Devon
Forum Replies Created
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Week 4 Focus
Topic: Scaling Speed Practice
Schedule:
Monday morning – Longsword Playbuilding
Tuesday morning – Rapier and Dagger
Wednesday morning – Rapier (some work on rapier flow and slow)
Thursday Noon and 6pm – Longsword and rapier
Friday Noon – Sidesword
Plan:
30 minutes of play building with scaling speeds. Shooting videos as well.
Contingency:
Read the 3227a book. I’d like to finish reading it this week.
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Reflections Week 4
Victory Laps:
Had a bit of a rough week for keeping my energy level up. The real victory lap was that I had no zero days and managed to get sword in hand everyday.
Course Corrections:
Thinking about getting more project focused again. Sometimes that helps me stay motivated in times of low energy.
Aha Moments:
Play building is really fun and motivating.
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Day 6
The entire day had gone by and I had not touched any swordplay skills. I found myself crawling into bed and suddenly realized. So I crawled back out of bed with a spoken vow of “No zero days!” and did some lunging and void practice at the foot of the bed.
I did earlier in the day get in a very tough but good 45 minute run but 1.5 hour hike.
Day 7
Another recuperation day. Some reading and light sword work.
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Day 5
An hour of Sidesword!
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Day 3
Had a really great time doing rapier play builds. When you’re in a gioco stretto mode the play builds get really tight, efficient, and intricate really quick. I also enjoyed building them up for the right hand and then transferring it all to the left. About 45 minutes.
Day 4
45 minute run!
1 hour of longsword class working on feints from the bind. Super fun.
1 hour of rapier class working on rapier and dagger. Also great
1 hour of longsword private session with a focus on quadrant defense.
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Day 1
Spent an hour doing playbuilding with longsword. Shot video for my last week video of three play builds. Slow speeds scaling up to full speed.
Then taught the noon sidesword flow class for Eric. 30 mintues on flow, 30 minutes on Marozzo’s progression.
Day 2
40 minutes doing rapier and dagger actions with the pell.
1. Gaining and striking in opposition in closed positions.
2. Single feints, double feints, advancing feints, and feints by volta stabile.
3. Striking from various guards from guard flow.
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Nice work Bob! All the actions are looking pretty good.
The breaking of the thrust in particular was well timed and executed with your partner.
The deflection done with the sword in one hand. Seek to make the deflection, then have your partner stop you by binding with you. Then because you’re bound, you need to free your sword by grabbing his wrist and hauling your weapon back to free the point.
See if you can make that action clearer. I like practicing the successful deflection and then having my partner bind when I don’t expect — this will give you a really strong feel of the setup.
Nice work!
Devon
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Those are much cleaner Bob.
The angle of the parry and the returning step are great.
the thing to work here is extending the arms in the repost ahead of the feet. You’ll find that often you’ll hit before you even need to step — which means your opponent has less time to step and try to retreat or parry your repost.
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Jeff this is really great. The smoothness of your cuts has really improved and your order is great.
The topic of you post was “Body alignment” and you’re doing a really nice job of keeping your shoulders balanced as well.
Couple things to look at:
1. Check your edge alignment. Sometimes it looked me (and could just be the camera angle) that the edge of the sword did not line up with the direction of the cut precisely. Slow the cut down and examine that, or even freeze sometimes in a cut to ensure that your edge alignment is where you want it.
2. Brings your hands back and to the side a bit more in your donna so that your bottom hand isn’t an easy target. You can see this in the side view show that your left hand is quite forward. You could compare your video to one of my cutting exemplars in the Apprentice Skill Assessments course to help guide that.
Finally – if you haven’t already submitted skill assessments for the basic cuts I think you should!
Devon
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Week 3 Focus
Topic: Curiosity – Touching on some new reading and new practice that gets me excited
Schedule: Mornings Monday to Sunday with a focus on reading then movement.
Plan:
Read part of the Marozzo Assault and then practice it, or read part of 3227a and practice the ideas from it. My goal is to focus on getting excited by the text.
Schedule, 20 minutes reading, 20-40 minutes of practice.
Contingency:
5 minutes of reading.
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Reflection for Week 3
Victory Laps:
Kept up a lower but consistent rhythm this week. Happy with myself for keeping up the running rhythm. My first full week of running 5k 3 times. Enjoyed diving into 3227a and touching into my curiosity of learning.
Course Corrections:
I think I’m on track. I want to be aware of moving with my body and inspiration and ensure that I don’t find I’m flagging when I intend to be resting.
Aha Moments:
Karen’s comment about tricking the emotional part of her brain that often doesn’t want to practice, in the Q&A today, really stood out to me. I noticed I do something similar when I run — I say to myself “Maybe I’ll do only half a run today” then when I get to the halfway point I keep going and say “Maybe I’ll not do my sprint at the end.” then when I get to the end I sprint anyway. But somehow those little chats and potentials for concession, but not actual concession, help me get through somehow.
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Day 6
Spent the day in the University of the Sword conference. Taught a session and was on a panel and enjoyed watching and participating in the other sessions.
Day 7
Hour long trail run and time spent reading 3227a.
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Day 4 and 5
Though I’ve been feeling a bit exhausted this week I have managed to keep up my practice. Though these days are easy because I teach classes!
Thursday I taught a one hour class in the morning on longsword and one hour later in the day on rapier. Longsword focused on feints and deceptions from the crossing, and rapier on closed positions of rapier and dagger.
I also got out for another run. Third time running for 35 minutes straight. I have made it a thing to increase my pace in the last 3-4 minutes and then sprint it out after my timer goes at the end. It’s a good psychological process, even if the run has been hard (which it was a bit this past Thursday) to practice pulling into resources and really giving it at the end, even after a slog. I find it is psychologically really powerful.
Friday I taught a sidesword class and spent some time reading 3227a. Also went to bed very early!
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Day 2 Bonus
Ran 35 minutes and 5.5K. My longest distance and second time running for this long. I was a touch beginning but I pushed through and actually sprinted out my last 4 minutes. Super proud of myself for this.
Day 3
Started with 20 minutes of sword flow and movement to help work out some stiffness. Was a real pleasure. Then spent 20 minutes reading 3227a, then another 20 working on some ideas from it.
Then had a 60 minute session with one of my students in the afternoon.
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Day 1 and 2:
Working on longsword flow in the mornings. Been a bit of a tough week to get sword in hand so I’ve been focusing on what is essential. Each day it has taken me a few moments but I’ve gotten there and had an enjoyable practice.
Today I focused on flipping the sword in a variety of ways which was great fun.
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