I worked on presence-of-mind, partially inspired by this paper. Basically - I tried to maintain presence in-the-moment and avoid planning ahead. This allowed me to take advantage of the present situation, instead of trying to derp my way through situations that didn't actually come to pass.
Being present in-the-moment was super useful. I wasn't completely without plans - for example I periodically considered how my opponent was most likely to respond. But I didn't consider beyond that. I guess the real point is that I tried to not get lost in visualizing what might happen. Instead, I tried to consider whether openings were big enough, or how to make them larger if they were not. When making plans, my plan only extended to the immediate goal of making my the openings in my opponent's guard larger, rather than the goal of stabbing them two or three steps down the line.
I still was able to react with several of my usual actions - in particular, dagger-parry with a thrust in prima is a thing which has come to occupy more and more of my oh-shit reactions.
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I've started leaning over very, very far when I thrust. Assuming that Fabris is correct, I'll take this to be a good thing.
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I did more solidly against the lefty at practice than I did against right-handed people. I think this is because, in my Italianized Destreza, I haven't been transferring appropriately from Weak Under Strong to Line in Cross, and Weak Over Strong to Narrowing, against right-handed opponents. Against a lefty, switching from one to the other feels much more natural, because they maintain the line constraining the lefty to the inside or outside of my blade, while still allowing for an attack.
Against a righty, in order to go from a passing thrust in Weak Under Strong at their flank into an appropriately-defensive thrust with Line in Cross, I have to push my hand super far toward the center of the circle, in order to maintain the defensive 45ยบ angle between our blades and also block off the angle of their attack.
If I don't appropriately switch from Weak Under Strong to Line in Cross against a righty, then they can just thrust over my hilt at my face after they parry my thrust to their inside line. Or, after they parry me to the low outside, and then cut over the tip of my blade and throw a thrust over my hilt. Or, after they parry me to the outside with their tip high, then just thrust straight in above my hilt.
But much of what I did was exploit my greater range. Exploit the hell out of it. So good.
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Maintaining presence of mind against Sorcha was hard. Fights against one's significant other can be hard and frustrating, to one or both parties. I found it hard to maintain presence of mind, especially since her way of maintaining presence of mind is to banter. We are diametrically opposed in every way, in how we fight. I kept having to forcefully pull my brain back to presence of mind, which was in-and-of-itself frustrating.
Normally, I can ignore banter by growing angry at the other person, in the context of the bout. However, I was trying not to get angry, because I knew that would result in Sorcha growing frustrated as well, and I didn't want that. It's a difficult problem. The answer might just be to not fight her very often.
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tl;dr:
- Maintain presence of mind by concentrating on using and creating openings.
- Friggin' transfer between atajos appropriately against right-handed people. Don't be lazy.
- Maintaining presence of mind against certain people is hard, in a not-necessarily-constructive way. Don't force yourself to fight them.
I think that's all I have for the moment. Have a nice day, I guess?
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