Improvement; Advancement; Growth

I've been training with Randy for months now.  I go in (usually) twice a week, grind my body into dust, pour beer on it after so it doesn't blow into the breeze, sleep, whimper softly upon awakening, and steel myself to do it again.  Three months with that small, close knit group.  Twice a week with Tyler, who is strong, and fast, and a long time student of Randy's; with Jordan who is a dear friend and introduced me to the master; with Kaja who is lithe and graceful; and Troy the wrathful pirate.  Good men and women.  Good partners.  But only fencing within the same pool of people who all fence in an approximation of the same style can stagnate.  No, that's a bad word.  I haven't stagnated with Randy, I've become strong and fast.  But more on that in a minute.  I suppose it would be better to say that I have trouble measuring myself against my fellow students, because we're all improving together, and at much the same speed.  I once heard Devon talking about advancement in Duello, and he said it wasn't a good idea to measure yourself against a fellow student, because they're not going to slow down and let you catch them to measure yourself.  I'm inclined to disagree.  No one worth fighting will ever stand still and be my control, but they're all worth measuring myself against.

To that end, I had most of a Friday night off last week, and decided to spend it at the Academie for fight night.  I fought for three glorious hours, and against people I remember fighting many times in the months leading up to November.  I fought the green cords, and found myself able to exert complete control over the measure of the fight.  I fought the blue cords and where I was once left confused and bewildered by the new adaptive plays they were taught, I had a few tricks of my own to throw against them.  I fought with a few of the red cords and while I'm not at their level yet, I move swiftly enough to fight them; I landed clean, solid blows against Mattheus and wasn't surprised by it.  I landed a number of blows on him that were less clean, and he on me.  The biggest change from the last time I fought him was that I wasn't afraid of combat with him any more.  I stepped into his measure without fear, but instead with hunger.  He and the other red cords.  They are the mark which I am measured against as a student, and for the first time, I feel as though I'm up to the task.

And then I fought Devon.  Where I was hungry and joyful while fighting Mattheus, my demeanor changed while fighting Devon.  Victory is the measure of my skills against the other students; the feedback I get is the measure of my skills from Devon.  My fighting was erratic, most of my cuts struck with the flat, and I was flaily.  "Chaotic" was the word that Devon used.  He agreed with my assessment that my control of measure had improved, but my control of the center line has fallen on the wayside.  The fight was humbling.  I've learned much, but there's still much in the manner of basics for me to improve.

I left for work that night exhausted.  But exhausted by three hours of combat.  I can last longer, fight harder, and move faster.  I'm better, stronger, I'm....

Oh god, I've become a Daft Punk song.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.

An Interview with the Scrapper

In keeping with a previous post, I conducted my first interview.

On December 3rd, 2012.

The link to the interview is here.  I don't know if blogger will let me embed the file properly, so bear with me.  It's kind of a long listen.  I recommend a cup of coffee or tea, and I hope you'll join me as I explore interviewing.

I've been sitting on the interview for almost two months, pondering what to do with it.  I thought about direct transposition, and decided against it due to a lack of patience.  I thought about just putting the interview up with name, date, and particulars, but that felt rather lazy, like something would be necessarily missing from the experience.  For now I think my best course of action would be to post the audio file, and my thoughts and reflections on the content.  As a postscript, I will try to give a few thoughts on the process of the interview.

The interview began with an introduction, and a small bit of gushing over how cool Claire is.  I started the interview proper with a question about her background in the martial arts, and she suggested I amend that to "forms of movement" because her history in combat actually began with taking dance classes to try and make her less of a scrapper as a small child.  I didn't think much of that at the time, since I was still fairly new to Randy's classes.  Recently however, this has started to make a measure of sense.  I've been looking at the movements that I have to undertake in Randy's class, and asked myself why they're useful.  Personally I have a sneaking suspicion that everyone in class is going to wake up a year from now and realize they've been Miyagi'd, but I digress.  And since she made a point of including her background as a dancer, and thinks of martial arts as movement as much as combat, I was naturally curious as to how that has informed her fighting.  Because moving one's body is a skill, and the more you know how to move your body, the more you can do with it.  From a much more literal viewpoint, specific styles have brought something to the table for her fighting.  Belly dancing was focused on isolating single muscle groups and learning how to move her body, break dancing was about learning to interact with the space around her, and with the space of the people she was dancing with and against.

After talking about dance, and her early years in combat I wanted to know about her teachers, and some of the faces she had encountered.  Outside of dance, her first teacher was a man named Ryan who plays in the SCA, who taught her a lot about fighting in armor, and the basics of how to attack and defend.  It's an interesting similarity between the two of us that we both started in the SCA, though we went in very different directions with our fighting and training.  While she's one to really look at movement and fighting styles, I personally don't have much of an eye for it.

The interview continued with some anecdotes about Sean Hayes and teaching; the points Claire made on connecting with students via low impact motions, and the development of a rapport and physical echo felt important.  I wonder, what manner of theory theory there is to accompany that observation?  The statement and wisdom gleaned feels like the logical consequence of a deeper concept.

