Lochleven Practice

This past Sunday was Lochleven practice, which was fun. We did a bunch of melee, and I brought longsword to most of it. I also wore lacrosse gloves after my hand got smacked for a fourth time, and that might be a good thing to do in melee in general.

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In our line-rolling drill, I learned that I need to get in people's personal space after I stab them more often. This would allow for faster rolls. The issue there is that by the time I need to make the choice to move on, I don't necessarily know if my opponent is taking the shot yet. And indeed, I don't know if I've hit yet, since I need to be stepping in as I finish throwing my shot. So, the answer there is probably to learn to better distinguish thrusts which are going to land before I throw them.

Alternately, I can ignore that, and just understand that my slower, less-efficient line-rolling has the advantage that I confirm that my opponent is taking the shot before I move on. In theory, the line should be able to "ripple" when it starts to roll, and if I take too long then the next person in line can pick up the roll.

I shall state once again - I'm not *that* good at melee. I'm good at measure, and I'm good at using that to create opportunities to turn melee into fencing, rather than melee. When it works, I can sometimes do excellent things. When it doesn't, I am sad.

To be better at melee, I need to learn to use my long blades for in-fighting. Maybe I should work on that next practice.

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Longsword was great. My work with Left Plow guard in rapier crossed over decently well. My go-to shot ended up being a preparation in Left Plow on the outside line, baiting an outside-line ward and leading to a disengage under their sword and then harpoon to the stomach. That shot was great because I could throw the start of it relatively quickly, then gently poke in at my opponent's belly when I got to the point where they couldn't stop it even if they tried.

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I tried fighting with the New Spanish Opposition Thing using and against case. I couldn't get it to work against a very active case game, in which my opponent's arms never stopped moving. I think that the combination of him being very far off-line with him moving around a lot meant that I couldn't do what I wanted. In retrospect, perhaps I should have just tried to pry him open - that is to say, place my blade in a position that blocks off his straight line, and widens as I get closer until I can throw a shot.

This might be the general solution for someone with a very active blade. If their blade is active, they will put it in bad places, and my job is to not allow them to return to good places.

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In closing, there is one thing I would like to see. So, there are a number of melee strategy classes I have taken. And then there are melee tactics classes. I would like to see a class on personal melee techniques that people use, since I have no idea what people other than me do.

This would be things like "rush in and bar blades outwards" and things like that. The appropriate way and situations to perform actions in. Because while it is possible to default to fencing techniques, I think it's not the optimal solution.