I won. That was pretty sweet. So was the mead. The Ymir Tourney It was low 30’s, snowing intermittently, raining intermittently, and miserable. I kept thinking “We should’ve been practicing outside during the winter!” I also kept thinking “I should’ve put on my silk sock liners” and “I should’ve been practicing with my silk glove […]
Author Archive
Ymir 2013 6 comments
Musings: The Front 180 9 comments
First, thank you all for chiming in on the question. To repeat some things I’ve probably said: The front 180 tends to be arbitrary and ill-defined. Shoulders move, heads move. You can usually figure out a “frontness” of an opponent, but that 180 is really hard to define. Recently, while mulling this at work, I […]
Question for the Audience: 180 Degrees 3 comments
In melee there’s this rule: Fighters may strike any opponent with any legal blow if they are within the 180 degree arc ofthe opponent’s front. A fighter who approaches an opponent from behind shall not deliver ablow until he is within that frontal arc. How do you teach that to new fighters? Does your kingdom […]
The Individual in Melee 21 comments
So much of our melee training is based around what the unit does, how it moves, what commands cause the unit to do what. At most, the individual’s training comes to, essentially, how to be a good little cog: “When the line runs right, be right on the ass of the guy in front of […]
Musing regarding German school stance 5 comments
Of late I’ve been reading through my copy of Codex Wallerstein (I blame Rhonwen) and thinking thoughts about German footwork. The 15th century manuals show a very upright and almost straight-legged stance: ‘ The 16th century sources show a wider, lower stance […]
4th Peerage Committee 17 comments
And of course we should start by pointing out it’d be the 5th Peerage. Or 12th, depending on how you look at it. Anyway, the rapier/C&T peerage committee was announced and is starting up. I have many, many thoughts on this, but figured I’d see what everybody else thought, first. So what, if anything, […]
The Games We Play 3 comments
I’ve come to the conclusion that in my single-sword fights I get by mostly on parries and footwork for defense. This is actually sub-optimal, since it usually means I take two tempi, and at the very least lacks a certain amount of grace and “prettiness”. Thinking this way, I decided want to make more use […]
Other People’s Stuff: Recent additions to my RSS feed (and the blogroll) 15 comments
While you’re waiting for new posts here (*ahem*HawkeLetiaRuaircTassinGawin*ahem*), some other fencing-related blogs that are worth a read: Grauenwolf’s blog, a study of lots of HMA masters Science of Defence, an intermittent blog from one of the founders of the Scatha Combat Guild Chivalric Fighting Arts Association, an HMA blog by Sean Hayes, Gregory […]
Running authorizations 8 comments
I’ve been thinking of late how authorizations REALLY don’t need to take thirty minutes (except in a few select instances, more on those later). In fact, I think you can get it to six questions and maybe five passes. The Questions The first and foremost question is Have you read and do you understand the […]
Arms races and metallurgy 2 comments
At the Torchlight Pas at War of the Wings, Grettir challenged me to single sword, five counted blows at the barrier. Grettir grabbed his hand-and-a-half, I picked up the basket-hilted broadsword I was borrowing, and we headed out to the field. Lay on was called, and I’d landed five within two seconds. Onside/offside/onside/offside/onside, faster than […]