Baby Got Back (Problems)

So, it's been awhile since I've posted, in large part because it's been awhile since I fenced. :(

After a couple weeks of practice being rained out or me incorrectly assuming it would be rained out, and therefore not going, my back went out in a major way the Sunday of Collegium, which resulted in me taking two weeks off practice.

I don't have a chronically bad back, per se, but I do have chronic low-grade chiropractic problems and hypermobile joints. I inherited them from my mother (although hers seem to have gotten a lot better in the last 10 years, and I'm hoping I'll experience similar recovery later in life). These have caused various problems over the years--I dislocated something in my thigh when I was 10 or 12 and tripped on the stairs (it can't have been the whole thing, because I put it back in myself, but wow, it was painful), tore cartilage in my ribcage on a backpacking trip in high school because a rib went out of alignment while I was wearing a big heavy pack, and I'm fairly sure they're why I tore the ligaments in the arch of my right foot last winter.

One of the nice things about having hypermobile joints is that once they go out, they're fairly easy to put back in by myself, and provided I get enough exercise and keep up a certain baseline of muscle mass, I don't suffer from major chiropractic injuries or displacements very often. One of the bad things about having hypermobile joints is that when they go out badly, they tend to go out again after they've been fixed, especially once they've been out for awhile already and all the wrong muscles are swollen. In those cases, swelling essentially makes the path of least resistance the "out" position the joint was in earlier.

All of this foolishness can be almost completely overcome by a few simple luxuries--Advil and/or Tiger Balm to relax muscles when necessary, lots of stretching and some light weight-bearing exercise (like, say, fencing), one of those orthopedic neck pillows (not memory foam--those eventually compress under the weight of my -enormous- head and give no more support than any regular pillow), fish oil supplements, and so on. I don't deserve any particular sympathy or comfort here, because I know how to take care of myself and 95 percent of my joint issues can be handled non-medically and with regular self-care. There are people out there with real medical issues that they can't heal themselves--they deserve sympathy and support. The point of this post is to illustrate, not to host a pity party. :)

Anyway, my back went out on Sunday morning, I got it fixed Monday afternoon, and skipped practice Wednesday. I was experiencing warm pain, weakness, tingling, and extremely limited range of motion until the Sunday after, so I decided to skip practice again the Wednesday following, just to be safe.

This also meant skipping a couple weeks of my wrist and arm strengthening exercises. The offending vertebra was in the center of my upper back (somewhere in the T-1 to T-3 region), so doing any exercises that involved extending my arms straight forward was extremely painful and resulted in spasms (I was driving with my left hand exclusively for awhile, because my right side hurt more than my left).

This was a really frustrating couple of weeks. I'd honestly thought joint flare-ups this bad were a thing of the past. The fact that I could still be incapacitated by back pain even though I was getting enough exercise and taking good enough care of myself (I thought!) really tanked my enthusiasm and self-esteem for a couple days there. I consider myself both lazy and self-indulgent, so the fact that I could throw my back out just sitting in the car dealt a huge blow to what was never a great body image or opinion of my own athleticism to begin with.

So, when I complain about my back or neck hurting, that's why--I have chronic chiropractic problems, and they're why I've been off the horse for the last few weeks. Onward and upward!

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.

Crown Tourney, Spring 2010

Crown this weekend was really fun. It's always nice to camp for a weekend without having to pack the truck to bursting and drive 5+ hours--that's one of the (many, many) things I like about GWW, King's Hunt, and Crown (when we have it).

Anyway, I suppose I should talk about the elephant in the room...

On Sunday morning, Don Laertes officially accepted me as his student. We've been working on various fencing things at every event for the last 6 months or so (since Altavia Anniversary and Investiture and except for Estrella, which he didn’t go to), and I’m really excited to be working with him. It sounds silly, but it’s very flattering to feel like somebody is taking a personal interest in helping me improve something I care a lot about.

It was funny—as soon as he first mentioned the studenting thing to me as a possibility, Laertes stressed that becoming his student wasn’t an accomplishment per se, so much as it was an acknowledgement of the relationship we already had and a commitment to stick to it and continue to work together. So when he made his little speech Sunday morning, a bunch of people came up to me and started hugging me, shaking my hand, and congratulating me, and I was very surprised! Not that I mind all the praise and petting, of course—my ego loved it. :) I was just in the headspace that I was becoming someone’s student precisely because I have so much more to learn and so little experience, having people come up to me and congratulate me about it was completely unexpected.

It kind of threw some stuff into perspective for me. Possibly more on that later, we’ll see.

