I had a very fun practice the other day. We did some high energy warmups, the glove game, which was very good for situational awareness, hand speed, and foot movement. Then we did a bearpit to let the new fighters see how we fight in tournament. To give them all a chance to play with new toys we did london masters style. I didn’t learn a lot of new things, but I did get to try out full speed aggression on Guilliame while we were both using single sword. It was deadly efective.
The only other thing was that I’ve come to realize something that Godfrey tried to explain to me months ago when he started teaching me brawling. When you get hit, you get hit hard. When you’re fighting in close your opponent doesn’t have time to cushion blows. You do, but only because you know what shots your throwing. When you’re playing 6-12 inches closer than your opponent is used to they aren’t going to remember that they have less time and distance to cushion shots.
I got to fight some more at the demo on sunday as well. I learned two things. First, brawling is very hard without an eric to fence in your opponent, they just keep running back and never let you close. I’ll have to remember this for when I’m war fighting. Brawling won’t work then. I’ll have to focus on defense and work in a partner situation.
Second was that I don’t know my lunging range anymore. I was continuously a 1/2″-1″ away from my opponent when lunging. This is likely as a result of my focus on close thrusts for the last few months. I need to start practicing lunges as well as thrusts if I’m to be effective on the tourney field.