Event Report- Balfar's Challenge and Tournament of the Daffodils

Balfar's Challenge- 4/16/16

I only fought in the tournament melee today and I fought for the entire available time in the melee. My teammates were Orlando and Firebow and our team was called The Good, The Bad and The Old. The objective was to travel around the three castles and the princess onthe team, which changed every round, and one defender had to check in with the MOL in that castle and you couldn't check in at the same castle twice in a row. I feel I mostly did well on the objective though there were a few times i tried to DFB someone because I could and once I had to fight because even though my team had continued on this one fencer wouldn't let me so I had o fight her, we double killed after she took my primary sword arm. This melee played a lot on situational awareness and I became almost paranoid that someone would end up killing me from behind, I did end p dieing alot nomatter how aware I was. Overall it was a lot of fun and I feel I did well despite team not making the top 3.

Tournament of the Daffolils- 4/23/16

I was marshal in charge for the fencing at this event and depending on how many people showed up I was either going to do a round robin or a timed bearpit. Unfortunately only two fencers showed up, and one was a marshal that I asked to attend to help me out if need be. The one fencer that was there wanted to reauth in everything except two hander and c&t because his auths expired in 2008 and he is trying to get backinto things. It was a laid back event with the two of them fighting most ofthe day, after the auths. I had decided earlier that I wasn't going to fight so I didn't even bring proper clothing.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Settmour Swamp

Today I had 90 minutes available to fight and I fought for 30 minutes. Practice today was really good and I feel I fought really well.

First I fought Johnathan with single rapier. He has long arms and strength on his side but I was frequently able to parry and counter attack by voiding and using different angles to my advantage. He was able to take my sword arm a few times which means I need to work on how and where I hold my sword and I also need to work on being able to parry a sword coming in at an odd angle, like a downward angle.

Next I fought Owynn and I used sword and cloak and he had sword and dagger. I feel I did well parrying his blade with the cloak and I was able to parry multiple times beore having to step out of range to reset. He was able to take my off hand a few times but for most of the time  I think I did well with that. A few time I als wrapped the cloak around my sword but it didn't really effect my fighting in a horrible way but it is still something to work on. Stamina is something I'll need to work on as well if I want to use this form in a tournament. Earlier I had expressed my want to auth in non-rigid parry and when he challenged me i thought this would just be practice but it turns out Orlando was watching and I got my auth. Because I thought this was practice I felt no pressure and I didn't freeze up or overthink too much, which is a good thing.

Lastly I fought Malcolm and we both had sword and dagger. I failed to keep much control of his blade with my dagger and I frequently failed to attack with the dagger. Malcolm ended up having me up down my sword and just fight with the dagger to get used to attacking and parrying with it. Not using this form for a few months is showing badly and I really just need to start practicing with it more often and focus on what I already know until I'm reminded of how to use a dagger.

Something that made me smile tonight was while I was filling out my auth paperwork I had to check off all the auths I currently have and it felt weird only leaving two of the heavy rapier boxes empty (two-hander and cut and thurst) but it felt especiallyweird to check off the marshal box. It made me smile to realize how far I've come in about a year and a half. I'vegrown so much as a fighter and as a person.  Only started this all to have something to do with all my spare time and now it's so much more than that.

Monday, April 11, 2016

Hartshorn-Dale

Today I fought for 25 minutes out of the available 90. Today I wasnt really trying to do much of anything but have fun and try to figure out how much further I have to go before my next auth. I do feel I fought well today.

First I fougt James with cloak and rapier. One thing I noticed was that I parryed my own blade a few times but more often than not it didn't effect my ability to control my own blade, though this is still something I'd like to work on. I've only fought with a cloak at full speed a few times but I feel that today I did exceptionally well compaired to previous times. Besides what I was doing with the cloak there were a few times that James came in for an attack really slowely and I basically just stood there and let him kill me, it was actually quite funny because I knew exactly what I needed to do but it was like my brain just suddenly decided to stop working with my body. I don't feel this is a real issue because by this point I was just having fun and trying whatever came to mind, I feel James is a good person to do that with. Overall I think I'm just about ready to auth with non-rigid parry so I will try to find two marshals either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Next I fought Phil with single rapier. One thing I noticed was that my disengages were either really sloppy or really pretty with no real in between. I use to be really good at doing pretty disengages but after pennsic last year I had a few months of low to no practice where some of these things got lost and I need to start doing more drills to fix things and clean up some needed moves/skills. Besides that I also ended up getting legged more than what is now normal for me now but recently I've noticed I make significantly more kills from the ground than not and while I'm proud of that I need to figure out what I'm doing right and translate it into my fighting while I'm not legged.

