ETA: This post has been a draft for awhile, but I just never got around to publishing it. :) Voila!
Saturday was a good day. Really, most days fighting melee are good days. I'm much happier attacking from the side than I am attacking from straight ahead, so any day I can snipe someone in the throat from their one or eleven o'clock is a good day for me.
I'm a lot better at head, chest, and neck shots from an angle than I am from straight ahead. In part it's because I know I don't have to watch my defense as much from the side, so I'm more comfortable being aggressive, and in part it's because I always worry about hitting too hard when I'm attacking from the front, because I tend to like to get in and out as fast as possible. This results in my jabbing my arm out without much force behind it, rather than going into a full, and fully controlled, lunge; ironically, this would protect me more if I did it correctly, and when I do, I tend not to die unless I do something amazingly stupid and lunge myself into someone's point. Like so many issues, it is, at its root, a confidence thing, not an ability thing.
Sunday was also good. I skipped the first melee in the interest of waking up slowly and fought for the rest of the day. I had given Saturday my all and Sunday was a lot harder, but I never felt like I was losing control, hitting too hard, or being unsafe in any of the standard "You are too tired to fence" ways.
It was hot. Getting back into Darach's marine layer of gentle humidity and 18-hour-a-day fog was a wonderful change.
For the record, I have to say, I love the Caid Rapier community. I feel a lot about the group the way I imagine some people must feel about their extended families. It's a wonderfully supportive, cheerful place to learn and try new things, and while (like an extended family) I may not like everyone individually, I like the vast majority, and I like the group. Thanks, all. :)
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