneously the most satisfying and the most frustrating of my fights--I felt like my head was finally in gear, but he had a few inches of reach on me and some neat little three-beat attacks I had trouble countering effectively. He liked to start a low attack and swing it high, which I didn't have any trouble avoiding but defending myself against them left me unbalanced for a moment and kept me from taking advantage of the potential counterattacks when he was extended. I had trouble getting his tempo, which eventually ended up with me dead. :)

I think we must have double-killed the first time (my memory of the fight isn't clear), but I remember laying a nice soft cut down the top of his head and having to refight it. The second time around, I felt like my defense and footwork were both really solid up until the end, but I was fighting his fight, not mine. He ended up getting me with the last shot of a three-beat pass, but it was okay--I felt good about my performance overall and felt like I was pretty on, mentally, just not quite put together enough to work through his tactics. Que sera sera.

I marshaled pretty much the rest of the day (and, for the record, enjoyment of my performance aside, I'm ready to start making it past third round now! Kthx). I got to see some really pretty fights from up close, and I actually really enjoy the ritual of salutes, inquiries, and the eventual lay on before every fight. Tristan der English ended up taking the win, and other fighters were called up for various recognitions

For the record, marshaling is exhausting. By the end of the night, I was pretty much too tired to pay attention to what I was eating at the feast, and when a friend of mine handed me a wine bottle for a drink just as someone else dropped another bottle in the recycling bin nearby, I about jumped out of my skin because I was convinced I'd dropped the bottle and the noise I'd heard was it shattering by our feet. My friend pretty much peed herself laughing. I ended up going to bed about an hour after dinner and slept all through the night (despite the Wheel! Of! SCOOOOOTCH! going on outside in camp).

Sunday
Sunday mid-morning I drummed up the interested fighters and we walked down the hill to do some melees in the trees. We ended up having a fun and relaxing hour or two and made it successfully through the new melee scenario I came up with. Marshaling the melees turned out to be slightly more nerve-wracking than Blood of Heroes, because there were trees everywhere and it was hard to see everything that was going on, but I had a few talented and eager volunteers helping to marshal and MiT, so everything ran smoothly. I was a little nervous about the crappy ground (gopher holes everywhere!) and folks being a bit more tired than the day before, but we ended up having some really clean fighting and the only people who fell in the holes did so off the field, and it was great because I didn't have to do any paperwork no one was hurt.

Speaking of paperwork, I wrote down the names of everyone who MiT'd with me in my little notebook, so if I didn't get to sign their paperwork, I can later. Writing stuff down's my mnemonic--I won't remember who did what, otherwise. ;)

Overall, I was flattered and pleased by how many people came up and thanked me and told me they'd had fun. That's one of those gestures that really mean a lot, but is easy to forget to do when you're tired from fighting. I'll have to keep it in mind next time I'm fighting and someone else is running things, too.

I also had a lot of help this past weekend, both with mundane things like fielding questions and more complicated things, like marshaling all day and giving advice on judgment calls--there were a couple of people who marshaled above and beyond the call of reasonable time commitment, a couple of people who came out of the woodwork asking if I needed help, a few of what I've gratefully come to think of as "the usual" supportive and awesome people being awesome and supportive, and overall a great time with great folks. Thanks, everybody!

On Melees, Marshaling, and a Mini-Manifesto

Sunday I playtested a new melee scenario I concocted on a very generous and patient group of people at the Darach practice. At first I was a little dubious that the scenario would work, and could see similar skepticism on the faces of the combatants as I described it to them, but when we were done running it, everyone came up and said they had a good time. Yay!

Playtesting the new scenario pretty much alleviated my fears of OMG IT'S GOING TO SUCK EVERYONE WILL HATE IT and now I've accepted that of course someone's going to hate it, because you can't please everyone, but most people will probably have a passably good time. Now I'm just down to finishing up a couple of props, making sure I don't break the prize for the tournament before Saturday afternoon, wrangling the eric up to site, and otherwise lassoing as many of the octopus' tentacles as I can before the event.

