Practice Report

Practice was not great. I got in a lot of physical activity, which was good, but that's about all I can say about it.

I walked in, head full of the Meyer stuff I wrote about yesterday. When I tried to put it into practice, though, it failed consistently. I am unsure why - maybe there's something subtle about blade angles which I need to consider. I just couldn't lever people's tips across their body like I thought I would be able to. As well, even if I did, it was very hard for me to rotate from a false-edge push from the left into a true-edge thrust with opposition from the right. Maybe I need to, *sigh*, get someone to drill this with me, or at least present a variety of guards so that I can tell when it will work and when it will not work.

Additionally, nobody was willing to give me the inside line when I adopted the Left Plow guard. This was frustrating, because I wanted to practice the straight-in lunge from the Left Plow.

Eventually I decided to just ignore the stuff I had been thinking about, and fight my fight. Sometimes I over-commit to thoughts and ideas, and I need to reel myself in. So, I attempted to spend about 3/4 of my time just fighting my fight. It felt terrible.

*****

People have started keeping their blades in this low, ambiguous zone where my "your tip is in my upper-left" responses don't work, and my "your tip is in my lower-left" responses only kind of work. And it's not just one or two people - of my five sets of fights, four of them did this thing at least some of the time. I have a couple of responses for it, but it's annoying as hell. So I suppose that means it's time for me to work on my responses for it.

*****

My fights against $FENCER_NAME were horrible. I don't know if it was a lack of initiative or what. Eventually I got a little better, but I eventually I also jacked him in the face which was not great. My calibration needs work.

The situation in which I stabbed him, as I remember it, was as follows. He was in a position wherein I knew he was going to attempt a thrust to my right hip and dagger-parry low if I threw low. I knew this would mean he put his head forward quickly, but I was unsure how much he would. So. I threw the low feint, and attempted to catch his incoming point with a two-tempo parry-riposte to his face.

I missed the parry because he disengaged, but I landed the shot. The shot landed super-hard, even though I knew where it was going and attempted to place and then pull back with it. I'm not sure how I could have thrown that shot lighter, so perhaps the answer is just to not throw the shot if I expect that someone's face is going to be coming forward to attempt to get past my tip. This would be a frustrating conclusion, because I do love Giganti, and Giganti does love his face-shots.

I need to figure out what people do to not hit hard. Are they just more patient and willing to wait until their positioning doesn't require a quick shot?

*****

My fights against $OTHER_FENCER_NAME were just as bad. She brought buckler, which is the form I am worst against. I did not remember to attempt to blow through the buckler by tabling it or anything like that. The only shots I feel like I successfully landed were when I (finally) remembered a destreza-inspired way to deal with blades hanging out in that low ambiguous zone, and when I was able to throw high shots that angulated above the buckler. I didn't feel like I could probe at all, because this particular fencer has just enough measure to throw a shot as I'm throwing mine, and catch me with it.

I think the lesson here is that I need to work on low sweeping transports. That felt like the only game I really had, for many fights. It's annoying because low sweeping transports don't work from the stance I end up in when I want to use them.

*****

I've also not been able to compliment others' fighting. Usually when I fight someone, I put in effort to focus on one positive thing that they did, and mention it to them. The past few weeks I have been unable to do this thing.

*****

Thinking goals for next practice:

I need to work through how to go from my middle stance into a sweeping transport, when someone's blade is low but pointing toward me in what Meyer would call either a right Iron Gate or a right Plow. The sweeping transport has the added bonus of being a shot that can land lightly, because when I get it right, I usually have their blade trapped between my quillon and my blade, so I can just walk forward until I land it.

I also need to figure out how to land lighter shots. I throw a lot of whippy, angled snipe shots, and I think that those shots in particular land hard. Should I just stop throwing things like that out there? Should I start bringing a shorter sword so that I am forced to act within my opponent's measure? Do I need to just be less hungry to land the shot, when my opponent is going to be in a position that I could stab them? Do I need to fight in smaller lists, so there is less forwards-and-backwards movement? Who knows.

*****

And because practice didn't feel great, a plus/minus/plus exercise:

• Thing I Did Well:
• My sense of measure was pretty on-the-ball, I think.
• Area for Improvement:
• I need to work on being more positive again. In a very real sense, noticing what other people are doing well allows me to better analyze bouts.
• Other Thing I Did Well
• I identified when a new thing wasn't working for me, stopped using it, and elected to use a different thing instead.

It was a practice, which is inherently better than no practice, but still not the best in the world.