Recent practices & drills

I'm finally getting around to updating this thing. Getting to practice has been a bit sporadic lately, but I hope to pick it up before Pennsic, as well as get a bunch of physical conditioning in. I ended up not being able to complete the 60 in 60 challenge because I was unable to fight for about a month after Birka due to medical reasons.

Practice this week was very good. Ken Mondschein who teaches at the Higgins came by and we ran through a number of drills (a couple of which I'll go over below) and got some good sparring in. I plan to hit the Carolingian regional practice tomorrow, and the depending on how the new job goes on Monday, the regular Monday practice in Millbury. Depending on how my event/work schedule is, I'm also hoping to get to the Higgins for the Sword Guild practices.

The easiest of the drills we did was to set up in stance opposite each other and take a glove in our primary hand. The first person would lunge, and on the conclusion of the lunge release the glove for the other person to catch. As we got warmed up, we added footwork between the lunges so that you would have to work on paying attention and react quickly to what the other person was doing.

The next drill requires some equipment. The practice site we use has a balance beam (it looks to be a 3x3, elevated about 4-6" and covered in carpet). Setting the balance beam next to the wall, we took turns practicing our lunge while on the balance beam. The nice thing about doing it this way is you get immediate feedback as to your body mechanics on each lunge. When things work out correctly, the balance beam gets pushed back as you lunge. When things do not, you generally fall off.

Sometime this week, I'm planning on getting a post up about Balfar's Challenge and a (much delayed) post on the trip down to Atlantia for Night on the Town.