I was very lucky to have the crowd that I did--four White Scarves and a double-handful of Duelists, all of whom have vast melee experience and were happy to tell me what they thought worked, didn't work, and could be tweaked for even more fun. I was really happy to have such an experienced pool of fighters to test the scenario on, and really appreciated their honest feedback and enthusiasm to make the scenario even more fun. They even came up with a name for it--The Borgia Rings. ;) 

I plan to debut the scenario at King's Hunt, among some other tried-and-true melees that most folks seem to like. This is my first time running two days' worth of rapier and running melees, period, so I'm hoping it all goes well. I passed my Marshaling test almost two months ago, and while I've run tournaments and such before, they were always small (5-15 people) and I always had a Marshal supervising or signing off on everything that I did--I've never run multiple days' worth of scenarios and tournaments or been the Marshal-in-Charge for rapier before. It makes me a little nervous (I'm checking armor! I'm calling holds! I'm approving weird offhands! PEOPLE COULD DIE!!!!!!), but I'm excited too (I'm keeping us on schedule! I'm explaining things! I'm bringing up new scenarios! PEOPLE COULD DIE!!!!!...and then come up and tell me how much fun they had!) 

I really feel like this is one of those things that A Serious Rapier Fighter Should Do--become a marshal, try your hand at running some stuff, experiment with making up new scenarios, just to see what it feels like and to get some perspective. It may be that this weekend goes terribly and I come away from it never wanting to take on this level of responsibility again (although I doubt it will), but that doesn't mean the experience itself will have been bad. I think it's really important to try to do as many different things as possible, even if it only teaches you to appreciate what other folks put themselves through on a regular basis. 

On a more personal level, I'm looking forward to being able to give back to the community a little bit. I had an interesting conversation with a friend on Sunday after practice about getting and keeping new blood in Caid, and keeping the Kingdom going during a recession, and maintaining interest and contribution to the rapier community (and I'm totally summing up badly, but that's not the point). It came from a conversation about the roles of White Scarves as teachers in Caid, and possible methods for including more teaching and more teachers in the rapier community, not just from the White Scarves, but from the populace at large.

I'm sort of of two minds about this--I definitely believe any well-recognized (by awards, word of mouth, or whatever) fighter should be held to high standards in terms of contributions to community and behavior as well as skill, but I also think this kind of perspective can lead to people expecting more from better-recognized or higher-ranked fencers in the Kingdom (to wit, the White Scarves) than they do from themselves... which is, again, a good and a bad thing.

If that kind of expectation encourages the White Scarves, Duelists, and old hats in the community to contribute more, think of new and better ways to keep fighters interested and learning, it's a good thing. If that kind of expectation starts to impact the self-esteem of newer, unrecognized, or less skilled fighters, or encourages laziness because "Oh, So-and-So will take care of that, s/he always handles that stuff," it's a bad thing. We have a lot of really good examples for creativity, research, behavior, and skill in this Kingdom (plenty of whom aren't White Scarves), and I'd hate to see someone newer or less experienced stifle their own creativity because they worry they wouldn't live up to someone else's example or because it simply didn't occur to them to volunteer for something someone else habitually handled.

I don't know if this is a serious problem, or not, but it might be worth addressing anyway. I guess part of this (doing the marshal thang, running the rapier at King's Hunt, even, to a certain extent, this blog) is a gesture to less well-recognized fighters and also to myself--to put myself out there, do try new things, to be okay with screwing them up, to muse over questions and lessons, and generally to keep thinking, discussing, and talking. A lot. Like I do. ;) 

A Widdle Personal Update

Finally! Finally! Finally the rain stopped! Halleluia! Praise the gods! Dance and sing in an emphatically non-rain-dancey way!

Yes, Sunday was the first time I got out to Darach practice in the last 3 weeks, because it was the first time Darach actually had practice in 3 weeks. I love love love having practice on the weekends, and I love love love having practice outdoors, but in the late winter/early spring it does make all practice plans pretty tentative--especially this year, when we've had a wetter, colder February and March than I've ever seen in Southern California. Don't get me wrong, I loves me some rain (reminds me of those foggy days in the Bay Area), but it does make fencing less likely.

