100 strikes, 100 Days

Eques Vilius Antonii contacted me among others and suggested we all start a 100 pell strikes for 100 days routine.  After deciding I could do pell work in my garage (single car garage, space is tight) I agreed.  I started getting into it the previous week and did 100 strikes on a couple different days, working through the 1-6 drill and then doing some repetitive form work at the end.

We started officially on Monday, Novemeber 12.  Did my 100+ swings, again working through 1-6 and then doing a few extras at the end.

Had a small tournament in our Barony a little while ago. I did ok, but am really not super happy with the results.  It was a round robin.  I won victories against the newer people, but anyone that was even a little bit of a challenege I hit a wall on and nothing would come together.

Still like the new sword though, it's pretty awesome. 

Monday practice & a new stick

On Thursday I fought only a few sets because the rattan was SO worn out.  It wouldn't flow.  Maybe I was a little off, but the rattan was not helping.

Monday rolled around again as it always does.  I largely squandered my weekend and avoided making a new sword.  For some reason I alway see this as an onerous task, I would apparently rather fight with a broom, making it nearly impossible to land a good blow.

Yet, here we were again.  Monday after work.  Old worn out rattan.  If I went to practice with it I wasn't going to fight.  So I grabbed new rattan and craved up a sword. 

For the past 5 or 6 iterations I have been carving my handle a certain way.  It is a sort of modified saber grip, fatter at the top than at the bottom.  Over trial and error I have determined I like it a little on the larger side over the smaller side.

I do not plane my swords, I don't really believe it helps make it look more like a sword or function more like a sword.  It's a stick.

When I was fnished and I had it all taped up I noted despite the length being identical to my previous sword, this one was significantly heavier.  Rattan must be denser.  I have 2 more blanks from this piece of rattan.

Although Monday practice was small it was a joy to fight with a new stick.  Absolute joy.  I always think this when I have a new sword.  ALWAYS.

Practice was a light sparring session with 2 other fighters.  It was good to put the armor on and swing some stick around.  Often with only three of us on the Monday we do not.

October closeout. November start.

Final day of October.

Goals were as follows:

Goal updateNutrition: 19
Pell & slow work: 8
Practice: 6
Blog: 4

Nutrition:
Out of 21 days, I have eaten well for 17 of them.  I am aiming for around 1900 calories a day.  Some days I have come in pretty low, but haven't suffered for it.  I have felt fine, not hungry.

I am a few days from my goal however.  I was aiming for 90% compliance and ended up more like 81% compliance.  I had a few days of emotional eating, but over all I did farily well.  17 day of eating well is a far cry from where I was, which was pretty much 0 days of eating well.

November starts a new month and it will be time to set some new goals.

Pell & Slow work:
As usual I did pretty much zero pell and/or slow work away from practice.

Practice:
I made it to six practices over the last half of the moth, but we only fought four of them due to low numbers.

Blog:
Have managed to keep up with the blogging, and have easily posted 4 times since the middle of October.

November goals
I will keep up my momentum.  I will be looking to increase my dietary compliance, see if I can bring it up to 85%.  That is 25 days in November where I am eating at my designated caloric limit.  Coronet is also in Novemeber so it will affect the number of practices I make it to.  Still I should be able to make 7 next month.  I will continue to work at putting slow work into my training schedule.  Be looking at once a week for now, so if I can get it in four times next month that would be awesome.

For new goals I am going to add resistance training to the goals in this blog as well as using my training journal.  Using the training journal will constitute writing in it after practice and then reviewing it before next practice.  Identifying areas I believe I am having trouble with and coming up with ways to fix them.

I have no real plan for resistance training.  It will most likely take place at home.  I have items in the garage I can use to make a fine workable gym.  If I can get in there and lift something a couple times a week it will be a vast improvement over where I was.

GOALS:
Nutrition: 25
Practies: 7
Training Journal: 8
Slow work: 4
Resistance: 8

Goals & Thursday

Went to practice in a foul foul foul mood.  Strangely hitting people with sticks made things all better.  Thankfully there was a couple or three guys I could fight hard and had good fights.

Had some good thinking fights at the end.  Fights I could explain what I was doing and why it was successful.  Usually the fight is governed by the animal mind and I have a hard time articulating things.

I skipped my drills this week.  Bad mood, and only one new guy had showed up.  I will do them this thursday, and select a second set for more exprienced guys a well.

Big demo this weekend.  Will need to spend some time working on my equipment and such so I look half decent for the fighting portion of this.
Goal update
Nutrition: 10/19
Pell & slow work: 0/8 <-- BAD at this.
Practice: 3/6
Blog: 4/4

October Drills & Goals update

Made it to practice on Monday.  It was pretty lack luster.  4 of us total.  2 knights and 2 regular fighters.

