Two Practices and a Rapier Academy

Fencing catchup!

Last weekend I made the long trek to New Jersey for the first (I think?) Rapier Academy! It was a gorgeous day, and the classes were varied and informative.

I started in a Fabris class that Firebow was teaching. For the most part it wasn't new information for me, so I played TA with some of the other fencers. I was a bit worried about stepping on the teacher's toes, but he seemed thankful for it, and I think it helped those fencers get something out of the class. Someday we will sit down and really talk about Fabris-y things, but Saturday was not that day. Too much else to do!

I fought a variety of people - one specifically asked me to Fabris it up, and that went fairly well. Particularly considering it was my warmup, I was surprised at how little my body complained.
I was later told by another opponent that my aggression was great. Which is good, because I have been specifically trying to put that back in my game after so much time spent on Fabris and blade work and etc etc. My other fights were very good, although I did nothing memorably good or bad during them.

There were many command based classes happening, so I spent a lot of my afternoon doing Eastern Army things. I have no aspirations to climb any higher in the ranks than leading the Handsome Boys - but since the Handsome Boys have grown to be a very significant part of the army I want to be on top of what's going on there. Not to mention that my co headmaster/cadet brother is the General. So we talked a lot about getting more people involved and comfortable in melee, and then went over the war points.

Alys had a story time (and I also got to fight her, which was a lot of fun), which I thought was a great way to close out an event like this. Everyone loves to revel in nostalgia, and the newer folks got to learn SO MUCH. The rocking chair was a particularly nice touch.

There was no court, and there was a service at the church at 5, so we got out quite early and had a delicious dinner. It was worth a long day trip, definitely. Although I did tweak my elbow and have had to baby it for the last week.

On to the practices!
Monday!
I used my short blade the whole time (see aforementioned arm babying). I still love that thing, but definitely had distance issues. I worked with Liadan on dagger stuff, and am interested in dagger parrying drills that people have found useful!
Despite my issues, I felt like I fought well.

Thursday!
Arm was still just a little twingy. I wore my elbow band and alternated my swords. I worked with Finn, specifically trying to get him back to using his offhand. On my side I was trying to morph between upright and bent stances smoothly. And only doing so when I intended to - I have a habit of lunging while in the low Fabris stance, and standing upright as I do so. Which makes a hole big enough that even Finn noticed it (and stabbed me in it.)
I fought Remy and felt really good about it. I don't have specifics, it just seemed to go better than normal.
I fought Xavier, and probably worked my arm harder than I should have. I had a spiral of not being able to control my blade as well as I'd like, and so working harder at it, which made me less able to. But other than that I felt pretty good. During the last fight when I realized that my arm was going to fall off/hurt itself, I managed to flip a switch to "murder quickly". I need to find that switch more often.
I also did a very little bit of drilling with Donovan doing single tempo dagger parries. This is an old hat drill, but this was the first time I tried to do it from a Fabris stance and OH GOD EVERYTHING WAS AWFUL. Nothing went where I wanted it to go. In upright stance it was fine. So, I suppose this means I know something I need to work on.