I was a little tentative fencing on Sunday, because I'd spent a few hours at a pre-natal yoga class the day before (no, not for me--for a friend of mine whose husband couldn't make it). The class turned out to be about 50% individual yoga, which I'd never really done before (WiiFit aside), so I spent a lot of time with weight on both arms and/or my feet flexed. I was worried that after two days of exercise, my elbow and foot would be complaining loudly on Monday, but so far they both feel fine. I iced my foot Sunday night and took Advil before and after exercising on Sunday, and things seems to be holding up pretty well. We'll see how I feel after King's Hunt this weekend, where I'll hopefully get to fence at least a little bit two days in a row.

Drills and Such

Other than playtesting the new melee scenario (see followup post), I got to spend some one-on-one time drilling with Laertes, which was great. I really feel like I've been slowly (slooooooowly) improving over the winter, and doing the same drills I've been doing off-and-on for the last year or so is a good touchstone for me. It's nice to do a drill and think Okay, that's easier than it was three months ago, or Okay, I'm better at this part, now I need to focus on fixing this more advanced thing.

One thing Laertes observed, which I think is definitely true and led me into some more complicated musing, was that I'm much more confident when I'm fighting him. It's true--I'm more relaxed, more aggressive, and more self-assured. At the time, I said it was because we were just doing drills and I could expect him to throw one of three or four shots, so I got to turn the more watchful, anticipatory part of my brain off... but then he switched styles and it turned out that I maintained the attitude, even when we weren't drilling.

This is a behavior I've noticed with folks I'm used to fencing (folks I started fencing with in Isles, Laertes, friends from various fighting units I've practiced with, etc.) and it's sort of a good and a bad thing--I can relax enough to concentrate on fine-tuning my technique, which is cool, but it still only happens with people I'm fairly familiar and comfortable with, not all the time. I'd love to be able to bring that attitude to all of my fencing endeavors, not just practice with people I'm close to or have fenced with a lot.

I think that's one of those things that will come with time, although probably more time than I'd like. I do have a deep vein of self-consciousness that comes out when I'm fencing (most of the rest of the time, it's covered by a deluge of snark and one-liners). I guess I'm worried about being too easy a fight, about people who are watching forming bad opinions of me and my meager skillz, of looking like a doofus (more than usual). 

Oddly, that self-consciousness might contribute to my strong drive to be chivalrous and generally well-behaved on the field. I have a much higher opinion of people who are weaker fencers with unfailing courtesy than I do of people who win every tournament they enter and have every award their Kingdom has for rapier, who are unfailingly rude and dismissive--you know, the people who clearly think more highly of themselves and their "accomplishments" than they do anyone else, because they don't have to respect anyone who isn't exactly like them and doesn't meet their narrow and self-serving criteria of success. I'd rather be a shitty fencer who has a reputation for good times and good behavior on the field than the best fencer in the Society who has to have all the doorways in her house widened to get her head through, know what I mean?

Anyway, more of the same. Practice practice practice. Maybe I should just fence naked for a few months and get all the self-consciousness out of my system through over-exposure. :) 

Keep Calm and Carry On

Hi all! I just wanted to drop a brief update here--there's not much new going on over here in Chateau Enid, but there are a couple of things worth noting.

I've been going to Darach practice recently, because my work weeks have been super busy and my carpool buddy moved to Mississippi, making the drive down and back from Altavia (between 45 mins and 1:30, depending on traffic) a bit more nerve-wracking. I tend to get sleepy on the freeway, especially in a warm car or at night, so driving by myself at night, in winter, with the heater on, doesn't really appeal. :)

I really enjoy the feel of Darach practice--it's usually pretty small, but it's spearheaded by Dons Alex K. and Eogan ("Owen"), giving us a good ratio of Scarves to non-Scarves. They're both really willing to teach and pretty much everyone who attends the practice regularly is very friendly, laid back, and approachable, which really colors the whole ambiance of the practice for me. That's not to say that any of the other practices I've attended are stuffy or overly serious or in any way not fun--just that this one's smaller, so I get some more individual attention, which I like (spoiled brat that I am), and all the regulars there are very easy to get along with.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good about my fencing right now in general. Between the maintenance exercises and the fish oil, neither foot nor elbow have been bothering me much (I could feel my elbow working hard at practice yesterday, but it's not sore at all today). I've been working on incorporating more forward motion into my fight, and a shout-out is due here to Don Alex B., who led an impromptu class on sloping and compass steps at Altavia practice a month or so ago that I found really helpful.