Anyway, right after that we went off and worked on some stuff. One of the first things he had me do was stand with him in the middle of the eric, in engagement range, and back up to within 3 feet of the eric ropes without looking at them. I stopped about 4 feet away, which was okay with me—I was worried I wouldn’t stop in time and would go over them! Then he had me do it with my eyes closed. Stopped about 3 feet away—good stuff!

Then he told me to stay at the edge of the eric, close my eyes, and advance to engagement range without looking at him. I did it, but I opened my eyes on the last step to make sure I wouldn’t impale him (never mind that he’s a grown up and could probably have moved out of the way in time…). Did it again. At that point I’d gone the same distance enough times that I didn’t feel like I was really feeling it anymore per se—I caught myself counting steps, so when I’d successfully completed the exercise I went back to the ropes and asked him to move back a bit so I wouldn’t be able to tell the distance from memory. He did, and I stopped exactly in engagement range. Maybe a little close, but dude.

Laertes said something along the lines of “see, your body already has really good judge of distance,” and I wanted to yell “Yeah, did you see that? Did you see me walk right there? I walked all OVER this eric! I’m a fucking NINJA!” And it’s true. I felt like a fucking ninja. Or possibly a tiger. Or a shark. Something really cool that can kill you really fast. Anyway. It was very exciting.

Then there were cones. And footwork drills. Footwork drills that had me going around the cones a lot. Then backwards. It’s sort of hard to describe, but I’ll be doing them tonight at fighter practice if anyone wants to watch or play. :)

Last but not least, I was presented with my very own inaugural 7 pound hand weight. At Great Western, Laertes taught me some wrist and arm strengthening exercises (I think he saw how much I was suffering because I hadn’t fenced in like a month before that), and suggested I do them with a small weight. When I saw him on Sunday he gave me a 7 pounder and told me that it was my goal.

I’m supposed to work up to being able to do 4 sets of 20 of each type of exercise (there are 5) with the 7 pound weight. Yesterday I decided my little 1-pounder was too boring and went to Big 5. After about 10 minutes of (probably very silly looking) waffling between the 2 and 3 pound weights, I went for a 3 pounder in a lovely shade of Kelly green. The 2 pounders just didn’t feel big enough to challenge me (and they were hot pink, which had absolutely nothing to do with my choice). I’ve been doing the exercises on the drive to work, and this morning I could do 1 warm-up with with 1 pounder and 3 sets with the 3 pounder before my arms got all warm and were like “No more!” I was very proud of myself.

Let’s see, this post has gotten significantly longer than I’d first imagined. I guess I’m just very excited to be taking some concrete steps in my fencing career. Hopefully I’ll have something more interesting to say in these posts than “Good pointwork today” from now on!

Oh, and thanks again for all the support, y’all. Either from the comments or the congratulations at Crown, it means a lot to me, and I really appreciate it. <3

Estrella War, 2010

I fenced much better at Estrella this year than last year. I even zippered a line with the help of the suave and dashing Marcos de la Cruz! I haven't done that since my first Estrella, when I was killing people left, right, and center because I was obviously shiny new and everyone ignored me. :)

Cue my brags: He and I were keeping a line with him anchoring a corner on my right. He said “You ready?” and I said “Yep!” and he took out the guy directly in front of me and turned that into a charge at the guy directly in front of him. That guy, who was anchoring the corner on his side, backed up a couple steps which gave me room to kill the guy on my left, then the guy after him, and the guy after him… I know it doesn’t sound like a huge deal, but I was very proud of myself and, more importantly, I remember the whole thing clearly and understand why it worked the way it did. No tunnel vision! Yay me!

I don't have much new to say about how I fenced at Estrella. I did pretty well avoiding the melee tunnel vision (meaning when I res'd I managed to find a tactically useful place to go fight, rather than just filing back into the meat grinder lines, which I've always found frustrating and exhausting). My point control was good--I took lots of arms and hands. I didn't get killed in lines because I wasn't paying attention to the right people (this was my big weakness last year, so I'm really glad to be able to say that). Except for one notable exception, I didn't get pissed off and, fortunately, wasn't hit too hard at all. It was nice.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the social aspect of rapier, which is part of what's kept this post from being written for so long.

My Estrella post:

First, and most importantly, I'm not perfect. I'm not a saint, and I'm certainly not a consistent model of exemplary conduct on the field. I don't want this to come off as a sermon, or a rant, or a diatribe... I just have strong opinions and feel the need to analyze them, and how do I do that best? By writing about it, of course!

