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!)