Yesterday I was playing around with them with a fencer who I haven't fought a lot (I think he might be kind of new, not sure). He basically fought with lots of circling, lots of going backwards, and lots of sticking the sword out, hoping someone will run into it. Forward-moving aggression consisted pretty much exclusively of little shots at the hands and face--more of a "Don't come any closer!" than a genuine attack. It was a lot like fighting myself six months ago, with less hair. ;) I had fun experimenting with sloping steps to throw his circling off, or to invite him in closer so I could hit him. I concentrated mostly on my own defense and working through his sturdy parries and offhand-work, with some good success. Now I just have to work on making my advances more subtle--if I wasn't taking a step in to counter his circle, he could tell what I was doing and countered my advances quickly.

I did notice that I started getting frustrated with myself as I started getting tired at practice. It was interesting to note--I haven't had a lot of frustration with myself recently. Between time commitments and joint issues, I've been so glad to be out fencing at all that it's hard for me to have a bad time out on the field. :) Yesterday, though, my brain had ideas for stuff to do and none of it was quite working fast or fluidly enough--I think I was just getting tired, and I wasn't reacting quite as fast or as skillfully as I wanted to. Either that or because someone dropped a comment about my not doing the correct motion to counteract my opponent's defense, and it bothered me. I didn't think it did at the time, but it might have wormed its way into my brain and irked me. I'm disinclined to take my subconscious that seriously... ;) Not a big deal either way, just something worth noticing.

Let's see, what else is going on? Tourney season is almost upon us, Caid's Crown Tourney was this past Saturday, and I'm working on a new doublet. I hope the pattern I have now serves me well enough to get a fighting dress out of, as well. We'll see how the new doublet wears--I already know it fits me, but it remains to be seen how comfortable it's going to be. Working on garb has always been a bit of a challenge for me, because it ties into some body-image issues I've always had (and really, doesn't everyone have some body image issues? Come on, now.) It's been a long uphill battle to acknowledge and accept that the only way I'll feel like I look nice in my garb is by taking the time and effort into making nice garb, rather than just throwing a T-tunic on and trying to avoid mirrors for the whole event. :)

There's all of that and the fact that I really do think a nice, period appearance on the field is important (or at least an obvious attempt at a period appearance), so I really owe it to myself to make something nicer. My current doublet is basically a waster I cooked up quickly, trying to supplement my fighting gear, and ended up wearing full time after I gained some weight in the last quarter of college and hadn't lost. Now, a year and a half later, I've lost some of the weight and don't have any good excuses anymore. :)

Also coming along the pipe are slipcovers for my sneakers, a new hood, and hopefully a dress of some kind. I'd love to find some super-discounted brocade for a new gear bag as well, as the camp-chair bag I repurposed for my gear is on its last legs, but that's kind of an ongoing desire, not an active plan.

That's about it for now. See you next time--Same Enid time, same Enid channel.

Temper Temper

So I was at the Darach war practice on Sunday and something funny happened. Well, it wasn’t really funny in that “Ha ha, oh Enid, you card!” way that’s always soooo charming, it was funny in that “Wow, I just completely took myself aback by doing something really unexpected!” way.

I was in a line standing across from a gentleman who killed me just as I thought I tip-cut across the width of his forearm (in Caid, a tip cut across the width of a limb is enough to render it useless). His kill on me was unquestionable, but as I turned around to walk back to the resurrection point, I saw him turn and continue to fight his way down the line, both arms intact and in use.

I’m not going to definitively say I did or I didn’t hit his arm, because really, mistakes happen on both sides, and the point of this post is not to cast aspersion on a member of my community or to paint myself as some kind of tolerant, saintly wronged party, but rather to confess something a bit shameful about myself:

As I was walking back to the res point, I heard myself say “Hey, don’t take that arm or anything!”

