Rabbit Punch

Thought I'd get round to explaining my Plurk.

A rabbit punch is a blow delivered to the base of the skull or neck, so named because that's how you kill a rabbit barehanded. It's considered an illegal move in boxing because it can cause death.

I did not get rabbit punched - the placement was about 6 inches off, because the blow landed on the base of my skull. It was a clean shot - which makes me feel somewhat better about it.

The reason I received many shots to the skull (3 in all) was because of a particularly intense bout of dagger drills. I've written a lot about fighting with a dagger, and I won't repeat it.

Something that I spotted in the article I've linked that I didn't pay attention to when I went into the dagger bout that Ilkka brought up - at dagger range, everything comes into play. Arms, hands, knees, feet. Getting the quick strike isn't everything, as I've learnt.

How it happened was when I launched a quick strike into my partner, and felt contact. I distinctly saw my blade sink into his collarbone and I though - okay that was it. Unfortunately, the bout continued, and my opponent launched a series of punches to my face. Two landed on my mask, one looped around and got me in the head.

******

Ultimately, the art is about the control of structure. An attack with a dagger is another means of doing the same thing - distrupting the structure of someone by planting steel into his internal organs. There are other ways of doing the same. Repeated blows to the head, for example.

I think I have the issue down, and it's the same issue I've been having all this while - I've been practising the material so long that I'm starting to take it for granted, and errors are creeping in. Sure, my initial responses are good, but after about 2 seconds I usually end up flailing around like a headless chicken.

Understanding the general principle is all well and good, but it's a methodology to work responses and nothing more. You -should- be able to work with what you. For example, in the instance when the guy is punching the living daylights out of me, the response should be the same as a normal dagger defense - first remedy cover to the center, plus a change in line, plus a return strike with the dagger.

This shit works. I just need to make it work for me.

Just Show Up

Just as I was trying to find the source of my recent energy drain, along comes Tym with a wonderful video that reaffirms an epiphany I had while I was in California and trying to put into practice.

Lately, I've been feeling de-energized and unmotivated. I had initially thought that my energy drain was due to having to help friends deal with difficult issues in life, but I realise now it's deeper than that - it's creativity fatigue.

To those who do not believe that counselling friends with wisdom and restraint is a creative process, I challenge you to do so. It's just as much effort to frame your ideas, experiences and wisdom in a way that will be understood clearly as it is to teach a class, write poetry or perform on stage.

Elizabeth Gilbert is an amazing speaker, but more importantly, she frames the issue in an interesting manner. Since I've gone through my life-changing experiences, I've been an advocate of taking responsibility only for yourself, and to leave the rest to...well...the rest. I've written about human love and stubborness in the past, as an ingredient for living life after a great tragedy. However, the pieces fall into place so well in this speech that I feel almost...breathless.

Externalize your creativity. Just show up and do your job - let the rest take care of itself.

************

One of the issues I've been having with swordsmanship isn't lack of practice - it's lack of intent and understanding. The practice we have are merely gates (pardon the small pun here guys!).

Lately I've been unable to synthesize what the practices into something useful. My wheels are spinning but I'm going nowhere. After watching Ms Gilbert's speech, I think I understand what's going on. Sometimes, the process of learning (itself a creative process) involves spinning wheels because synthesis of learning is just as capricious a creature as creativity.

That doesn't mean that I should not make the effort to learn. It just means I don't beat myself up everytime I don't quite learn something as well as I should.

Just show up. Let the rest take care of itself.

Deterioration

Sunday's training pretty much reflects how ragged my form has become.

I don't think my form is horrible. I managed to execute First Drill properly (despite some initial hiccups with the second step). I managed to get through the variations fairly well. I even survived the (comparatively brisk) warm up on Sunday, along with a fair execution of Syllabus Form.

The problem here is the lack of "stressed" training.

It showed a lot during the mock tournament we held. Kenneth and Yu Sarn have been able to truly integrate their training into a useable martial art. I have not. They can execute sword forms while thinking tactically. I cannot. They can step off the line as a natural response. My feet feel glued to the floor.

