Tuesday, October 4, 2011

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!

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