Now, in the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal. It’s not like I shouted it at him across the line, or went screaming to the marshals frothing at the mouth, or ran back from the res point looking for revenge, or jumped across the line and kicked him in the kneecap, or waited patiently for the first opportunity to slash his tires and put sugar in his gas tank. No one even heard me say it, as far as I know, because I was surrounded by ten feet of empty grass in every direction. But it struck me. What was I saying? Why did I have an issue with this guy? What possessed me to actually speak my frustrations out loud and uncensored, rather than doing something productive about them? I’m not the kind of person who says stuff like that just to vent, right?

But bottom line is, I did say it, it was rude, and it was petty and passive-aggressive. It wasn’t even prompted by a serious issue, because if I’d had a serious problem with him, I would have asked him about it, right then and there. That’s probably what I should have done anyway, just to clear the air.

The point is, my temper was up, I got annoyed, and I let it come out without even thinking about it. I was just blowing off steam. I remember hearing myself say something and stopping, really surprised at such a display of bad behavior. Actually, my annoyance at him completely vanished because the behavior struck me as so out of character.

See, one of my biggest pet peeves on the field is people who can’t control their temper. It’s a close second to unchivalrous jerks who can only have a good time if they’re winning. To me, losing your temper on the field is indicative of only one thing: that it’s time for you to be somewhere else. I see someone march off the field, swearing holes in the ozone layer, or throwing their gear around on the sidelines, or yelling and crying about the terrible time they’re having (unless they’re actually injured, of course), and I wonder why they’re there in the first place. Clearly they’re not having a good time, and now they’re making a big deal about it, probably impacting other folks’ good time, and generally acting childish. Temper tantrums don’t get three year olds what they want, why should adults expect anything different?

I realize I’m not necessarily demonstrating the most magnanimous perspective here, but it’s something I feel pretty strongly about. The rapier field is not the place for temper tantrums, just like it’s not the place for backbiting, hurt feelings, or any manner of unchivalrous behavior. If you have a problem with someone, you find them, and a marshal if you really think it’s necessary, and you discuss it rationally, like grown-ups. Everyone gets pissed off, everyone gets upset, and everyone has a right to their feelings—but, as much as is possible, it should not affect your game. As one of my favorite YouTube videos tells us:

“Feelings? Look, mate, you know what has a lot of feelings? Blokes what bludgeon their wife to death wif a golf trophy. Professionals have standards. Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet.”

I’m not much of a one for mottos, but the last few sentences above seem pretty apropos to me, fencing-wise. That and “If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.”

I appreciate that it's not always easy to see the big picture or keep from getting frustrated, and Lord knows I don't always practice what I preach, but that's the mindset with which I try to approach life on the rapier field. In fact, I have a higher standard of behavior for myself on the rapier field than I do off. It's a combative environment, one full of physical force, yelling, and emotional highs. Tempers can flare, feelings can be hurt, and resentments can brew. In my own little way, I try to pay it forward by staying upbeat, keeping myself smiling and trying to get others to smile too, and trying to cultivate an attitude of generosity.

Usually, I’m pretty good at keeping my cool, and at fixing bad behavior when I notice it or hear about it (for example, I used to swear a lot on the field, but I don’t at all anymore). I’m often snarky, occasionally sarcastic, frequently profane, and generally as imperfect as everyone else, but I very rarely let myself get angry on the rapier field. I have an extraordinarily long fuse, and am more likely to laugh at someone who’s pissing me off than I am to yell at them. Screaming, crying, and passive-aggressive BS are not usually my thing, which is why the random exclamation on Sunday surprised me so much.

Is that really so far a cry from marching off the field, whipping off my mask, bursting into tears, and yelling at everyone in earshot about whose fault it is that I’m not having fun anymore? Because (SPOILER ALERT) the person who’s responsible for me having or not having fun is me. I’m in control of my behavior, or so I thought, and I can choose to ignore bad stuff, behave chivalrously, and try to increase my own and other folks’ fun. I don’t want to start exhibiting behavior I find shameful, disappointing, or immature, even if the only person who knows about it is me.

At the end of the day, the net impact of my actions on the field was probably nothing, but the net impact of my actions on myself was worth noticing. I surprised myself. I expected better from myself. If nothing else, it’s a valuable reminder that, as easygoing as I try to be, I do have a temper in there somewhere, and sometimes it acts without consulting the upper management. That’s not an excuse—it’s just something I have to keep an eye on, and apparently should have been before now.

