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Dean's prize.
Jan. 28th, 2012 01:36 pmGentle Readers,
While I'm glad this week is over, it's not the week ending I was expecting. I was expecting that right now I would be in the middle of the Tournoi du Coeur de Glace, however, thanks to a bug that Cortejo picked up and my lack of reserves to handle hours of driving with someone I don't know very well we are home this weekend.
The extra sad part is that thanks to people needing rides, I've already done more driving today than it would have taken me to get there.
Part of the reason I was hoping to be there is that they are working very hard to try and make this a prestige tournament for both Armoured and unarmoured combat. I'm all for supporting both the idea of a prestige tournament (As we have precious few here) and the fact that it is for both combat forms is just a bit of extra icing on the cake. However, the main reason I was hoping to be in the tournament today was that in May, I am supposed to be playing my Dean's prize in the Ealdormere Academy of Defence.
The EAoD is a merit based recognition group here which has a list of requirements for each level, and if you meet them, you get in. There's no voting from other members. There's nobody who can award the levels. You pass or fail based on your own efforts. The level of Dean is the highest level and, of course, has the strictest requirements. In addition to a number of service and study requirements (Teaching, Good appearance, knowledge of historical fighting styles, and so on) there is also a martial requirement. For Dean, you must fight 50 boutes against the other deans and win a third of them. Then you fight against all comers for at least 15 min.
You can read it all here: http://ealdormereaod.maven.ca/Dean_Rank
There is one tiny problem. There are no other Deans. I (and the other fellow who is also playing his prize) would be the first. So, the person in charge has decided that she will be bringing in a number of highly ranked combatants from all over. I, not being one to want to make things easy for myself, have decided that I will also invite a number of friends of mine who are very skilled to also be included in the pack of Dean stand-ins.
So the reason I wanted to be at the tournament today was to just see where I was relative to the people coming out and try and figure out where it is that I should be spending my training time. For the last little while I've been fighting a mix of scadian, foil and badly mangled Capo Ferro. However, with the work that we've be doing with Ottawa Swordplay, I've been trying very hard to push this as much into the relm of German swordsmanship as possible.
So, I have a few techniques that work quite well, I have a couple that I want to get to work like the clockwork they should be, and I want have a couple more hammers in my tool box for dealing with problem nails. The problem is getting that understanding of what kind of nails I will be facing. In order to do that, I need to go to tournaments, or at least go and fight. I've got three months to get myself up to speed.
I think I can do it.
While I'm glad this week is over, it's not the week ending I was expecting. I was expecting that right now I would be in the middle of the Tournoi du Coeur de Glace, however, thanks to a bug that Cortejo picked up and my lack of reserves to handle hours of driving with someone I don't know very well we are home this weekend.
The extra sad part is that thanks to people needing rides, I've already done more driving today than it would have taken me to get there.
Part of the reason I was hoping to be there is that they are working very hard to try and make this a prestige tournament for both Armoured and unarmoured combat. I'm all for supporting both the idea of a prestige tournament (As we have precious few here) and the fact that it is for both combat forms is just a bit of extra icing on the cake. However, the main reason I was hoping to be in the tournament today was that in May, I am supposed to be playing my Dean's prize in the Ealdormere Academy of Defence.
The EAoD is a merit based recognition group here which has a list of requirements for each level, and if you meet them, you get in. There's no voting from other members. There's nobody who can award the levels. You pass or fail based on your own efforts. The level of Dean is the highest level and, of course, has the strictest requirements. In addition to a number of service and study requirements (Teaching, Good appearance, knowledge of historical fighting styles, and so on) there is also a martial requirement. For Dean, you must fight 50 boutes against the other deans and win a third of them. Then you fight against all comers for at least 15 min.
You can read it all here: http://ealdormereaod.maven.ca/Dean_Rank
There is one tiny problem. There are no other Deans. I (and the other fellow who is also playing his prize) would be the first. So, the person in charge has decided that she will be bringing in a number of highly ranked combatants from all over. I, not being one to want to make things easy for myself, have decided that I will also invite a number of friends of mine who are very skilled to also be included in the pack of Dean stand-ins.
So the reason I wanted to be at the tournament today was to just see where I was relative to the people coming out and try and figure out where it is that I should be spending my training time. For the last little while I've been fighting a mix of scadian, foil and badly mangled Capo Ferro. However, with the work that we've be doing with Ottawa Swordplay, I've been trying very hard to push this as much into the relm of German swordsmanship as possible.
So, I have a few techniques that work quite well, I have a couple that I want to get to work like the clockwork they should be, and I want have a couple more hammers in my tool box for dealing with problem nails. The problem is getting that understanding of what kind of nails I will be facing. In order to do that, I need to go to tournaments, or at least go and fight. I've got three months to get myself up to speed.
I think I can do it.