Camera work sucked.  All the heads are cut off.  Need to find a decent place for the camera.

Still haven't done any real slow work since I started this.  I have a real problem doing it.

My night to do drills at practice tonight.

Fair number of new guys right now, so I will do the following:

• Compass foot work
• Walking snap and return
• Maybe a line drill of some kind to simulate pressure.
• Pig sets up in the middle
• Fighters press Pig.  Close strongly and apply pressure, no shots.
• Pig disengages in a defensive manner, perhaps with a shot

Goal update
Nutrition: 6/19
Pell & slow work: 0/8
Practice: 2/6
Blog: 3/4

October Goals

Practice on Thursday was largely drills.  We ran two first blood line drills.  One to work on knee fighting and one to work on single are left handed fighting.

Practice was in general good, but I found myself not caring about fighting certain people.  And by this I mean I didn't care if they hit me or not.  There was zero negative reinforcement.  I was willing to just not care about my defense and work completely on my offense.  Not a great habit to get into.

I took a fair bit of footage, but most of it was no good cause of people in the way.  Will try a new spot for the camera tonight. 

A couple of our newer fighters seemed to have issues with overly aggressive advances.  If I came in fast left handed with my sword cocked hard to the right to throw and then stopped in that positiong WELL within range, they would simply freeze up.  It is my week for drills, so I will probably try and work something in to try and address this. 


GOALS

October is half gone, but I thought I would post some goals for the month.

• Nutrition: approx 1900 calorie/day during week. 21 days left aim for 90% compliance (19 days)
• Blog once per week.  4 times between now and the end of the month
• Pell/slow work 8 times between now and the end of the month
• Aim to hit 6 practices this month

Goal update
Nutrition: 4/19
Pell & slow work: 0/8
Practice: 1/6
Blog: 2/4

Posting & October goals

POSTING

I had hoped to post more on this blog, but I find the time I am most able to write is during the day, and I was unable to access the page from work.

I have been upgraded and that has apparently changed.

Summer practices were pretty good.  It was nice to be outside.  We conistently held to practices a week with great numbers at most of  them.

We started at 7 and ended at 9 usually, and with the fading light we opted to drop drills so we could get as much time in to fight as possible.

We have started back inside and with it we can fight for a solid 2 hours without concern for light.  With this we have also started drills again.  Sadly work has been insane the last couple of weeks and I have not been in attendance.  This week I will be back and ready to fight.

Looking forward to getting back into training instead of just sparring.  Must remeber the video camera tonight.

GOALS

October is half gone, but I thought I would post some goals for the month.

• Nutrition: approx 2000 calorie/day during week. 21 days left aim for 90% compliance (19 days)
• Blog once per week.  4 times between now and the end of the month
• Pell/slow work 8 times between now and the end of the month
• Aim to hit 6 practices this month

Nutrition: 0/19
Pell slow work: 0/8
Practice: 0/6
Blog: 1/4

 

Exhaustion

Usually I am pretty stubborn when it comes to resting at practice.  Don't want to show weakness or some such crap. 

Last night while fighting I noted that leg shots I had no problem landing at the start had become more difficult to get acknowledged.

I could still get them in hard enough, but when I did, it required extra concious effort to do so.

As I got tired my body attempted to conserve energy by cheating the shot.

I am not at practice to prove anything, I am there to learn and get better.  I can do that more effectively if I manage my exhaustion by take breaks when I need to.

March 29. Pre practice.

At winter war HE Vik one shotted me, with a simple leg to head fake.  I was so ready for an awesome fight I reacted very strongly to the fake and could not recover.

In truth I am not a minimal movement shield guy, a weakness of mine.

I am going to work on using the heater with minimal moves to block heads and legs.  Also work on adding in crouches and rotational moves instead of just moving the shield.

February 2nd, 2012

Back to practice tonight!

Almost need a new sword.  Made the last one at the end of November.  Got a solid 2 months out of it, but it is starting to fray pretty badly now. 

Took me a little while to get around to decompressing last practice.  Had pretty good success with a 2 shot combo:  Head, leg.  Never been my strongest shot, but probably cause I don't throw it very much.  I will continue to work it into my routine.  I watched some of our very high echelon fighters throw it with fire.  The other aspect from last practice was to throw a shot into my opponents sword while closing to throw a deep wrap. 

Yes staying at range and defensive, and timing shots is certainly my strong suit, I should still be able to jump in and unload a salvo and jump out with a fair degree of certainty that I won't die.

Had an excellent degree of success against a left hander by faking up to their top shield side and then throwing a leg blow against their sword side.

Tonight working on more of the same thing. 

• Patience:  Range/timing
• Holding defense while attacking (Especially on wraps)
• Head to leg, same side throw.

