Quick Biff Update
As many of you will know, after putting down running imaginary countries, I took up a piece of rattan so that I could learn to fight and, er, run imaginary countries again.
So far I'm having more good bits to this plan than bad bits.
To get the bad bits out of the way first: my helmet is too big. Just generally too big. It has been designed for someone whose head is big man sized, I am little woman sized. Because I had it made for me many years ago before taxi crunching and the Curse of Fabian* intervened in the 'I will be authorised!' plan, it never occurred to me that it might be hopelessly wrong, but it is. These things happen. If any of you know someone who has a nice helmet that is too small for them and would like to trade it for my simple but pleasant salet, let me know. It's been beautifully polished by one of Lochac's nicest Pelicans.
The only other bad bit is that J is a fiend as a teacher and has me out practising passes at midnight half the time. Still, I'm learning.
The good bits are that my muscles are adapting to the weird positions and J's methods of fighting involve very little positioning that takes your body off-line and causes overstrain. In fact, if I can just remember everything, there should be no overstrain at all. Which is good. And apparently I hit nice and hard and have an unholy glee about hitting people, so no girly reticence there. Everyone is so surprised.
J got into armour last week and had me try and hit him while he tried to avoid me hitting him. Since I do not have a lot of armour (see helm saga above) he was not trying to hit me, so things were much easier than in real life, but by crikey there's no comparison between a human and a pell. All that pell time was helpful in reminding me to keep my lines of movement smooth and across the body, but I learned that my standard ballet and running front-foot motion was utterly useless for fighting and I need to relearn back-of-foot movement. Which I tend not to do because it isn't natural for me and puts more impact on the joints that I have mangled. So I should make myself some comfy fighting boots that help with that. There are advantages to this Laurel businesss ...
I did get a few shots in, and I had a few epiphanies. The first and most useful is that I don't need to look at my sword as I throw a shot. Either it will hit or it will be blocked and observing makes no difference once it's thrown.
The second is that J finds it a little hard to see what I am doing because I am such a shortarse, so every now and then he will pop his head above his shield like a meercat and I can whack him if I'm quick. Probably shouldn't have blogged that one ...
Last night he was showing me some thrusting tip techniques and combinations, but using his steel sword. When he had me do them, he flinched like a flinchy thing and so we switched to rattan. Where is the faith? I held my terror inside! Although when he was standing in stance waving the tip of a steel sword at me, I could see how the famous J hypnotise the chickens move works.
So far the best two moments have been last week when he was in armour. He had me practice throwing shots while he stood still for a bit, then he said, "Okay, we'll move onto leg shots now. I'm going to take stance and I want you to just hit me." And he stood there with his round shield by his thigh.
"Just hit you?" I asked, expecting him to add 'in the leg'.
"Just hit me," he said, a little impatiently.
"Okay," I said and whacked him in the head. Yes, I think I am hilarious.
So then he said "In the leg, monkey girl."
So I took a step and landed a lovely shot square into the back of his thigh. On top of the bruises that he was wearing from the Innilgard visit. Which made him make squeakie noises. I apologised profusely, although I have to admit I was both amused and proud of myself at the same time. "You told me to!" I said in my own defence. "I didn't expect you to be competent!" he replied. I laid my little skill at the feet of my excellent if burgundy-tinted teacher.
Later that night he made me rub bruise cream in, and assured me that I was the only one of his students to be granted this extra-special privilege. I remembered hearing that bruise cream contains mashed leeches, and felt very special.
*Curse of Fabian: 1995: meet Duke Fabian at Festival. Come home. Go to fighter practise. Say "yeah, baby! biff is what I want to do in the SCA!" Go to Canberra. Order armour. Come home. Go and see friend's band play. Ride bike home. Get wiped out by taxi, break bones, do not return to fighter training.
1998: Catch up with Duke Fabian at Festival. "How have you been since I saw you last?" "Good, except I nearly died in a horrible taxi squashing cyclist incident." "Bloody hell!" Go home. Decide, let's give biff another go. Dig out stick. Begin backyard thwacking. Don't even make it to fighter practise this time. Ride bike down THE SAME STREET I WAS WIPED OUT ON THE CORNER OF LAST TIME and hit the world's deepest concealed pothole while indicating a right-hand turn. Fly through air. Twist mightily so as not to land on head. land on foot, shatter navicular. Have surgery and wear plaster for nearly six months, do not return to fighter training.
