K&Q Post-Action Report

Starting With the Happy Things

So there was an event, and a bunch of people I like got recognized for stuff! The most awesome scroll was handed out! My fencing unit got recognized too! I need to start wearing a sword hanger to events, because our unit has been explicitly granted the right to wear weapons before the king and queen for this reign, so I want to flaunt the hell out of that.

The site was gorgeous, and despite high tensions and suchlike, people seemed to be in good spirits


Now, About the Fencing

The finals of King's and Queen's rapier championships contained the guy we sort of expected to win and one of the guys from my pool, who is also my don.

The semi-finals contained one of the other guys from my pool and the guy who I beat a year ago to become Carolingian champion.

Saying it like that, I shouldn't be unhappy with how I did even though I didn't advance out of my pool. But I really, really wanted to progress out of my pool this year. As such, I'm going to be frustrated for a while in my own personal little blog here, where very few people will see it.

When I was knocked out of my pool, I was so, so frustrated. I managed not to say anything too rash, aside from brushing a few people off with a terse "I'm going for a walk". I sat on a bench for a good few minutes and thought about life for a while. Eventually I returned and got some food and water, at the continued prodding of one kind person.

This is the second year running that the finals had one guy from my pool, and the semi-finals had the other guy. At this point I am just going to emotionally prepare myself for having the single hardest pool every single year, because according to tournament performance in the Sweet Sixteen, that is what I have had the last two years.

Additionally, the people I lost to in my pool are people who I would have particular strategies against, who I did okay against in the pickups I got it, and who those strategies uniformly did not work against when I got to the tournament. I think that warming up against people who are not my usual warm-ups was a bad plan. From here on out, I will only warm up against handsome boys.


My Losses

My first loss was to a tall guy who used a crinkle-buckler. I got half of a pick-up against him before the tournament started. I attempted to leg him in our pass, and that didn't work. Eventually he pressed hard and got through my defenses somehow? I usually can remember these things, but not this time. I remember most of our pass, and I think I presented good defense and offense. I think that next time, I need to go deeper for the leg against him, perhaps with a rightwards diagonal step of some kind.

My second loss was to my don, who uses longsword. I attempted a couple of my standard ridiculously long lunges based on distance against him, and they didn't work. Eventually I took his hand, but with his right hand he was able to sort of circle his sword around my parry and lay his tip on my chest. Next time, I should attempt a passing step if I think halfway through that my lunge that it will provide me adequate defense.

My third loss was to a tall guy who I fought extensive pickups against, in which I did pretty well. In the pickups he brought dagger. In the tournament he brought buckler. I attempted a few tactics, and saw him learning what I was doing and short-circuiting his responses as time went on. Eventually he landed a cut on my neck that I had attempted to pull onto my arm before he had a chance to cut. We went back and forth about it for a little while, and I was about to cede it to him when the king walked by saying that, "he totally had it." I probably should have ceded it earlier, which I will try to remember to do next time.

In the future, I either need to commit deeper earlier, or I need to take advantage of his anticipated responses. I am somewhat loathe to do these things, because it is hard to do either of those things in a safe way. More importantly though, I need to investigate the utility of learning people's responses in the middle of a match. It does leave the danger that I might allow myself to be trained into a dumb response. But it is a thing to think about. Maybe. Maybe not.


Notes and Other Things

In terms of specific techniques. I need to think through the following tactic more thoroughly:

• Perform a disengage from the inside line to the outside line, ending in an exaggerated quarta.
• If your opponent responds by taking your blade to the outside, take a forward passing step and place your dagger in the Parrying Area. Re-disengage under their hilt and stab them in the gut.
• If your opponent does not respond, uncoil your arm directly horizontally to deliver a cutting thrust through the Sad Zone of their sword. Proceed to take a diagonal leftwards passing step, making sure to put your dagger into the correct place to cover any counter-offense.

It works great against so many people. But against people with middle-weighted swords, it might be possible for them to rotate their sword too fast for my dagger to present a real obstacle to them. I need to think harder about how back-weighted, middle-weighted, and front-weighted swords handle differently, and how this changes the possible tactics against them.

All in all it was a good-but-stressful event. Life will go on. I really really wanted to be a kingdom champion, but the two people who got it this year were super deserving of it, and I am legitimately happy for them.