In terms of fencing conduct, exceptions must be made for different Kingdoms. We all have our own rules, and, just as importantly, our own unspoken guidelines which most of us abide by but aren't written down anywhere. I'm not one of those people who goes around trash-talking every fencer from outKingdom (or from a certain specific Kingdom) because they applied their rules to our fight. I don't like getting hit too hard, just like everyone else, but getting hit too hard is not the same as getting hit with positive pressure. I don't like getting hit from the side without seeing it coming, but I don't get pissed off when it happens if the person who killed me is from a kingdom with different engagement rules than Caid's (180-degree engagement versus 120, etc.). As far as I know, no Kingdom's rules encourage hitting as hard as you can, hitting multiple times, or hitting from outside range. Those are the faults of the fencer, not the entire rapier community of a Kingdom.

Nobody's perfect. People make mistakes and other people get pissed off because of them. I tend to do both, occasionally at the same time.  I do my share of smack-talking and chest-thumping in camp, but I try to leave it off the field. I try really hard to control my temper on the field, not start any trash talk, and be generous in my stated opinions of people and how questionable scenarios played out. Sometimes I fail, but I try. We all have our weaknesses, and my big mouth is mine. I've known this for a long time, so I try to keep it under control on the field, even if I have to vent once I'm off (I'm a verbal processor, I have to talk to get my feelings in order and get them out).

(CONFESSION: I did get pissed off at one point at Estrella and called someone a jackass as I was walking back to res, but I said it very quietly to myself and made sure I was far enough away that he didn't hear me (Lot heard me, but Lot hears everything bad that I do. He's like the principal of rapier.). Dude had just blown off a kill to the chest after telling me "I've taken a lot harder," so either he felt it and decided not to take it or he didn't feel it, which is possible... I felt contact when I hit him, but accidents happen and I know it's easy to blow off a shot on the melee field. I like to think I still would have taken it had I been in his shoes, but I can't be sure. I still thought it was good. ANYWAY. That's neither here nor there--I was annoyed. By the time I got back to the res point, I was over it. Bottom line: It was the wrong way to handle it, it was immature, but I knew the person wasn't going to have a real discussion with me about it and I just needed to do something with my anger so I didn't bring it back onto the field with me. See? I'm not perfect. Moving on.)

All that being said, there are some standards of behavior which I apply to everyone, of every rank and experience level, from every kingdom. In my opinion, these standards must be met or at least worked towards for everyone to have a good time on the field. It's extremely disappointing to see people blow off shots, refuse to apologize or even acknowledge that they hit too hard, or start counter-accusing people who put them on the spot by calling out their bad behavior.

Worst of all is when you see someone who's got some clout in another Kingdom behaving like a high school quarterback in the locker room. I had to think about why it was such a big deal to me that people of rank conduct themselves better than the Average Joe, so let's talk this one through, shall we? In my opinion, if you've got rank, you've got even more responsibility than the average person to conduct yourself well around members of other Kingdoms, regardless of their rank. If you're a White Scarf, or a Knight crossing over to the fencing field, or a Laurel, or a King, you are a living, breathing representation of the populace of your Kingdom even more so than the average Joe Fencer.

So why do people with rank count more than the Average Joe? Because we're not actually a feudal society in the SCA, nor are we an (entirely) merit-based one. Certain awards can be given for sheer skill in one area, with less emphasis on service or conduct (Kingship and, I imagine, Laurelling--I don't know that many Laurels or that much about how they're made, so I'm a little hesitant to make that judgment), but even those awards carry the weight of expectation--as a Laurel, you're expected to distribute your time and skill among the people, educating them and encouraging their interests. As a King, you're making a commitment of 3-9 months, depending on the Kingdom, to serve your people as a visual and behavioral ideal--for six months, you become Arthur, and your Queen becomes Guinevere, and you have to handle all the positive and negative stereotypes encompassed in those roles. But by and large, in the SCA, you get where you get by being able to play nice with others as well as excelling at combat, art, or service. You rise because people believe you're worth it. As it says on the inside of the Caid crown, You Rule Because They Believe.

Now if you take your pointy hat or your pretty belt or your shiny scarf out on the field and act like an asshole, you're sending a very clear message that isn't just about you, but about every member of your Kingdom, as well. This person is acknowledged as exemplary in their skill or their martial art in their Kingdom, even though they're being a total dick on the field. Well, they're from [insert name of Kingdom here], not my Kingdom. I guess they do things differently there.

Subtext here being, I guess they don't care if a person's an asshole there. Or maybe, I guess they don't think s/he's an asshole there.

