Learning to learn

Good practice on Wed, Frustrating class on Thus.

I've taken to calling leg shots good as kills. I hate knee fighting. So I will now no longer do it. It will be interesting.

I did not stick with my plan to fight only Axe or Polehammer on Wed. I started out with the axe, had some good fights but didn't really internalize anything. I spent most of the time trying to use the lessons from last week. When rushing inside, block the sword farther out if using the vertical pole block. Continue moving while throwing shots from different angle. Not sure how I did on either.

When working on the inside though I did start to figure out a few things on how to pin the weapon. I haven't fully conceptualized what I felt my body doing naturally so won't attempt to write it down till I know that I understand what I'm doing. Ravenhair did have a really useful piece of advice I didn't get to try though. I've been pushing and wresting inside, using the head end of the pole to pin the shield and the butt to pin the sword arm(not the sword, far too difficult). However, especially in this game, there is not real need to pin the shield. As such I can release and try to throw a shot with the, even without really controlling the shield. It would be best if I can control and push the shield, before pulling off and attempting to punch my opponent in the head with the axe blade, but it's not needed. I can simply throw shots with it, so long as that sword arm is pinned.

I am still struggling on the two simple shots that I really want to make my bread and butter; throwing a shot so that even when the haft is blocked, I can make contact with the blade by changing the angle and hooking a shield, waiting for them to pull back and use that as the momentum for a face thrust. I'm not sure what's going wrong on the first, most likely I'm not bringing my back hand far enough. I'm fairly certain I know what's going wrong on the hook-thrust though. I'm trying to bash to hard on the shield. I think I should throw a bit lighter of a shot towards the head or simply try and place the axe on the shield and rotate the blade into place. I will be focusing mostly on this as an opening move next week.

As I said earlier, Axe wasn't the only thing I worked on though and I no longer think I should play with one form. Ravenhair has encouraged me to play mainly pole, but grab at least one other form every night, so I don't get rusty on them. It seems like good advise and honestly I'm relieved to have someone tell me to keep playing shield. I think I'm just starting to put things together with the heater.

This week I fought Karl Meerstoffa(Spelling? apologies), Dunkin, and Dan. Karl is one of Lucan's and like many who fight the Feral/Lucan style is very patient, hiding behind a kite that covers almost his full body. Dan, still new, like me loves to get in and mix it up. His smaller more active shield, combined with both our almost frantic aggressive nature and our lack of experience, patience, and skill. Dunkin, as I believe I noted last time, is a very patient fighter, also using a heater, though his his wider and strapped better than mine. I will have to check his strapping again so I can fix my to be closer to it.

I had nothing in particular I was trying to work on, simply went out and fought. Karl, in particular, was vexing. I would manage to get inside and thought I had all possible angles blocked, when he would repeatedly hit me with the short stick punch. This happened at least 3 times. Somehow he was getting his basket inside my shield. I must have been only concentrating on his blade.

I don't think I won more than one fight against him. I was able to get in or around him enough to land a few wraps, but he would either move enough to bleed off power or catch part of it with his shield. I was never able to really find a hole in his guard. On defense though I did better. I started playing with transitioning through a series of guards whenever we would line up. A Frame to Old Castle(I think) to a hanging guard similar to Logans, to Lucan's guard modified for heater. It was enough to keep him guessing and I wasn't slotted once, which is unusual for me when fighting someone of his quality.


I don't remember my heater fights against Dan or Duncan. I believe I did well. I did take buckler out for one set of bouts and as usual did far better than I should have. I think I will make it a point to fight at least one set of buckler fights per practice, to keep up my advantage in that form.



Thusday we did Halbred 5 from Paulus Hector Mair's PoleArm Manual. I was very frustrated with it. There were a number of subtleties I was unable to grok. Where to place my weapon when trying to pull an opponents polehammer or axe. How a wind works. How to release from a bind where the head of my weapon is stuck. How to judge when force direction has changed.

I didn't armor up for class as my helmet was missing the aventail protecting my neck. I hope this will be my last time not in armor as I need to practice all these small details. I also need to strenghten my left forearm. My wrist and forearm began to hurt within 20 minutes of starting.

Hopefully next week I will have a camera set up to record and I will record my thoughts as commentary. For now I will leave it though, as I don't believe giving a recount of the lesson will help.