The strange part is - all of these problems only appear when I am in a stressful situation - i.e freeplay.

I know what this means - it means I don't have enough reps under my belt to really integrate this into a proper martial art. I've been doing a lot of armchair martial arts - critiquing styles, forms but not really training.

***********

The other problem now (which is related) is that I'm at an incredibly low in energy. I think I know why it's so low, and I know from experience that it tends to be self-correcting after a while. I just need to refill my energy reserves that I've spent on creative endeavours of late - i.e helping friends through their love problems, writing out scenarios for the games that I run etc.

Perhaps what I really need to do is to get some way of getting healthy without my reliance on swordsmanship as a head fake. I think I've relied on that for too long, and I really should move on based on that foundational activity.

More later. Head is hurting again.

Why You Should Wear Gloves When Practising Swordsmanship

AKA, "The Doofus that Got Himself Cut"

How it Happened:

We were practising crossing of swords from Dente di Chingale. (Translation: It's a parry from a low guard held to the left of the body against a blow coming in from the attackers high right, cutting down towards the lower left.)

Some mistiming was probably going on. My best guess was that the cover either came up too late against an improperly formed attack (and I was the attacker) or I was leading with my hands.

Long story short - the blow grazed my fourth knuckle, deflected off my fifth and gouged a chunk of skin off the edge of my hand.

Lesson learnt, wear gloves, do your best to cover your hands on the attack, and don't stand so close.

Abrazare

I returned to Sunday practice yesterday after a long absence. Apart from the exhaustion and morning aches today, I think I learnt quite a bit from yesterday's class.

Abrazare, or unarmed combat, is the foundation of swordplay. It is the foundation because the basics of body movement, balance and combat can all be found in this portion of the treatise. To be specific, the domination of the center line, grounding and breaking the opponent's structure are all aspects that get repeated throughout the text, but are most readily apparent in abrazare.

Our training yesterday was essentially wrestling. Strikes, counters, takedowns. The interesting thing about wrestling is how easy the situation turns into two just just grunting and pushing against each other with no avail. This is not ideal - a quick cover to break structure, or relaxing firm but guarded is a far better way of eventually taking out the enemy.

I've also discovered half-speed wrestling is much harder to do than full-speed, mostly because the periods of destabilisation usually take place only for a split second. Half-speed, people tend to restabilise themselves long before being able to take advantage of it.

Guilty Pleasure

First person that came to mind when I saw this was Ilkka. The man who considers training for three hours three to four times a week the minimum necessary to retain his skill.


Demotivators

Salut!

Dagger Training

I'm going to spend a bit of time writing about dagger duels in the context of the martial art I practice. For those of you not interested, there's a nice video of Jon Stewart taking a piss out of the GOP here.

We spent most of yesterday training with daggers. The daggers we use are wooden, about a foot long and look like glorified icepicks. For those who know what i am talking about, we train with rondels.

Because we primarily train with a piercing weapon, we do train for some things I would not even imagine using on modern knives, i.e grabbing or slapping the blade. Nevertheless, some of the stuff we do IS applicable to a modern knife fight, which brings me to my thoughts, which are

1. Speed kills
2. The default for a knife fight is a mutual kill
3. Let the other guy see what you are doing (HT: Chris Blakey)
   

Let me explain each.

*******************

Speed Kills

This adage is generally true to varying degrees. Acting and reacting faster than your opponent generally gives you an edge. This is especially true in dagger fights because of several reasons.

The first is that a dagger, as compared to unarmed, IS a situation where the first good strike will kill or disable, and your target area is almost the entire body, even if you are wearing armour. Contrast this with unarmed. A fist generally doesn't kill or disable with the first strike unless you are hitting somewhere pretty specific. If you want to disable someone while you are unarmed, you generally have to break their structure first before you throw/lock/break/disarm, which involves working your way into a position where you can do that.

The second is that, compared to a longer weapon, like a sword or poleax, the dagger has a much shorter tempo. It's almost as fast as moving your hand around unarmed. Contrast with a sword or a poleax, which trades some speed for a lot more power and measure.

