Practice Yesterday, and Analytics!

Yesterday was a good practice. I spent the day thinking I wasn't going to go because my shin had been bothering me, and because it looked like it was going to thunderstorm. But it didn't! And using a bicycle inner-tube to force my hamstring to stretch actually helped my shin a bunch. Thanks, internet!

So as usual, I collected heart rate data using my fitbit. I fought six different people - first two fights were outside, then the next few were inside.

It's hard to draw straight lines on a phone screen

My first fight was against a shorter, long-time OGR. Those fights were really good. I did not ramp up my speed to 100%, which forced me to focus more on technique. I was trying to fight in a Destreza-ish way and also use the invitation I described last post, which didn't work super well due to how far below me her sword was. Short people with long swords continue to present a problem, especially when my sword is shorter than theirs.

My next set of fights was short single against case. It was a very mobile fight, and it looks like we paused in the middle of the fights for whatever reason. I had to use my mobility to force him to commit one sword, then use my sword to take the other one. Alternately, I had to push his swords together. Alternately, I had to use timing and burst down the center line super-fast. This continues to be an illuminating fight. I also continue to have more success being Fabris-ish against case with single, than being Destreza-ish. I tried to use the invitation thing as a multi-step process to get both of his swords, but it didn't work so well, partly because I have to think to set up the invitation.

My next set was against someone who had been fighting for a year. It went well - he kept surprising me by catching parries when we were in in-fighting range. After a bit, my invitation with my blade to the left stopped working, so I had to change the invitation such that my blade was to the right.

My next set was against a fighter who continually pushes my game to improve. I brought my standard long rapier and dagger against him. You will note that this set and the previous set were the ones where my heart rate peaked. After a certain point I was just exhausted - I couldn't cool off fast enough. I did some cool things with the mirrored invitation with blade to the right, but I think they worked well largely because he expected me to disengage and generally deny blade contact more. I feel like he took more passes than I did, and his game was pretty on-point.

My second-to-last set of fights was against an extremely skilled case fighter. He kept catching me on things that I have been able to deal with in the past, but my brain just wasn't in the fight because it was so ridiculously hot. Very good on him for that. He acknowledged that I seemed tired, and the fact that I couldn't get my heart rate to peak is probably physical evidence of that. So basically, I fought him with my dumb game and didn't use any of my cool new things, and he roflstomped me. I also tried to use mobility to neutralize one of his swords, and it just didn't work.

Plate on the left

My last set of fights was against another extremely skilled case fighter. He also roflstomped me, but I used the guard from Fabris plate 168 against him. Again I tried to use mobility to neutralize a sword, but I couldn't get it to work. I will be trying the mobility thing again against both my last and second-to-last opponent, when I am less tired and overheating. The guard seemed to work relatively well though - I would move in and explode my sword and dagger outwards, hopefully catching one of his swords with each of my instruments. It became a game in which either he was able to counter-punch me, or I was able to catch his swords. I think I need to be even more aggressive about moving forward, and I need to be willing to get into dagger range and dagger-lunge skilled case fighters. He certainly took more passes than I did, but I feel like I have a direction to move, learning-wise.

*****

It looks worse in person. But it doesn't hurt! So that's nice.

I apparently also took a super hard shot to my hand. After practice I noticed that on my glove and hand. I didn't notice anything super hard, but the nasty bruise on my knuckle and the blown-through kevlar on my glove say otherwise. I now believe that those gloves were worth every penny I paid for them, because that would be way worse if I had not had semi-rigid protection on my knuckles.

That's all I've got for the moment. Tune in next time, for more of the violence-things!