1999/2000: J wins Coronet. Halfway through reign, Fabian wins West Crown. Must swear fealty. Very nervous about "Till death take me" bit. Likelihood of literal fulfilment seems eerily high. Send bell, book, candle and nice request asking that a monk lift the curse along with fealty scroll. Receive message from Fabian that curse lifted by monk, wearing bell as favour for extra Viscountess protection. Nice King. He comes to Festival. J and I arrive at Festival late in the day with J in snappish mood. I insist we should flag guy ropes before anything else, since it is dark and they are dangerous. J demands we unload car first. I grumblingly pick up load of luggage and stomp over towards tent, trip over guy rope and give myself a black eye on the next tent peg. J declares I have done this on purpose. I go off to find ice. Instead I find Kurgan. Kurgan says "Fuck!" a lot and takes me to find ice. We go to tavern and find Patri and ice. Patri is calm and useful, Kurgan disappears. A few minutes later I hear voices behind me, a hand grabs my chin and tilts my bruised face upwards. "Look what you did!" Kurgan proclaims. Fabian looks appalled. "I broke the bell while packing to come here! It's in my luggage waiting to be repaired!" I burst out laughing and point out that, comparatively, I'm unhurt. Fabian stays up till 3am repairing bell and wears it for rest of Festival, I break no bones.
2006: Begin fighter training again. No Fabian at Festival. Not riding bike. Especially not riding bike down Campbell St, Surry Hills. So far, so good. Might send over new bell, just in case.
So far I'm having more good bits to this plan than bad bits.
To get the bad bits out of the way first: my helmet is too big. Just generally too big. It has been designed for someone whose head is big man sized, I am little woman sized. Because I had it made for me many years ago before taxi crunching and the Curse of Fabian* intervened in the 'I will be authorised!' plan, it never occurred to me that it might be hopelessly wrong, but it is. These things happen. If any of you know someone who has a nice helmet that is too small for them and would like to trade it for my simple but pleasant salet, let me know. It's been beautifully polished by one of Lochac's nicest Pelicans.
The only other bad bit is that J is a fiend as a teacher and has me out practising passes at midnight half the time. Still, I'm learning.
The good bits are that my muscles are adapting to the weird positions and J's methods of fighting involve very little positioning that takes your body off-line and causes overstrain. In fact, if I can just remember everything, there should be no overstrain at all. Which is good. And apparently I hit nice and hard and have an unholy glee about hitting people, so no girly reticence there. Everyone is so surprised.
J got into armour last week and had me try and hit him while he tried to avoid me hitting him. Since I do not have a lot of armour (see helm saga above) he was not trying to hit me, so things were much easier than in real life, but by crikey there's no comparison between a human and a pell. All that pell time was helpful in reminding me to keep my lines of movement smooth and across the body, but I learned that my standard ballet and running front-foot motion was utterly useless for fighting and I need to relearn back-of-foot movement. Which I tend not to do because it isn't natural for me and puts more impact on the joints that I have mangled. So I should make myself some comfy fighting boots that help with that. There are advantages to this Laurel businesss ...
I did get a few shots in, and I had a few epiphanies. The first and most useful is that I don't need to look at my sword as I throw a shot. Either it will hit or it will be blocked and observing makes no difference once it's thrown.
The second is that J finds it a little hard to see what I am doing because I am such a shortarse, so every now and then he will pop his head above his shield like a meercat and I can whack him if I'm quick. Probably shouldn't have blogged that one ...
Last night he was showing me some thrusting tip techniques and combinations, but using his steel sword. When he had me do them, he flinched like a flinchy thing and so we switched to rattan. Where is the faith? I held my terror inside! Although when he was standing in stance waving the tip of a steel sword at me, I could see how the famous J hypnotise the chickens move works.
So far the best two moments have been last week when he was in armour. He had me practice throwing shots while he stood still for a bit, then he said, "Okay, we'll move onto leg shots now. I'm going to take stance and I want you to just hit me." And he stood there with his round shield by his thigh.
"Just hit you?" I asked, expecting him to add 'in the leg'.
"Just hit me," he said, a little impatiently.
"Okay," I said and whacked him in the head. Yes, I think I am hilarious.
So then he said "In the leg, monkey girl."
So I took a step and landed a lovely shot square into the back of his thigh. On top of the bruises that he was wearing from the Innilgard visit. Which made him make squeakie noises. I apologised profusely, although I have to admit I was both amused and proud of myself at the same time. "You told me to!" I said in my own defence. "I didn't expect you to be competent!" he replied. I laid my little skill at the feet of my excellent if burgundy-tinted teacher.
Later that night he made me rub bruise cream in, and assured me that I was the only one of his students to be granted this extra-special privilege. I remembered hearing that bruise cream contains mashed leeches, and felt very special.
*Curse of Fabian: 1995: meet Duke Fabian at Festival. Come home. Go to fighter practise. Say "yeah, baby! biff is what I want to do in the SCA!" Go to Canberra. Order armour. Come home. Go and see friend's band play. Ride bike home. Get wiped out by taxi, break bones, do not return to fighter training.
1998: Catch up with Duke Fabian at Festival. "How have you been since I saw you last?" "Good, except I nearly died in a horrible taxi squashing cyclist incident." "Bloody hell!" Go home. Decide, let's give biff another go. Dig out stick. Begin backyard thwacking. Don't even make it to fighter practise this time. Ride bike down THE SAME STREET I WAS WIPED OUT ON THE CORNER OF LAST TIME and hit the world's deepest concealed pothole while indicating a right-hand turn. Fly through air. Twist mightily so as not to land on head. land on foot, shatter navicular. Have surgery and wear plaster for nearly six months, do not return to fighter training.
