Sunday's Training

Had a really good session on Sunday at the RH hall. There was 5 knights in armour and 6 fighters, mostly belted fighters. Again I found myself being fairly aggressive, I guess because I was very low on energy I didn't have much to spare, so I was just getting in and doing it? It's a theory anyhow.

Did some good passes with Mason glaive on glaive to start with. His glaive was much longer than mine, plus he did not have a butt spike, so I made sure to get in and play a closer range game which each time I did, he could not get me. During Lorcan's classes last year he taught us the glaive positioning when facing another glaive, and each time I use this stance my defence against the thrusts of another glaive is quite tight, so Mason could not use his length as an advantage against me in a thrusting fight. Was quite happy with these passes.

Next up was Edmond. Definately enjoyed these passes and afterwards Lorcan pulled me aside and showed me that the tip of my glaive was up far too high, and was not presenting a full threat to Edmond. Edmond joined in the conversation (thanks Edmond) and also agreed that the times that I lowered the glaive he felt threatened by it, but the times I held it up he knew it was not a real threat and could dictate the fights. I used this information during the King of the Hill at the end of the day and did quite well with opening fight kills.

All in all, I was quite happy with my fighting today.

Wednesday night training

Well... finally got in armour Wednesday night at the RH hall and had a hit... made sure I had all my armour before I left home . :)

Was 5 of us in armour, Gabs, Lucas, Paul Adams, Magnus and myself. Gabs spent the night doing some newbie training for 4 people (many thanks for that again) so that left the 4 of us to have a play.

Had a great play with Paul to start with, he is so quick and reminded me that I have been too long out of armour as I had forgotten a lot of the moves and spent too much time thinking. Got a few nice shots in on him though, some he did not expect like the J shot (Fake to the right side of the head (my right) bring it down in a J towards his left leg, then thrust under the shield, got him just above the box. We had quite a few good long passes when I mainly went into defense mode.

Second was Lucas. I was interested to watch him really stand off against me. He took quite a while to even take a step in, and as soon as he started moving all I had to do was twitch and he would step back. He fell for the J as well and also the double tap a few times. Was just starting to really have fun with him when as we were locked up I took a step to my right to make him pass me but our legs tangled at the same time I stepped on uneven ground and down I went. Normally I can fall quite well, but somehow I landed with my head back so taht took the entire weight of the fall. Went black for a second or two until I heard Gabs calling if I was ok. Eventually got back up and lay down on the side for a while... not a great thing to happen a week after being off work with Vertigo. Ended up de-armouring as I was really getting quite dizzy. Dissapointed but still happy with the night.

So all in all I was happy with my first fight back. Thinking about it later on the way home, I realised that I was being a lot more aggressive with my fighting and doing more attacking rather than reacting to their movements. I guess because both Paul and Lucas are fairly aggressive fighters I was being the same back to them? Also when I was fighting Lucas and we were doing up close fighting, when I had enough i found myself shoving him back hard and throwing shots as I stepped back as well. This is something I don't usually do, but did several times last night. It worked as it got some space between us, and also landed a few nice blows as well.

Well... let's see how we go next time :)

Current Projects

So... what am I working on at the moment?

Fighting Tabbard for Household: Working on a fighting tabbard like my fellow squires have already had made for them. Bec has done most of the sewing (ok... all) but I am doing all the hand sewing and embroidery. It has a pheniox on the chest which is my device, Gab's device on one sleeve and Monty the Badger on the other. It also has a white band along the bottom with the River Haven Hippycantus (sorry for the spellling) along it. All this has been done in split stich and chain stich.

Personal Fighting Tabbard: Working on a Russian fighting tabbard with my device on it. Just in the start stages at the moment as I want to finish the household one first.

Ideas bubbling around: I have heaps of nice dark blue and black wool, and just bought some black linen as well... so thinking about some nice cool weather full coats for Rowany... with embroidery around the neck and sleeves, and possibly down the middle where the two sides meet. Thinking about doing a pheniox in the middle of the shoulder blades on one... saw a nice Russian pic of a St Petersburg jacket with that on it.

Fighting for this week

Well... I learnt a valuable lesson this week. ALWAYS check your armour bag before you are half armoured at training. I am currently selling off my old set of armour including the elbows that I am currently using, and had taken the elbows out to take a photo of them, and put them back with all the armour I am selling. It was only after I had put on my chauses, legs, boots, box and kidney belt that I realised I didn't have much armour left in the bag. Most annoying thing is that I really felt like fighting that night. It's a feeling I have not had of late for most of the year, so I was very annoyed that when I finally was in the mood for a play... I could not.

Oh... and of course no one else had a spare set of elbows!

So... other than posing at the photo shoot... I did no real fighting practice or training this week.