In short, because (1) getting the first strike CAN lead to victory and (2) dagger use lends itself well to quick strikes, speed especially kills with dagger strikes.

(Note. Speed gives you an edge. It doesn't win you the entire fight. I've won dagger and sword bouts with someone I judge about half again as fast as I am. I've lost dagger and sword bouts to people half as slow as I am. It's more important to do things right than to do things fast. Doing things right AND fast generally kills though.)

*******************

The default for a dagger duel is a mutual kill

What happens in a dagger duel is that both sides will be wanting to strike first with the dagger, for the reasons I mentioned above. The first good dagger strike ends the combat, so there's plenty of incentive to move in for the kill fast. Because both people are thinking like that, it's likely both people will try to attack first. Baring massive disparities in speed, both are likely to inflict a killing or disabling wound. Both die.

Hence, the default for a dagger duel is a mutual kill.

Having that in mind, what we train for isn't maximising the speed of the first strike. That leaves a lot to chance, i.e it depends on having an opponent that is slower than you. What we do train for is to strive for control over the weapon, then launching a counterstrike.

That is to say, the key to winning a dagger duel is controlling the opponent's weapon.

*******************

Let the other guy see what you are doing

This is something brought up by Chris on Sunday's training, and I agree with him. There's no point attacking if the opponent cannot see what is happening. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out.

Recall that the most reliable method of winning a dagger duel is to control the opponent's weapon?

By controlling your initial attack and making it visible, you have (1) limited your opponent's options for defence down to the most appropriate response and can therefore (2) predict the counter-remedy ahead of time. What's more (3) if your opponent commits to his defense too early, you can change your line of attack fairly quickly and get him where he's not defending.

Moreover, making your attack committed and visible is it's own defense. You stop yourself from leading before your dagger covers you, which is the worst mistake you can make in a dagger duel, and often ends with you walking into the point of your opponent's dagger.

Chris demonstrated this for us during one of the bouts, and I believe him. I also tried this in one of my bouts against Robin, which lead to a very nice feint.

*******************

The one complaint I have about myself for dagger is that I've not been able to get into my head and muscles the proper counter-remedy measures. Because it's a fraction of a second (during the interrupted attack) of a fraction of a second (during the defense and remedy) I just kind of go into a spastic spasm when I'm supposed to execute a counter-remedy.

The only way to remedy this is more training I suspect. Anyone else encounter this?

Elbows and Wrists

Recovered from a bout of diarrhea, which explains my lack of updates.

The only training session I attended this week was Wednesday, where we practised First, Third and Ninth Master of Dagger, which brings me to my point of this post.

How does one train accuracy when aiming for the elbows and wrists with hands? With a sword you can do pell work to improve your cutting form, or train opposite a person to train your stroke.

You obviously can't do the same thing with an unarmed frontale because (1) the elbows and wrists are extremely small targets and (2) build and positioning causes this to vary even more than it normally does, in contrast with fendente cuts.

I'm asking this because I can't figure out a good methodology to train this apart from doing it over and over again - and even that seems to provide limited gains because of different sizes of training partners, different positions for hands, wrists and elbows when striking, etc.

Some help anyone?

Syllabus Form

Given my crappy excuse for a schedule this week, I've resorted to training by myself. This means many many reps of Syllabus Form.

My observations:

1. There's a very fine balance between thinking of Syllabus Form as a set of responses to attacks, and thinking of Syllabus Form as a 38-step program. The issue is this: thinking of the Syllabus Form as a set of responses makes me artificially panicky, and my form suffers, BUT, if I think of the Syllabus Form as a 38-step program, my form is wonderful, but my flow suffers. I don't think I'm supposed to think of Syllabus Form as either and just execute it, but I've not reached that stage yet where I can execute every move in the Form flawlessly.
2. I notice that the more I execute Syllabus Form, the sloppier it becomes. I think this is a symptom of a bigger problem - when I get tired (not physically, but bored, distracted etc) my form suffers. I need to keep myself motivated.
3. There's a weird annoying lag in my footwork, more so than necessary to account for not leading with the face and hands. I don't quite know what's wrong. Maybe it's a familiarity issue.