1999/2000: J wins Coronet. Halfway through reign, Fabian wins West Crown. Must swear fealty. Very nervous about "Till death take me" bit. Likelihood of literal fulfilment seems eerily high. Send bell, book, candle and nice request asking that a monk lift the curse along with fealty scroll. Receive message from Fabian that curse lifted by monk, wearing bell as favour for extra Viscountess protection. Nice King. He comes to Festival. J and I arrive at Festival late in the day with J in snappish mood. I insist we should flag guy ropes before anything else, since it is dark and they are dangerous. J demands we unload car first. I grumblingly pick up load of luggage and stomp over towards tent, trip over guy rope and give myself a black eye on the next tent peg. J declares I have done this on purpose. I go off to find ice. Instead I find Kurgan. Kurgan says "Fuck!" a lot and takes me to find ice. We go to tavern and find Patri and ice. Patri is calm and useful, Kurgan disappears. A few minutes later I hear voices behind me, a hand grabs my chin and tilts my bruised face upwards. "Look what you did!" Kurgan proclaims. Fabian looks appalled. "I broke the bell while packing to come here! It's in my luggage waiting to be repaired!" I burst out laughing and point out that, comparatively, I'm unhurt. Fabian stays up till 3am repairing bell and wears it for rest of Festival, I break no bones.
2006: Begin fighter training again. No Fabian at Festival. Not riding bike. Especially not riding bike down Campbell St, Surry Hills. So far, so good. Might send over new bell, just in case.
posted by Miss D at 1:21 pm
10 Comments:
Hrm, how much does J charge for lessons for taller female types who don't live there? ;p Or really, just use of your pell.
Have I said lately how great you are? AMusing at the very least!
I wonder if your helm would fit me, but I also have a small head so maybe not. I didn't think to try it when we had it for polishing.
I have a bunch of armour that I won't be using for at least the next six months. (Although they say it will be at least a year before the joint affecting hormones are out of the system :( )
And you've worn it before....
If you get authorised I'm going to have to get back into heavy and smack you around :) However, considering you'll be in practice and I'll just be the old has-been, it will probably be the other way around...
And J and I need to get together and talk reeve stuff sometime.
Please don't say it's "beautifully polished" to anyone who actually knows about armouring. The scratches and little black ex-rust dots are a give-away. I just stopped it from getting unsavable.
And you will use Mr Sheen on it every now and then to keep the handprint causing rust away won't you?
I think I'm a lot fatter than I was the last time I wore your armour, Miss Mouse! But thanks, I may well take you up on that offer. At the very least your helmet does not require a head three inches longer than the one I have.
J is available for reeve chat when you have time, and for Deense to hit him, too.
And Blayney, SHhhh! I'm trying to encourage someone to swap with me! It's a really lovely helmet if you are one and a half times as big as I am.
LMAO.
Lovely training story.
The more female fighters the better I say.
Count Stephen and I spent some time with a new lady fighter from Adelaide. She was awefully tenacious. It was a lot of fun.
I can't wait to have you smack me around a bit. It is not often that I find people smaller than me to fight :P
It is certainly more polished than most helms out there and anyone who's head fits it or is a complete poser would be happy to own it. The opportunity for even better polishing will only really be noticed by armourers, the anal or the critical opportunist.
That being said, I'm frustrated that I couldn't get a better polish on it, ditto my own armour. I need to check out MrC or someones set-up to see why I can't get the alluded to sparks from the rough grade on the sisal wheel.
(Please, somebody, buy the helmet it is very nicely made and completely unused.)
Wow. I didn't know you were getting into heavy. Good on you! Oh and by the way it's easy: just hit them where the shield ain't. Not that I was very good at that :)
You're lucky you have such a good live-in teacher - J is very good at explaining complex actions clearly. I'll look forward to seeing your rapid progression! Who knows? When Mouse gets back into armour I may too and then you can smack us both around!
Are you going to be authorized for Spring War?
(Woohoo! Imminent mouselings! See what you miss if you don't stay alert?!)
Ahem. Hello Miss D. The Beloved and I are enjoying your rants. Sorry to have missed you at the tourney yesterday in Polit; perhaps you were frightened away by that little hailstorm? Wuss!
We were not frightened by the hail, but we had a full day of catching up with people that J decided outweighed his urge to get into armour. Which was a shame because I had some cunning boffing plans, but we'll be down again in the next few months and I'll see if we can lure Bethany, Eleanor, Elizabeth and other evil midgets out for some sword drills.
Spent a pleasant hour or two catching up with Kurgan, who was going to stick his nose in briefly at the Tourney. Did he?
Hiya SJ! I am still trying to get the house tidy enough to invite you to dinner. Yes, J is a very good teacher and I can feel a lot of things coming together. I just wish I was not so unfit, but as that improves, so will my deadliness. Grrrr!
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