The New Year: Plans, little thoughts, and a dash of whatnot.

This is just a little check-in post, not a lot of groundbreaking revelations here, just some stuff I've noticed and updates on current projects.

I took about a month off of fencing this winter, both by accident and by design--our cat went back into congestive heart failure and we decided to put her down, I traveled up to the Bay Area to be with my family for a week over the holidays, I got back into town and was booked solid for New Year's weekend, and then we got about a week of rain which mired our local practice and occurred around the same time I sprained my right foot, which I had injured the year before and which frustrated me hugely. It was a busy month, and between the emotional stuff, the physical stuff, and the logistics of the holidays, fencing got put on the back burner.

I fought yesterday at the Caid pre-Estrella melee practice, and I was pretty pleased with my performance. My parries are doing really well, and while my endurance isn't up to par (you mean a month of holiday food and no fencing has, like, detrimental effects? Madness!), overall I felt like I did well. My reflexes, if nothing else, seem to be continuing to improve. I no longer seem to be letting my offhand do all the work for me--both my sword and offhand parries were fairly good yesterday, and I felt like they worked well together. It's worth noting that my calibration suffered a bit after the time off, and a couple of my hits near the end of the day were rather hard. I felt crappy about it and apologized, naturally, and managed to get it under control in fairly short order.

I've been careful not to stress out my tennis elbow during the last couple of months, and I'm pleased to say I fenced for about four hours yesterday and am not feeling it at all today. I was having some trouble with it last week, but I took my fish oil twice a day and stretched it out with some reps on my one-pound hand weight, and that seems to have helped.

I could feel my recently-sprained foot muscles working really hard yesterday, but they didn't hurt in a bad way, if that makes sense. They ached and felt tight, but they didn't throb, feel hot, or sting/burn in the way I've come to associate with my body saying "Stop what you're doing immediately or face the wrath of your soft tissue!" I'm pleased to say I seem to have read myself right, because the foot's not sore at all today. I iced it last night and took some ibuprofen before I went out on the field, just in case, but I seem to be pretty much mended. I'm really reassured and pleased by the good results.

I also turned in my written marshaling test yesterday. I completed the events I needed as a Marshal-in-Training over the summer and fall, got the recommendations I needed from marshals, and spent some time last week working on the written test. I have a lot of issues with the so-called 'current' edition of the marshal's test, from a documentation standpoint, but I don't need to burden the webernets with them at the moment--suffice it to say that I haven't gotten official results back, but I think I did as well as I could, felt good about my answers, and hope to hear the same from the KRM.

So, what's the spring look like? Well, a few different things:

• We won't be making it to Estrella this year, which is actually kind of a relief. Don't get me wrong, we wouldn't go to Estrella at all if we didn't have a good time, but between two full-time jobs with no PTO or sick time, upcoming changes at my job (I hope!), and a beater truck that will need major repairs or to be replaced at some point in the next six months, I think Estrella would be more stressful than fun this year.
• I'm running the rapier tournaments and melee scenarios at King's Hunt this year. I'm stoked--I've run tournaments and pre-existing melees before (Blood of Heroes and the like), but I've never orchestrated a whole weekend's worth of fencing before. I'm a combination of excited and nervous, but I know I have lots of people I can ask for help and advice, so I'm looking forward to the challenge.
• I plan to experiment a bit more with fighting garb this spring--and by "experiment" I mean, "make something it's not embarrassing to be seen in." I'm slowly re-envisioning my craft corner to be friendlier, more functional, and generally less of a PITA to use. Right now there's a major energy barrier to doing anything sewing-related, just because the space is so cramped, messy, and generally overburdened with stuff. No matter how long I wait, the boxes of fabric don't seem to be making more space for themselves (is this normal? I'd expected them to breed some square footage by now. Maybe I need to play some Barry White.) so I'm starting to spread out a little bit. Anyway, the garb plans include a new doublet or fighting dress, slipcovers for my sneakers, and potentially a new hood.

Anyway, I think that's about it for now. Weights, fish oil, practice, and sewing machines, here I come. Onward and upward!