Comments?

Training in Singapore

Attended training for the first time since I've returned. Officially anyways. Unofficially, I've been heading to the Botanical Garden and been doing the "plank" as regularly as I can manage - which is to say, irregularly.

The first thing I noticed about going back to do my drills is how cramped I'm perceiving the training space to be. I know that's not correct - our training hall is only slightly smaller than SESH's training hall in Finland. Yet somehow, it feels a lot smaller than it should be. My guess is that it's the line of bags strewn over the sides, and the line of chairs that make things smaller than they need to be.

The second thing I noticed is that my form has suffered during the week - again. Weirdly enough, when Chris and Greg call me out on my mistakes, I tend to know what they are going to say before they even say it. Not breaking structure on the cover for First Remedy of First Master of Dagger, check. Not swinging high enough to be a proper fendente cut, check. Volta Stabile when I'm not supposed to, double check.

It annoys me that I know what I'm supposed to be doing and yet not being able to do it consistently.

On a brighter note, I notice that during training, I'm swinging harder and which more emphasis on proper form. I go down lower on my guard positions and focus more on establishing structure than executing things quickly. I was especially proud when Robin tried to armlock me and didn't manage to. For perspective, Robin is one of the bigger and stronger guys there and his form is usually impeccable.

I also think that there are some endemic mistakes that we make over and over again because we're just so used to them. I'll be focusing on this aspect in training and my own self-training.

Home

Just touched down 2 hours ago.

The news has broken, and I think I can write about this safely now. I've been promoted to full Fellow in PHEMAS. In practical terms that means I've moved from being an intermediate student to one of the more senior students in swordsmanship in one fell swoop.

I share Kenneth's sentiment here - I can only trust that Mr Windsor was not being over-generous with the promotion. In many ways, I feel like I've reached the point where I'm only beginning to grasp the basics, only to have the door open to the wealth of learning ahead.

And boy, what wealth it is.

I feel simultaneously overwhelmed and enlightened. If wisdom is recognizing how little you know, I am feeling incredibly wise now.

More when I get some sleep.

Day 2 of Seminar

Day 2 of the seminar saw some journalists down at the Salle to film us. Something about living history and that kind of thing.

Today saw a bit of abrazare, a lot of dagger work and some longsword for the crowd. I started the day incredibly low energy, and kind of sleepwalked through a lot of the techniques. My form suffered and it showed. Guy probably noticed as well - came over and corrected me a couple of times.

Second part of the day saw me get my second wind. Did better, got more learning in.

Again, I'm glad that some small but significant matters got corrected:

1. Apparently my stance is too wide all this while. Guy described it well - if one imagines a square, my feet are occupying opposite corners of the square. This is wrong - it should occupy both corners of the same side of the square. I gain about a foot or two of measure this way.
2. My pushing has been corrected. Instead of pushing against the chest and shoulders, go for the chin and head instead. When pushing encounters resistance, change the direction of the push. Push in the right place lightly beats pushing in the wrong place strongly.
3. Structure is all-important. Maintain your structure, break his.
   

I'm sure Kenneth will have far more insights than I do, but these are the ones I've managed to pick up and hopefully retain. Tomorrow's stuff is probably a dagger round up and sword work. Am going to get an early night to rest up for tomorrow.

String Theory

I learnt to fight with string today.

Apart from the obvious cool factor of that, I took a lot away from the first day of the seminar in Finland.

Once again, Kenneth goes into the pedagogical and technical aspects of the session; I don't need to belabour the point. I will go more into the personal development dimensions of the seminar.

I start with a somewhat suprising revelation - I may be passionate about the sword, but I am not entirely prepared to give up my life entirely for it. If the others here have a love affair with swordsmanship, I have probably a strong friendship with it.

That said, I've always been most interested in swordsmanship as a personal development tool, and that is what I shall focus on.

