| Regrettably, no photos |
[May. 3rd, 2008|08:50 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  chipper | ] |
The local shire here has the problem that most of their young, healthy fighters move away on a regular basis, and the regulars are by and large too broken to keep fighting. The number of former heavy fighters here is pretty disconcerting.
Anyway, today's local fighter practice is one experienced fighter, two university kids from Rolla, and that's it.
Oh, and me.
I went home with only one impressive welt, just barely above the padding under the knee cops. Greatsword, to boot. Yeah, that'll show on Monday morning.
The university kids are, well, really new. Also their physical conditioning leaves much to be desired. This is a full-contact martial art. If you're young, you have no excuse not to be in good shape if you want to play well. It's also the easiest and fastest way to improve--it's faster to build stamina and speed than to improve technique. So while improving technique is vital, getting in shape is both vital and easy. I'm 30. I should NOT be dancing around kids nearly a decade younger and moving twice as fast as they do. Aarrgh.
Lord James, on the other hand, was a LOT of fun to fight. We went sword and board, and then he switched hands and came at me left-handed (I HATE that). He also played around Florentine, and that was different. He uses a damned 36" mace (???) in his right hand and a berdiche in his left. Interesting, that. I played with one of his bastard swords, and kind of enjoyed that. A little different style is fun. He also had a 4' Danish ax that he doesn't often fight with (it's either too short or too long, depending on what you want to do with it). It's difficult to use properly, but it gets a lot of momentum, and my shield gave out. My last fighter practice in Killeen tore up the edging and I re-edged it, but this time the plywood shattered and that's not something easily fixed. So I hit up Lowe's and we got started on a new shield using my old shield's hardware. Shields are inherently disposable item, I should recall. I need to do up about three or four of them and rotate using them in practice so that I am familiar with different shapes/styles, and if one goes out, I can replace it. It's on my 'to do after deployment' list. |
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| Comments: |
Were you missing many fighters because of Crown?
Not as far as I can tell. There's a couple missing due to military requirements, and more than a few down for health reasons (recovering from one surgery or another).
I was fortunate enough to go to Lilies War one year, and I have hept my friendship with a lot of those folks.
Interesting kingdom.
What I find at the dojo is that the kids take the ability of their bodies to do what they want for granted.
Flexibility, agility, strength, endurance--the kids just think of these as something you have or something you don't. Intellectually they know you can improve these things through training. On a gut level, they believe that's just an extra improvement and that they're doing enough by getting out and doing the sport itself.
Also, with very rare exceptions, the kids at the dojo aren't hungry for the sport. They have fun, they do it, they work at it, they drive as hard as the master of the dojo makes them. In the better cases, they drive as hard as he asks of them.
One thing I have to work double hard at is ensuring I'm absolutely dying before I fall out on something. If we're at a pause and I need it, I will go ahead and ask to get water instead of waiting, but for health reasons I may sometimes stay in too long. Not so much now that I'm in much better shape.
Reason? If I go get water before we're dismissed as a group--at least one kid follows me out the door. He doesn't need water yet. He's fine. He's more than capable of keeping going. But in his mind, if I "get to" stop, it's only "fair" that he get to stop. And he will, unless the master tells him to get his ass back in line.
It follows through everything. The kids--even teens--flag if middle-aged adults like me don't keep up or pass them and don't hiss at them, under our breath, to move their asses.
They like the sport, they want to do it, they simply aren't hungry for it in the way you get when your internal clock is ticking away how many years you have left to get out there and train.
I don't keep up, of course, but if I didn't push until I was visibly unable to do more, there goes "good order and discipline." As long as it's obvious at a glance I'm putting out, and the other adults who are younger or maler are keeping up, it doesn't slow the kids down. They just look at the "old lady" with the faint pity and condescension all kids have for anyone over 30. | |
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