j_v_lynch

Gentle Readers,

Today's Pallas Armata class was looking at chapter 13. The play was to draw an attack, parry and stringer, then when the attacker withdraws and cavers to attack, parry and stringer to the other side and use the gained distance to allow for a fast riposte. We did this through several rotations, looking at new things to focus on from good distance to posture to making sure that you are doing a good recovery.

We also looked at gaining the blade with a stringer when your partner is refusing contact by using a finda to make them commit with a parry and then cavering to stringer. Next week we will do this as a decision drill where if they do not take the bait, you finish your attack.

Gentle Readers,

It's been a very full week this week. For starters Cortejo and I have started watching Fringe. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but after yesterday's 14 hour day I decided that I needed to play a bit of catch up and then it was 2 am and so now I'm a little tired.

The bad parts of the week have mostly to do with work stuff. There have been a bunch of bugs that were just no fun to try and fix and due to the fact that the worst one involved Windows Locale stuff (and thus Registry fuckery) where just awful to work on. The second worst one had to do with handling importing corrupted input files and fixing data formats that we didn't notice didn't work 6 months ago when we implemented the database.

On the plus side Lydia's been fantastic and so have things with Ottawa Swordplay.

We've had a bunch of people not only come out to do classes but actually sign up and give us money. It's awesome. We've sold 3 subscriptions as well as multiple class packs. There's even a new Warrior Princess (making for 4) and she lives in our neighborhood so that could make for a new friend for Lydia.

This weekend I've got another fencing lesson to do and I think I will be spending the rest of my time doing some sewing, and doing some work and probably watching some fringe.

Gentle Readers,

It's Saturday and it's been snowing all night. Everything is covered with a layer of white fluffy snow. This includes, of course, the layers of refrozen snow that was already there. Normally this wouldn't be too much of an issue as there's nothing terribly important to do. However, this week I have to be at the sword hall by Noon because I'll be teaching my first private lesson at the sword hall.

I'm pretty excited. The student in question is interested in learning more about how to use a sword in one hand. We'll be working with a combination of Pallas Armata and Meyer's Rapier and he'll be feeding much needed cash into my Armour fund. He's happy to deal with my somewhat sporadic schedule so it should work out fairly well, assuming he likes what I'm teaching.

Anyway, what this means is that any minute I really need to get out of my warm cozy bed and go out into the cold cold world and move snow around. I'm really not looking forward to that part of things, but really, it's January in Ottawa. Thankfully, as I mentioned, it looks like light fluffy snow so hopefully it should go pretty quickly.

In other Ottawa Swordplay news, Craig's been doing some outreach and got an awesome media response this week. He had an excellent writeup in one of the local Dailies. He did a Regional Contact spot on the CTV News which I think turned out fantastically. Today they are playing a segment on CBC radio's In Town and Out.

Hopefully this will mean both a big attendance at the Grand Re-Opening on Sunday and an upswing in student numbers. I think Craig has things at the point where we are ready to do that. I am a tiny bit jealous, but mostly I'm happy to see someone living the dream and letting me come along for the ride.

Gentle Readers,

I was feeling pretty good last week after the whole prize thing was done. In fact I was feeling better than good, I was feeling fantastic. I was also excited about moving on with my martial studies. On I was back at Kickboxing and on Tuesday I was feeling good and motivated and went to bjj. I still felt like a baby wildebeest but I was moving ok and I even had one session of randori (my third partner) where I managed to take his back really easily. I was working my way towards a choke (reallllly slowly) when I caught my toe, damaged from the fencing, and the nail went from looking like = to L.

It didn't even hurt that much at the time.

Unfortunately, it did knock me out of anything physical and in fact I was limping around until just yesteday.

While it kind of sucked to be unable to do too much physical stuff, it was nice to have a bit of a break and with the current status of Ottawa Swordplay, Craig hasn't needed me that much. He's canceled all of the non-longsword classes and replaced them with slots for doing private lessons after getting over a hundred and fifty people responding to a living social thing. Granted, it was an amazing deal, but I'm hoping we'll have some new members who stick around and hopefully bring their friends.

Anyway, this past weekend we had yet another event to go to (Our next free weekend is the one right before we leave for pennsic). This time it was Fruits of our Labours, a hands on A&S event. I took some cool classes. One on lost wax carving. One on Pole Lathe bowl turning and a spoon making class. I also taught a class on Sword and Buckler. It was pretty fun overall.

This weekend is crown tourney. We were going to stay with some friends we have not seen in a while until we realized that their house was an hour past the event site and it would take us 7.5 hours to get there from here. That's a bit much. Instead we will be staying with somewhat closer friends.

It's going to be an interesting crown. There are a few contestants that I would love to have win but I'm happy with most of the possibilities.

I should be up for fencing too which will be great.

I'm glad I love this game. I seem to play it pretty hard.

Gentle Readers,

I'm still sick. It sucks.

It did not stop me from attending the inagural night of classes at Ottawa Swordplay's new Sword Hall. Craig is living the dream and I'm getting to come along for the ride. He's not even asking that I chip in for gas.

My first class as an instructor is not until Monday, but last night we did the full Thursday schedule: Armoured Combat(Spear/Sword/Dagger, limited targets) , Close Combat (Grappling and Dagger) and Longsword. It was wonderful. I didn't have the energy for any freeplay other than spear but that's ok. It was fun regardless.

This evening, I brought David out to the hall for some practice for my prize. Lessons learned:

Do not move forward without a plan. you cannot force an opening, you can only create a situation where they give you one.

Give them a reason to move in. If they don't have an invitation, they will leave.

Stringering inside works great for moving forward, but move into third as soon you lose contact. Don't push past horizontal.

Respond as soon as they move forward. It's what you wanted, so disrupt their plan.

Learn the Stringer without. you need an entry to that side which is not just arm sniping.

don't lead with your face.

There are probably more, but I think that's enough for now.

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