Practice Report and Digression on Freeplay

First practice using my case blade as my primary one. It could have gone worse. I still mourn the loss of my blade. It had always been wobbly, so I am not surprised that it broke. I purchased the sword that became my case weapon specifically so that if my sword broke at an event, I could just switch over and continue. Even so, it doesn't feel quite right. I think that the greater stiffness and weight will eventually be better, but right now I'm having some trouble pulling off weirdness that I could with my old blade. Also it's half an inch shorter, which means that a decent amount of the time I either miss, or I take a passing step and overshoot.

I did hit people too hard some, which I feel super bad about. :(

*****

I talked a bunch at the start of practice, eventually leading into some drilling and some freeplay. I had a hard time getting Destreza concepts to work for me, and ended up falling back on a lot of Destreza-inspired-but-not-in-canon hilt parries. I need to work on the second-intention attacks, since I had worked on first-intention attacks primarily and my opponent was presenting strong opposition even when I was able to successfully apply an atajo to his sword. By the end, my opponent was doing Destreza, and I was doing Destreza-ish.

It was so obvious that he knows how to do this better than I do, lol.

As an aside, this is why I tend to want to do free play more than drilling. Free play gives me data about what I need to work on in drilling at home. I worked super hard on those atajos and first-intention attacks, but if my opponent performs a counter to those attacks then working further on first-intention attacks is not useful. I tend to think of things in a rock-paper-scissors context.

1. I learn how to throw rock. Yay rock! 
1. No idea how to throw paper or scissors, though I know vaguely that they exist.
2. My opponent knows how to throw paper. I lose.
3. In response, I learn how to throw scissors.
4. My opponent knows how to throw rock. I still lose.
5. In response, I learn to throw paper. Maybe I win now?
1. It is at this point that we are actually fencing. Before that, I was just losing.

In this context, my weakly-applied first-intention atajos are rock. His stronger, firmer first-intention atajos were paper. I am imagining that second-intention attacks will end up being scissors. The metaphor breaks down at this point, because the relationship among these attacks and counters is more complex than this. Regardless, my outlook on learning how to actually do Destreza in fights is optimistic, with my new textbook.

Just to be super clear - I am not at all saying that people who primarily drill are wrong. It's just not how I learn for myself. Different learning styles are totally a thing, and I am very much an active learner. I learn best when doing the thing, whether successfully or unsuccessfully.

*****

I then drilled some more with a newer dude in our practice. Things went okay - I walked in thinking I had a plan for what to do, but everything I was planning fell out of my head. We ended up doing some free-fighting, me using my short blade. It went okay. I was sort of doing my "throw out a bunch of attacks and parries and see what sticks" strategy. Then I threw a bunch of words at him about concepts that exist and how to do a very tight disengage. I am pretty sure that I didn't express myself effectively, but life will go on regardless. Next practice I need to write down what we are going to work on ahead of time.

*****

I then fought some against other people in our practice. I'm pretty sure that they were both trying new things. I was working on my Outside Line All Day Every Day style. It felt right. The new blade means that my first-intention thrusts need to have a little bit more cut to them than they used to, in order to move my opponent's blade out of the way. The yield around is a bit more awkward to do now - I can't rely on a flick of my wrist to get my blade to flex such that my tip goes around their hilt. Even so, I was able to get those two things to work. It made me happy.

I'm learning the value of not pulling my hand back after thrusting. If I leave my tip out there, I might get a kill if my opponent expects me to pull back. Additionally, it forces them to take that extra tempo to clear my blade. It's a way to keep them honest if I don't have a clear second thrust to attempt. It's a dumb long-blade trick, but so many things I do are dumb long-blade tricks.

Lastly, I think my lunge has gotten longer? Because my at-home practice area feels smaller now. That means either my lunge has gotten longer or the practice area has shrunk. While the second is possible, I think it's significantly less likely.