1. Our martial art comes off a 16th century manuscript. Note I do not say "based off" or "derived from" a manuscript. For all intents and purposes it is the same martial art taught off the manuscript - or as close to it as we can get to it. While I have learnt content from the book, I've never learnt it in the order that the book presented. This small difference in the seminar and the way I normally learn it makes a vast difference to me; it allows me a bigger insight into the historical way the martial art is taught and gives the thought processes behind using the martial art more structure. In short, there is value in keeping it real.
2. There are times where I am tempted to make things up when I don't know something. That is just ego. The irony is, the manuscript itself provides notes on variations, and possible applications. Often what I can make up is far inferior to what has already been provided and thought through by people who have a far more vested interest in the outcomes of these applications. In short, if you don't know something, check it up. Don't make up shit.
3. In the course of learning this martial art, mistakes creep in. These may be small mistakes like hunching when you should be extending, not raising your arms enough and the such. These small mistakes matter, and happen because the human body is inherently lazy. To make sure your body does things properly, you must train. In short, practice, practice, practice. Don't just think about it.
4. In the course of practising the martial arts, the simple moves work a lot better than complicated moves. The reason is that the simple can be executed without too much fuss. In the chaos of a fight, a simple move is more likely to be used and executed well than a complicated one. Do not mistake simple for shallow. In short, simplify, simplify, simplify.

That's all for now. Laptop running out of batteries. Will write more after the seminar.

Small Successes

The trick, as in all things, is with the small things.

Kenneth has written up an awesome series of posts regarding his growing insight into the art of swordsmanship. I will not repeat what he has to write, but suffice to say that much of what he has to write, I agree with.

My current tally in Helsinki is 4 training sessions, two a day. The training and pedagogy is completely alien to me, and yet makes a lot of sense. In it, where I was saw static drills, I now see drills as what they are - training tools. That alone is worth the trip here.

That isn't the only thing that I've learnt though.

My first four lessons here were spent learning basic material again - stuff that I should be proficient in before I got here, but wasn't. Going through the material again under the watchful eyes of Guy is something else. I managed to correct quite a number of things that I've been doing wrong systematically. I don't know whether my form has improved or not - thats for other people to judge, but I feel my movements becoming smoother and less gummed up.

It's with the small successes that I'm developing my insights from. Something as simple as raised hands, a flapping elbow and one fewer step in a drill makes a vast difference in the execution.

I'm also glad I made the time to come down to Helsinki to train. Apart from the opportunity to train, it is also the opportunity to get away from work and life stress. I also got time to spend with people that I don't get enough time with nowadays.

Heading for this retreat made me realise I've got an awful lot of clutter in my life that I would like to cut down. In life the simple things matter. Do them well, invest in them and you get your dividends. Investing in clutter just creates more clutter.

More later when I get the chance to write or when I get home.

The Guy

Guy Windsor (the dude in the center) took us for an incredibly intense 2-day weapons workshop last weekend. He's the head of our sister school SESH, and is the one who taught our instructors. He's also written the book on what I think is the definitive interpretation of Fiore's techniques.

Needless to say, we've learnt a lot from him. I'm not sure I can actually do his teaching full justice in this short blog post but I will try.

1. While Fiore's manual (the primary source of our art) focuses on describing forms and techniques, there are several internally consistent principles in the manual.
2. These principles can be applied to any weapon, as it involves the majority of cutting, thrusting and smashing, along with principles of wrestling, measure (effective range of the weapon), passing (or positioning), and grounding.
3. There are specific peculiarities for each weapon. A spear is the archetype for thrusting attacks, so the emphasis here should be on exchanging and breaking thrusts. It is not so good for smashing or swinging attacks, in contrast with a pollaxe or sword.
4. Each guard has permissible actions and defenses that are natural to that guard. By learning what is permissible and natural from that guard position, one can somewhat predict what is coming and how to counter it.

It was clear to me that I needed to do more reading. As such, I've endeavoured to start reading more into the actual source material, or at the very least, the translated versions of it. I've already started reading some of the notes Guy has published, though I'm not making much progress for it. Still, I endeavour to plough through it.

Some further training notes.

