Gentle Readers,

Here I lie, after a lovely weekend.

As hoped the A&S thing was lovely. There were 50 people. I've been to smaller events (that had less active participation). I got my hood pieces (outer and liner) cut out and had some facinating discussions with all kinds of people.

We sent Lydia off to the twins house and headed home child free. I'm pretty sure we were both asleep before 9:30. I'm not sure what it was but I managed to sleep through the night, only waking up once. This rest made for todays good spirits I think.

The fight for life was amazing. We had 3 schools together and did a day of swordfigting with no drama and very little ego. I wasn't as good at the armoured combat as I had hoped and the steel legs I was wearing are aweful. I also only got in one round because the helmet I had gaped and exposed my neck. I didn't think that i could have tied it down until after I had gotten out of my armour.

The day was very positve and we raised almost 2K for the Walk for Life fundraiser. I think the fact that it was a fund raiser was what helped peope check their egos at the door. There was no sense that this was about prooving anything, it was just a means to collect money for a charity.

Afterwards was a lovely potluck to which I managed to contribute things other people ate.

Now, heres hoping for another good nights sleep.

Gentle Readers,

The problem with having a nice weekend is that getting back into the swing of things at work is always a bit of a let down.

This past weekend I was off at the Longpoint 2011 mid-atlantic HEMA gathering. I went down with the head instructor for our club as his assistant. He was going to share his point of view on I.33 and start to get better know. I'm thrilled with how serious he is taking this. I'm sure that it's only partly because I am not in the same situation so I have to live vicariously through him.

Anyway, his class went fantastically. It was very well received and he got a lot of positive feedback. Actually, I also got feedback to say I was a great assistant and made my intent very clear. My Aikido Sensei would be very pleased.

The 18+ hours of driving were just fine except for the expected blizzard just north of Syracuse. I suspect that Pulaski has a Hellmouth. We spent much of the ride there and back talking about his plans for the club and where to go with things. The plan is currently to become a fairly german centric school which means that I will be likely switching to teaching German style rappier. That should be very interesting and by interesting I mean new and scary.

It's almost too bad that the boys did so well with the Saviolo last night at class. They were able to flow through the first sequence and have it look like they were really fighting. That made up for a more disturbing afternoon. The disturbing aspects of the afternoon will be noted in another post.

Today it was back to Kick Boxing and it was pretty good. I wasn't dead at the end of the class, but that probably has more to do with having to push my partner rather than the other way around. He should really go more than 2 times a month. I'm not sure how things are going to go over the next little while. One of the uber-bosses has brokered a corporate plan with the dojo and so for about what I'm paying now, I can also add in some of the other stuff the school does. Given my available time, that means I'll be able to go to the lunch time BJJ classes should I so desire. I'm not sure what else I'd have access to.

I'm sure cortejo would appreciate it if I did the correct response and not the goofy response when she was trying to strangle me.