I managed to get most of my armor strapped up for practice last week, but I still have a few pieces left to go (helm included). I took a shot to the thumb last week and considering how much it still hurts, I think that fighting tomorrow night is probably a bad idea, so no heavy for me this week.
Last weekend was Midnight at the Oasis, and that went pretty well. I made it to the final round in the single elim tourney, but then lost to Ilaria. Due to the number of people in the bracket, it was a 3-way final, so we did something a bit different. After the match with Ilaria, she and I took on Connor together. We ended up losing 2-1 (it was best of 3), but it was a fun bout.
After the tourney, Letia fought her prize (congrats!)
Melee in the afternoon was a pretty cool scenario, but almost everybody was wiped out from the heat. We did a few runs before people really started dropping out, and so we ended a bit early.
I talked with Mattheu afterwards about some things to work on while doing slow work drills with new fencers. His advice boiled down to making sure I'm doing everything perfectly while I fight them. One of my main problems has been actually using appropriate footwork/staying in the guard I want while fighting, and so I have been working on making sure I do that while fighting newer fencers, but Mattheu suggested I do the same with attacks and parries. That is, that I should be sure to attack safely (i.e. from their blade), force openings.
I also got some suggestions on how to simplify teaching new fighters to attack from Connor. Basically, all guards cover some areas and leave others open. Fighters should be aware of where their own openings are as well as the openings of their opponent. Perhaps for this week I'll come up with a drill to make use of that.
Let me know what you come up with for that drill.
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