Practice Last Night

I was decently lazy last practice, and that's acceptable but not ideal. I got there relatively late, because traffic and 15 minutes of dinner on the way there. Nutrition is important.

For the first part of practice, I was grabbed to talk through Plate 31 of Fabris. Long version short, it's essentially the same as the thing I have been calling "yielding around the blade", though Fabris says you should do it in a couple of different places from where I usually perform the action. This is because Fabris loathes direct blade interaction.

Usually when I perform a yield, it's because I'm pushing on their blade with the false edge of my blade in an attempt to try to force them into blade contact on the outside. Then they resist, and then I yield around.

Then there was general playing-around time. It was good, but I wasn't really working on anything in particular, and I'm feeling that after-the-fact. Usually I will pick a thing to work on during practice, even if it's something wibbly and nonspecific like "tighten my form". I didn't really fight *that* much, and my head was elsewhere while I was fighting. I really needed to do more pickups.

Then the tournament happened. I didn't put on my game-face this time, partly because I was in a good mood and partly because I wanted to see how it would go. I lost to my don and then to the good doctor, surprising literally nobody. Both of those losses were because I under-committed from the place I lunged, and then botched the parry with my dagger. I think I really need to trust my ability to take a fully-committed step or two while parrying, then perform a lunge.

Also maybe I need to start fighting from a stance that holds itself just inside of the good doctor's stance. So, my right hand points just inside of his left hand, perhaps with blade contact and pushing him outwards to prevent easy foot-shots. Then my left hand decouples from my right wrist and sort of floats up high, just inside of his right hand sword. That is something to try for next Monday practice.

So, things I could work on for Thursday:

• If I fight against someone with case, my dagger goes just inside of whatever sword my sword is not covering.
• Tighten form in order to die less. Form can always be tightened. Motions can always be made more economical.
• Work on destreza-type wrist-cut-disengages. In particular when my opponent takes my sword from the inside, use a full circular cut to get out of it safely.
• Think about my game on the inside line. I still prefer the outside line far, far more. But I'm not sure if the correct move is to always fence from the outside line. The inside line is just so very dangerous.

And for Monday:

• If I fight against someone with case, my dagger goes just inside of whatever sword my sword is not covering. Pickups with the doctor in order to work on this.
• Don't participate in the tournament. Tournament takes a while and one every week isn't useful to me. Every other week is good. Maybe bring a new fencer downstairs and teach a short class or something?

That last point reminds me. I also spent some time teaching the basics of my outside line game to one of our newer fencers. It was surprisingly fun, actually. I might do more teaching in the future, if people want to learn from me.