1. I need to get my core muscles working. Guy has showed us a couple of simple body resistance exercises to condition the back and abs. Once I get over this bout of illness I'll work it into my life schedule. I think those are incredibly useful.
2. I still need to work on my stress reflexes. I can execute the forms Guy taught okay, but I've noticed that in a stress situation I tend to panic and forget everything. This means more drilling for me.
3. Guy noticed that I tend to backweight my en guarde position, which is absolutely correct. I'll need to correct this. I need to find a comfortable spot to settle my hips.
   
4. On the bright side, I think my volta stabile has improved somewhat by keeping in mind not to turn with the shoulders, but the entire body. I can -feel- the improvement in smoothness.
   

My great thanks to Guy Windsor, who made time to come down and kick our asses out of complacency.

Little Steps

In art, as in life, your path is often dictated by fundamentals and little steps.

I've written at length about my training issues. After some consultation with Greg and some very wise input from Illka, I've realised that what I am experiencing is simply that my fundamentals were not strong.

Take for example, footwork. Of all the training I've gone through, footwork is the most boring. Yet, so much depends on it. Your distance judgment is based on how consistent you can keep your footwork. Your stability is determined by how solid your footwork is. Your defense is determined by being in the right position at the right time, and that is largely a function of footwork.

Specifically, my footwork suffers because:

1. When I take a step forward, I stop prematurely, causing my body to jerk forward. The reason for this is that when I move forward, I don't commit to shifting my weight to the forward foot until the very last moment. The sudden rush of forces from this weight transition forces my forward foot to act as a brake, which causes it to stutter. Furthermore, because I'm not comitting to moving forward, the reach of my front foot tends to be shorter than it would otherwise be, aggravating the "stutter". Solution - practice transitioning my weight better. This will cure two of my 5 issues which is the inability to change direction and the inability to range properly.
2. When I turn, I lead my turn with my shoulders. I know a volta stabile is supposed to be powered from the hip. What I am doing, however, is rotating the shoulder first, to a point where my hips lock, then turning my hips. In that sense, I am overthrowing my shoulder. Solution - I need to work on shifting my weight smoothly from foot to foot, powering the transition with my hip and not my shoulder.
   

Two very small, almost undetectable mistakes fouled up my footwork. I will work to correct them.

*************

There is a life lesson in this. Very often, it's not the big things that will drive you down, but the small things. A mispelt word can ruin an otherwise polished piece of writing. A misplaced number will ruin accounts.

As in all things, there is no controlling the number and frequency in which a million small things will occur in life. However, what can be done is to control the extent of which these things affect you. We can do so by:

• being honest with ourselves. We should not have overinflated senses of self, because we wouldn't notice these small creeping errors. Likewise, running yourself down for small mistakes is just as harmful - if your time and attention is on the defensive, you'll never progress, which brings me to....
• Set goals. Mr Wang has written several times about the importance of setting goals - a person who doesn't set a goal fails 100% of the time. I agree with him. I will also add, setting goals allows you to....
• Focus on your goal. On top of being sure what you want, you also need to keep your eye on the goal. Small things can detract from this in two ways, as distractions or as flaws in your fundamentals. The former should be ignored, the latter worked on. Either way, the only way to recognise the difference between the two is to understand what you want and to head towards it in a focused manner.

***********

I used to be doing swordsmanship as therapy for loss. It's long since outgrown its original purpose. I want to do swordsmanship now because it's a part of me. In growing my skill with swordsmanship, it causes me to grow too. It's also a wonderful tool for me to understand the interaction between my internal universe and the universe around me.

With this in mind, I can go forward.

Starting Over

I feel my one-month absence from training.

Yesterday's training was very much about easing back. I don't think I did badly, apart from a moment where I was seeing stars after wrestling. My shoulder muscles have shrunk, my paunch is returning, but my CV is somehow better - I attribute that to all the walking and running around I did during NS.

My load-bearing doesn't seem to have suffered. Then again I wasn't wearing my full armour. That being said, I think my wind has improved and it's translated into more willingness to press the attack. I also tried out a few other things that I otherwise wouldn't have done, which suits me just fine.

My pivoting seems to have deteriorated and my sword is all over the place - evidence that continuous practice is the best way of maintaining form.