Something that made me smile today was when I challenged James he asked what form and I simply said, "Cloak" so he asked if I was just bringing a cloak or if I planned on bringing a weapon as well. This was really funny to me because last Wednesday I challenged him saying "Either single or dagger" so he brought just a dagger.

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Bhakail

Today I had an hour and a half of available fighting time which I fought for roughly 30 minutes. Today I also didn't focus on any of my historical work. Overall it was a good practice in both fighting and in terms of the conversations I was involved in.

First I fought James and he had made a comment about fighting just dagger and apparently I laughed at that so he fouht me with just a dagger while i used single sword. I struggled to find/create openings and when he closed I struggled to both keep control of my blade and use my off hand. It was a silly and fun time that taught me a few things. First is that i need to work on finding and creating openings when fighting with single sword. Second is that I should have been able to kill him more times than I did because I was using a 37" blade and his dagger was only 18". I needed to be more agressive so going along with finding and creating openings I need to learn how to be more aggressive when I need to while fighting forms I'm more defensive with. But after James and I had our fun he put down his dagger and picked up a straight blade. During our fights I was generally able to disengage and counter attack pretty well. James has a very unique way of fighting and I almost always struggle to keep up with his changing tecniques, though in the recent past I've been doing better against him, and no I dont mean about how many times I kill him. I did do well with counter attacking when I could and retreating when I needed to, though James very much has speed on his side.

Next I fought Morwill with rapier and dagger. This was my first time fighting this form in a few months and I do plan on picking it up more often so I can clean it up for the current tournament season/Pennsic. Despite being a bit rusty I still feel I fought well. I feel I did well with both defense and offense though fighting Morwill I was more able to stay alive for a long while and less able to defend then kill. Morwill is left handed so I definately struggled with controling his blade while avoiding his dagger so typically when i came in for an attack we both stepped in and defended ourselves and ended up backing up and resetting. I'm going to need to work on controlling my opponent's blade while fighting with rapier and off-hand weapon/parry object against someone who is left handed. Overall I do feel good about how I fought against Morwill.

One thing that made me smile today is something that will generally make me smile. After I was finished fighting and I was walking back into the other room with my gear so i could change and pack up I let out an exhagurated sigh while saying, "I'm so old!!" And two of the other fencers gave me weird looks and started scolding me saying I'm too young to say something like that. It has been my goal for at least 5 years to make my friends who are older than me feel old, typically practice is a great place for me to follow out this evil!

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Settmour Swamp

Today I had about 45 minutes to fight because I ended up having a much needed conversaition with someone. I probably spent about 15 minutes fighting, which I need to fight more at practices and will make an effort to do so. Overall I feel I fought well. I focused less on the historical stuff today and more on acutally fighting.

First I fought Malcolm and I worked on trying to gain his blade and attack. Recently I've only been able to gain my opponent's blade but then I freeze up and become defensive again. Fighting Malcolm tonight I feel that I did well with both gaining his blade and making an attack, though most of my attacks didn't actually land I feel I was able to at least keep the fight going for a bit instaed of just retreating and resetting when I didn't kill him with the first attempt.

Next I fought a visitor fromThe Barony of Endless Hills, Aethelmearc, unfortunately I forget his name. I had talked with this gentleman at the beginning of practice when he asked to be inspected and I learned he has only been fighting for about 6 months, so walking into ths fight with him I began in a more defensive mindset to try and guage how he fought. I ended up focusing less on my own skill and more on his so I can't say I was specifically trying to work on anything but every time he attacked I either counterattacked or retreated, thought I mostly counterattacked. I still feel I fought well in this fight even though I wasn't actually focusing on anything specific.

Overall I feel it was a good practice, but I didn't fight enough and I only have myself to blame for that and I will be making an effort to fix it.

Tonight there were a few things that made me smile but the biggest thing was the willingness of an OGR to help me get back into the right mindset to pick up my sword again and keep pushing forward.