Practice Report Thingy

Practice was good, except for the drive home.

I tried Shiny New Thing against a wide variety of people. It seemed to work in situations where my opponent was prepared to throw shots that involved their arm being fully-extended against me - either full-length shots or angled shots with the arm fully extended. This is somewhat ironic, because that is exactly what Shiny New Thing does.

It seems to work badly against people who do mid-blade opposition and winding against me. This is unsurprising, partly because that was Sorcha's first response when I showed her Shiny New Thing. Mid-blade winding usually requires a stance with the blade in front of the body in a way that allows me to gain opposition or play feinting games.

This is fortunate. I have been having trouble with people who don't give blade opposition. Shiny New Thing isn't perfect, but it is still educational. I need to better characterize the stances and positioning in which it works, and see if I can turn it from a useful flowchart into some principles which I can then apply to my overall fencing game.

I also tried to explain Shiny New Thing to a group of fencers. As usual, I was unable to effectively communicate why I was trying out the thing I am trying. Oh well.

*****

Shiny New Thing has been another example of how I learn by mining "New Tricks" for overarching principles. As per my standard way of learning:

1. I find a New Trick
2. I use New Trick over and over again to figure out where it does and doesn't work
3. Try to characterize when New Trick does and does not work
4. Eventually learn to differentiate situations in which New Trick does and does not work.
5. The differentiation between these situations is a new principle of fencing.

I'm currently sitting at stage 2 of this learning curve, trying to transition into stage 3.

*****

Aside from new-trick-related things, practice was very good. Much fighting, and I wasn't dead tired after it. Now, if only the drive back hadn't been so very, very snowy.