That's all to report for now. I am still chewing over some aspects of my training but I feel it's a bit premature to write them down. Suffice to say, I'm thinking hard on the comments that have been left on my blog - especially Illka's comments about yielding only to superior pressure.

*****

I also seem to have developed a congestion in my chest area. I feel laboured when I breathe and a slight cough seems to be developing. I have no phlegm though. I suspect it's the warm weather conditioning I acquired in NS conflicting with the air-con environment.

Apart from this, I don't quite feel 100% psychologically. I feel much better after training though, so I think it might just be a function of venting aggression and frustration from NS.

Training Issues

I made it past the recent evaluations but I felt like I didn't really deserve it.

My current complaints? A whole host. I feel like I know what the issues are but I haven't the faintest clue about how to get around them. I'll list them down - if anyone has any ideas from their own experience with martial arts and competitive sports, I'm very willing to listen.

1. I'm suffering from a power blockage at the hip area, where my leg joint connects to my hip bone. What I mean by "power blockage" is that when I rotate my hips, I am unable to transfer the power from my hips to my upper body smoothly. The end result is that I end up very reliant on shoulder and upper body strength. It gets me to a point, but I'm feeling the inadequacies of this technique already. I think this is a result of my extreme lack of flexibility but I'm not sure.
   
2. My footwork needs work. I tend to step from the heel rather than stepping from the balls of my feet. It's gotten slightly better but I'm still by no means consistent with that.
3. I can't help but to think I'm picking up bad form from stress training. I'm not sure what basis I have for this statement, but I feel it happening when I do drills - I tend to want to punch a guys face in rather than concentrate on what works for the drill. In short, I've not made the transition from connecting "executing proper form" to "winning" yet.
4. I tend to hunch my shoulders and lean forward to get those extra 2-3 inches of range, but at the cost of being able to balance well. It's a bad habit and I'm looking to break it because of the strain it causes my lower back and shoulders, not to mention wrecking havoc with my form. I think that it's a combination of breaking in new armour and my brain cross-firing saber and longsword techniques.
5. There's a point I get to where I'm VERY unwilling to go faster. I -think- I can go faster but I've never tried going faster. The reason for this is that I associate speed with losing control, and losing control with injuries. I'm deathly afraid of causing someone else injuries. This has related issues as well - I freak out mentally whenever I train techniques I -know- are meant to injure or kill, like drawing the sword across a human body. I'm not sure how I can get around that, or if it's just an issue of desensitization.
   

I think the focus for the new year for me should be (1) more flexibility exercises and stretching (2) more focus on form and less on stress training and (3) learning to stand up straight.

Armour Upgrade

This is the latest iteration of my armour. I've dropped the coif, and added a gorget and spaulders to the mix. In addition, I'm now wearing knee cops (not shown in this picture), and will be adding elbow cops, a breastplate and possibly a helm, and my kit will be complete.

I've originally aimed for a Milanese style kit, but my kit is starting to look more Early Gothic Transitional, which is just as well.









The rest of the demo team has obtained upgrades too. Here my knee cops are visible.





Tome and I are still primary sparring partners, even in demos. Tome prefers staying at a distance while I prefer going up close and punching/grappling. It's still a toss up whose style will eventually dominate. Here, the ending is scripted - it casts no aspersions on Tome's ability as a fighter, the pesky dance-around-er. :)



The boys with some well-deserved R&R after the demo.

Quote of the Day II

Scene: Greg briefs us for our latest demo. Most of us are clad in chainmail, some with bits of plate reinforcing vital points. One of my sword buddies, Uncle Chio, in particular has only recently started wearing chainmail regularly despite being a senior student.

Greg: Okay, Tome and KC will be doing 2nd and 3rd drill, Page and Josh will be doing 4th and 5th drill. The rest of you will stand around and look pretty. I know it's hard, but try.

-cue cheering, the loudest from Chio-

Greg: Oh wait, Uncle Chio will be reserve for 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th drill.

Me: -turning to Chio- Well, I guess it's true then. Chainmail doesn't stop arrows.