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 […]
Archive for October 2012
The Games We Play 3 comments
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 […]
War of the Wings 2012, the One the Mayans Said Would be the Last – Part 2 5 comments
Saturday Friday I looked at the schedule and thought “Huh, I don’t have to be anywhere until noon. Cool.” So Saturday morning did not start particularly early or particularly quickly. Sweetums arrived on site, and we got Livia bundled off to the “Combat Archery Tournament” which, it turned out, was more of a combat archery […]
War of the Wings 2012, the One the Mayans Said Would be the Last – Part 1 12 comments
Friday Two years back, when I was RMiC, Sacred Stone wanted to have rapier war points on Friday. I borrowed a phrase I’d learned in French class (“Tu m’en fou!”) and helpfully declined to interpret. But, boiled down, it meant I didn’t think there’d be anybody on site on Friday of War of the Wings […]
OT: A note on moderating a blog 4 comments
On any given day ~100 spam messages get posted to this thing. Wordpress does a great job of dumping them straight to the Spam or the Pending Approval folders. For the Pending Approval messages, I end up going through and looking at each one before deleting it at some point. Some of them make me […]
Coronation of Vlad and Kalisa, 2012 2 comments
Most of the Kappellenfechters headed up to Jamaica (no, Letia stayed home), VA this past weekend. Vlad is a big fan of the melee training, so his coronation was a five man melee tourney. It had originally been planned to be a “bring a team of up to 8 fighters. You can field no more […]
This week in German HMA – October 1st to October 7th Leave a comment
We wrap up the sickle fight translations here, a little older, a little wiser, and in many cases having received a sickle shot to the taint. Wear protection. Mair’s Sickle fight 15: Duae Incisiones Mediae Unde Habitus Sternendi Hostis Formatur – Mair says “When it doubt, choke ’em out” Mair’s Sickle fight 16: Modus Per […]
Question from/for the Audience: Thinking your way through a fight 6 comments
How do you interpret and incorporate the mental aspects of fighting? How conscious are you of reading opponents’ body language, selling a bait or a feint, working through your decision tree before getting to measure, etc.? How has that aspect of your fight developed over time? (I’ve got an answer in the cooker, but […]