Then, of course, you look at a person like that, a person of rank who’s expected to return some service to their Kingdom taking students, and what else can you think? You’re seeing the perpetuation of some pretty awful behavior being encouraged and ingrained on the minds and conduct of people who will, one day, probably take their own turn leading the community. And yes, some of those students will probably grow up to be perfectly nice people (just like some of the students of perfectly nice people have grown up to be assholes), but the message is the same—people from this Kingdom want to be this guy’s students. Clearly, people in this Kingdom don’t think he’s an asshole.

These are very bad reactions to have. After the initial reaction, of course we all know that the actions of one person don't represent the opinions, conduct, or personality of their whole Kingdom. That being said, when you look at a person who's been awarded, praised, and touted up and down their Kingdom who consistently acts like a jerk on the field and doesn't do anything to change it, you start to think That Kingdom has different values than my Kingdom. Eventually, this becomes That Kingdom doesn’t care about chivalry/honor/ as much as my Kingdom.

So what do we do when we see a person like that, a person who is apparently so high up on their horse that they either can’t hear the admonitions of their peers, or don’t care? I don’t have any good solutions here, so I’m looking for suggestions.

It seems like time doesn’t change a person who blows off shots, a person who hits too hard and laughs about it, a person who yells at the person they’ve just injured, a person who cheats. Do we need more aggressive marshalling? If we had it, would this solve the problem if the offenders had rank? (Personally, I think more aggressive marshalling would drive me crazy, especially on the war field where it seems like every time a marshal has a conversation of more than ten words with someone we have to call a hold, but it’s an option. It might even help cool tempers a little, I don’t know). Do we need someone to just yell at these guys until they get it? I’ve seen that happen, or start to happen, and it doesn’t seem to work.

I’ve found that the only way I can deal with these guys and still respect other members of the fencing community from their Kingdoms is by pretending they don’t have the rank that they do—after all, if they rule because I believe, or if our awards are really just symbols of inner quality, if I don’t see the quality, why should I acknowledge the award? And this is a terrible perspective to have! So how else can I acknowledge my anger, do something with it rather than choking it down, and not feel like I’ve bowed my head to someone who doesn’t deserve it?

How do you get an asshole to respect you as much as he respects himself?

Okay, two pages later I think I’ve about exhausted that topic… for now. ;)

Thoughts? Comments? Feedback? Flames? Lay it on me!

Dun Or War Practice, 01/31/10

Fencing at Dun Or this weekend was challenging, but overall went really well.

About 20 mins before we got to the site, my body sent up the red flag that I had definitely not gotten enough sleep last night, so I arrived at the site with a slight headache, some nausea, and general crankiness. I'm usually okay when I haven't gotten enough sleep, but I already had some sleep debt from the last couple days and I don't exactly wake up lightening-fast anyway, so if I'm sleep deprived and expecting to have to do anything more complicated than suck down coffee and stare at the computer first thing in the AM, it's bad news bears. In retrospect, I probably could have completed the wakeup process if I'd had Nate drive instead of doing so myself, but that's neither here nor there.

A couple warmups later, I was mostly awake but still had a headache. Some edamame and water fixed it, and I was good to go. Pretty much as soon as the melees started, Laertes positioned himself right next to me and started up what would be an essentially nonstop stream of advice and information. This might drive the average person crazy, but I'm definitely not average--I'm a huge multitasker.

(This is part of why I don't go to movies in the theater very often--the idea of sitting in the dark staring at something and doing nothing else for two hours makes me twitchy just thinking about it. Maybe my little brother's not the only one in my family with ADD. Look, a butterfly! ANYWAY.)

So in the first melee I got killed while paying too much attention to following instructions, but after that I got the swing of things and life improved dramatically. Maybe I was in a "learning" headspace or something, but for some reason it was very easy for me to see the open spots on the field, the areas where the gentle application of a little pressure could seriously mess things up for the other team. Usually my eye is drawn to the groups on the field, the clusters of people in lines or pockets doing something. Usually I try to get around the back and DFB some folks, which has limited success. This time, Laertes had me follow him around while he wreaked some havoc in the backfield, and something clicked in my brain. Then things got seriously fun.

I still died too much. I need to work on my reaction time, and my parry-ripostes. Especially the parry-ripostes. Onward and upward.

More practice tonight--we'll see how much gets done with some of Isles wiped out by post-event fatigue and a traveling head cold. I don't really want to go because my insomnia's still acting up and I just want to curl into a ball and sleep for about 12 hours, but some exercise will probably help me sleep better tonight. Well, some exercise, some booze, some time in the spa, and a melatonin pill. Hellllll yeah, melatonin pill.