Practice: January 26

As I suited up on Thursday, Sior Murchad, walked in.  I don't think he has been out to anything since about Ursulmas last year.  Making it a just about 1 year hiatus.

He suited up and the two of us opened practice with a sparring session for ~15 minutes before Amish started the drills. 

The man at arms showed up after we had finished the sparring and came over and said in a somewhat surprised voice, oh you have been fighting already?  To which another fighter said, yeah they were going at it hard for about 15 minutes.  I jockingly showed Donnan the color of Murchad's and my belts.

Somewhat jockingly anyhow.  The point is really if you like this game we play, come and do it.  Get as much out of practice as you can.  Stick with it and work at it.  Something he needs to remeber is how much time and effort both Murchad and myself have but into fighting, just how long we have been doing it.

In the end I won't bust his chops too much for not getting as much out of practice as he could.  He shows up consistently  and works on his game.  Lots of guys show up hap hazardly.  The only thing he could really use is more stamina.  He has the desire to fight and definetely wants to get better, but he simply lacks the conditioning to fight more than a couple of fights in a row.

My practice was pretty good.  Had some short sparring sessions with Donnan and another long session with Murchad, both of us being too stubborn to quit when we are tired or sore and then had a decent session with Amish.

Skill sessions this week were picked up by the baronial champion, Amish.  After he had watched some of what Raoukinn had posted he decided he wanted to work on some shield strengths and weaknesses as discussed by Count Gemini.

In total we had: Myself, Amish, Donnan, Murchad, and McDuff in armor fighting and a couple of others: Angus and Darien doing slow work due to injuries or broken armor.

I actually managed to video some of the practice as well, but the weekend was far too busy to really get anytime to watch it.

January 19, 2012

After some discussion with some of the members at practice, we have decided to redouble our efforts at having a skills segment at practice.

After adopting the ideas of a neighboring shire to some success, we again moved back into a sparring type practice.  I personally like to spar, but I feel we can improve our game by adding in some skill based exercises/drills.

To that end several of us think it is still feasible. We looked at what happened last time and are taking steps to try and fix it.

Main issues:

• Lack of volunteering

Ok.  I think that was it.  Several of us are not the most vocal.  In short if we want this we need to be willing to step in and make it happen.  Another solution I am trying is having a schedule lined up so we can all see what is happening in the coming practices. 

Tonight is our first night back with a format such as this.  I am taking the first go around.

Drills to look at tonight: Basic Snap and recovery while walking and Frozen Man.

Snap with recovery.
A) Start in defensive stance, sword leg back.
B) Step forward with sword leg and fire Snap.  Snap should land with your foot.
C) Step forward with shield leg, tear drop return sword.
D) Go to A

Typically done down the length of a hall.  Generally a drill to teach getting your footwork in time with your blows as well as teaching how the movement feels.  Done fairly slow to start.

Frozen Man: Slow work.
Designate one as Warm man and one as Frozen man.
A) Warm man starts throwing a shot
B) Frozen man man react to blow for one second, ie may defend based on the initial moments of the warm mans shot. 
C) Frozen man now FREEZES.
D) Warm man observes angles and opening and continues to select and throw a slow shot.
E) Repeat several times and then switch roles.

2012

Our last practice was before Christmas.  Our hall closes over the holidays.  Next practice is on the 5th.  I have people coming in that night in prep for heading to 12th night, so I can't make that one.  I strongly suspect I will have no time to do any fighting at 12th night.  Hopefully we are back Sunday night so I can make practice on Monday the 9th.

The holidays were spent sewing.  I got the step-up del mostly completed, although I know what I have left to do will still take some time: Final assembly, Finishing, cuffs and ties.  I finished a new hat as well.  I have a couple other A&S projects on the go as well, which I will detail later.

Still to do before the step-up in 2 months. 

• New coat
• New boots
• New bow case
• Spears

But what new years post wouldn't be complete without a "Things to do in 2012"

2011 has a pretty epic year when I look back on it:  Knight, Tanist, Jambe.  Looking through the order of precedence I noted that I had recieved over half of my awards over the last year (back to Nov 2010).  Sure it had a few hard spots, but really in the end they were for the best.

However the end of 2011 saw my diet and fitness take a back seat, so I will need to re-focus on that somewhat.  First thoughts are to join the school gym as alumni.  ~$150 a year includes a full weight room as well as a pool.  Should be able to get in in the morning most days, and it is on the way to work.

SCA wise I would like to continue fighting and work on my skills as a teacher and working on being a leader in our Barony.

More Pell work.

Fighting A&S projects:  Armor, helmet, gambeson
Non Fighting A&S Projects: General metal work, bone carving, wood work (primarily chests)

I am also going to get a simple wedge tent this year.  I believe them to be a good combination of period and portable.  Not a ger by any stretch of the imagination, but way better than a crappy dome.