Saturday fight

Fought on saturday with Duke Davin, sir timm, Sir villius, Richenza and Constantine.  Honestly, did not want to fight, I am on new antibiotics, I'm tired and itchy with hives from whatever infection my body is fighting.

Glad I armored up though, because fighting Davin is always super fun.  He and Sven are probably my very favorite people to fight.  The day was all about focusing on my hand position in guard, lower center of gravity in stance and widening the stance and throwing thrusts as second or third blows.  I actually had a very pretty flat snap on vilius, so yay.

The practice for the most part had a no ego vibe and I love that.  Duke Thorin was there watching and giving feedback and he told Villius a drill that he Thorin thinks will help me fix my timing problems on the snap and thrust.  I look forward to trying it out.  Villius and I have also been talking about going up to thorin's house once a month or so and working with him individually -- Thorin said he's open to that, so now it is just a matter of getting it on the calendar. 

On another note, I'm still pretty pissed about the new sentence the BoD has proposed for the IE language.  I wrote them an email and sent it today, so at least I made sure my voice was heard.

Also, went to the ENT last Thursday, so I can cross that off my November to-do list.

Feeling a Bit Sabotaged by Health Issues

First it was bronchitis, then strep, then strep again and now my throat hurts again, I'm fatigued and I am full of goo.  This makes 3 months of my life in a row that I have basically felt awful.  Tried to make another appointment with my primary care doctor and she told me there was nothing more she could do for me and that I need to go see a specialist ENT.  Making that appointment today.  Thinking there must be something wrong with my immune system.

Despite being sick, I have been training and fighting a bit.  Villius and I have been doing helm/shield/sword drills about three times a week and I have been hitting the pell about 5 times a week.  With a practice here and there.  Full armored practice takes more out of me and has been sparser for that reason since I really have no endurance with the sick.  Went down to Sacramento for Cynagua coronet over the weekend.  Good fights in with Helga, Hansa, Gemini, Malyn and a few others.  Gemini helped me work on my double thrust return and my grip on the snap.  When I make those two things natural, it is going to be wicked.

Spent a bit of time on the phone with Sean on Sunday diagnosing what's wrong with my snap -- he gave me three main themese: (1) my stance is too anrrow,  I need to widen it out at least to my shoulders; (2) I'm standing toot all, so when I'm going for power generation on the snap I'm dipping, I need to start out where my dip takes me, fight from the chi; and (3) my hand placement in stance needs to be palm forward instead of pointing at my head and my blade needs to be facing right -- right now my blade is facing forward and that is making me have to do an extra move with my wrist in the release and tear drop.  Just changing the palm position was huge because it puts me back in the serving soup position for the whole movement, making the motion pretty much effortless.  The lower and wider stance helps facilitate this as well.  November will be focused on incorporating the feedback from Gemini and sean so that it is second nature.

Goals for November:
1. go to ENT and get this sick shit sorted
2. kettlebells twice a week
3. cardio four times a week
4. pell work at lease 5 times a week
5.  slow work with Vilius 3 times a week
6. Fight 2 to 3 times a week depending on health
7. Set goals for 2013 tourney season
8.  Mental workout 5 times a week
9. Lose 10 lbs.
10.  Fix fighting pants

And so it goes

Last week was a pretty good week training wise considering I am still getting over the strep -- drill work with Vilius monday, Drill work with Villius and constantine tuesday, Wednesday went to practice and watched and lent out my armor, also did some stick work, thursday pell work. friday pell work, saturday pell work, sunday fight practice.  Villius has been super motivated and really good about coming up with a syllabus for drill work and identifying different areas he wants me to work on, which has been really nice.  For the enxt month or so, it will likely be alla bout getting my wrap in shape, getting the snap to feel effortless and working on throwing the thrust as a second or third blow instead of always the initiating blow.  We have also been working defense a ton with turn and face the blow drills.  Fighting full speed yesterday, I could really tell I had been drilling this stuff because my shield caught stuff i was not sure I had and I had some real success with the blows i have been focusing on.  I am super excited to be working on all this stuff with Vilius.

Crown

Went 6 rounds -- got taken out by the two finalists -- losses in the 3rd round and the 6th round -- HRH Ulfr took me out of the tourney.  My fighting was nowhere near as crisp as I would have liked.  Way too many blows and not efficient enough.  I think I was top 16, but that really does not matter, because looking back I know I can fight more decisive.  the good news was that I had presence and I brought a fierce fight.  Now its time to work on tempering that ferocity with decisive blows, timing changes, and a better negotiation of measure.

Plan for Next Six Weeks

Six Week Training Log 08/23/2012 – 10/4/2012

GOALS:

                   Health:                  lose 15 lbs.

                   Fitness:                 not breathless walking up hills or at end of hour

                                                15 reps all exercises in Power 90

                   Technique:           flat snap feel natural, no bicep strain

                                                own the leg with snap/ tight wrap

                   Fighting:               final in a tourney

                   Mental:                 be able to visualize a fight with anyone

DATE	PELL WORK (Daily)	CARDIO (6x week)	STRENGTH TRAINING (3 x week)	FIGHT PRACTICE (2 x week)	DRILL WORK (3 x week)	EAT RIGHT (Daily)	MENTAL WORKOUT (Daily)	WATER – GAL/ DAY	JOURNAL (3 x week)	TOURNEY (1 x month)

Reflecting

Today is my 39th birthday.  While I was walking the wee dog this morning, I decided that I was going to start blogging here again -- it will be more of a training blog -- this is what I'm doing to get better, etc, and less of a reflective blog than it was before -- I still am a bit raw from the 'plosion after Crown regarding the more introspective stuff. 

Anyway, Crown is now a week and a half away -- honestly, a week ago, I would have said I just was not feeling it -- I have been sick and unable to train and practice the way I want and my confidence was just not there -- but after fighting over the weekend, I'm feeling better about entering Crown and the goal will be to fight my best fight and to leave everything on the field -- the focus will not be on winning, but on fighting to my best ability -- wherever that gets me will help me decide what/how I need to train over the winter for May, and honestly, that is all I'm looking for next weekend.  Well that, and I want to fight well and honorably so I represent my consort well, but that is sort of a given.

I have decided to break up my training into six week increments.  That training starts today and I am going to put a little time aside tonight to write down the regimen for the next week and my mini-goals that will go along with that.  The goals will be associated with developments I want to make in health, skill level, fitness, psychological headspace, as well as making my kit look better.  I'm pretty excited to really get my shit together.

Deleting this Blog

I have worked very hard to balance my honest introspection about fighting with always making my failures about me and not putting blame on my opponents or "slamming" my opponents. To me there is a difference between saying I am not happy with a fight, or that I thought a blow was good, but my opponent didn't, and talking and assessing the ways I can make my fight more definitive versus calling someone names and playing the blame game. The latter of which I try to do and the former, I consciously and painstakingly avoid. However, it has come to my attention that not everyone appreciates the nuances. And that through the rumor mill, I have been accused of slamming certain fighters in my fighting posts and that such accusations have been taken at face value as truth by those in positions of power -- in order to avoid such allegations in the future, while still maintaining my outlet for self-assessment and for receiving feedback from my trainers both near and far, I will be deleting this blog and instead maintaining a private blog limited to people who know me well, who will call me on my bullshit directly, and who will not make assumptions or presume malice where it is not intended.