I asked her to close off after a bit of discussion on the society, and who her heroes are.  That she included me among people she really admires in the WMA community is one of the most singularly flattering things I've heard since deciding to pursue this dream.  And if any of you bothered to listen to the whole interview, with awkward stammering and slightly scratchy audio, I hope you'll follow her recommendation and try it out. 

Because so far, there's been nothing but changes for the better.

Inspiration

Last week was a good week for fencing.  Randy Packer has started up his new classes through Valkyrie and I have had the pleasure of training under him during the maiden voyage of his new venture.

The content of the classes has been a welcome addition to my training and development.  The classes begin with a small amount of cardio, usually in the form of movement exercises like bunny hops, crab walking, and fog jumps.  Following that, there are conditioning exercises like L-sits, and then the exercises incorporate balance and conditioning, with the last exercises focusing on coordination.  It's an eclectic mix of activities incorporating gymnastics, calisthenics, and even break dancing.  Highly enjoyable, and ultra draining.  Seriously, when I woke up on Tuesday it took me at least 2 minutes to work up the strength to open my eyes.  After warm-up and conditioning, we got into the 5x5.  And having done it, I can see why it's Randy's baby.  The format was simple, the movements were simple, and it's goals were easy to recognize.  The speed was a little overwhelming, but that was intentional according to Randy.  150 techniques is a lot to cover in a whole class, never mind the blistering timeframe that Randy tries to keep, but we all eventually muddled through it.  The last few minutes of the first class was spent on rapier drills, with a focus on flow and movement.

And walking out for beer after class?  God, that might have been the highlight.  One of the things that made me fall in love with swordplay was the community at Duello.  After class or a big demo I'd usually wind up taking in a few drinks with the other students, and to my sadness, a great many of those students I used to burn a couple hours with after class have moved away from Duello either due to life taking them away from Vancouver, or because their training had moved in a different direction.  I've missed connecting with my fellow students, and getting to know them.  These days I feel like I hardly know many of the regular students.

The class also added more fuel to the fire.  Training at Duello is beginning to feel stale within the mastery program.  It's not that I don't think they're out of material to teach me, but rather, that because I never catch that last bit of knowledge that I need for blue cord, I keep on repeating the same green cord classes over and over and over and over again.  The improvements to my form have all been clearly necessary, but there's only so much refinement I can stomach before I want to gnaw on my rapier pommel to break the monotony (and my teeth).  Currently I'm breaking the monotony by taking the training into my own hands and researching Manciolino and his treatise through Tom Leoni's translation.

There's an underlying problem that troubles me through all of this.  Am I only driven by novelty?  Am I going to get bored and drop the sword once I learn everything?

Only one way to find out.  I need more books now...

A Thing I Should Do

INTERVIEWS.

And update more.  And I should probably get on yoga, vegetarian eating, and saving the whales.

But seriously, interviews.

It all starts with the desire for knowledge.  That's really what everything I'm doing right now boils down to.  I don't know how to fence competently with the weapons I'm interested in, and if I don't know how to fence competently with my chosen weapons, I certainly can't teach them.  To that end, I study under Devon and his most advanced students so that I can expand my knowledge and improve my skills, and learn how to pass the skills and knowledge on.

And because I have a bad habit regarding horses, carts, and their order of acquisition, I can't help but wonder about all of that other stuff that rests well outside of what I need to know and be working on in the immediate future.  And who better to tell me about it than the people who are, quite literally, teaching me everything I need to know to pursue my dream?

But I can't just go right for the big fish!  Oh no.  The last interview I did was back in the 11th grade for history class, I interviewed my parents and a set of grandparents in search of their life stories.   It was intense, it took a long time, and my father threatened me with a beating if I didn't omit a piece about how one of his great joys was psychoanalyzing his wife without her knowledge*.

So.  The plan is simple.  I sample people within the community that I fence with regularly, admire, respect, or work with, and ask for their stories and thoughts on the WMA community, the art, and their place within it as practitioners, or teachers and keepers as the case may be.

More is coming.  Keep an eye out.

*the piece was not omitted; the beating was worth it

Why Should They Pick Up a Sword?

A few months ago I was in a demo team meeting and trying to develop a presentation for the archery program, and Devon asked me to say a piece on the program:  what it is, what we teach, what the focuses are, and why people should join.  The first four points were simple.  They're the meat and potatoes content of the program.  They're a part of my life, and how I'm developing as an athlete, and a teacher.

That last bit though... Well, I was kind of stuck (except for the "kind of" part).  I asked Devon for a bit of help, and not wanting to give me a canned line, he asked me why I did it.
My response was indicative of why I do it, just in a poorly articulated and flippant manner.
"I want people to look at my resumé and think I'm Link from The Legend of Zelda."
Devon smirked and told me to think about it more.

I wrote the original off as silly nonsense and set myself to trying to sell people on the idea of learning archery, without using buzz words, or sounding like a tool.  I eventually gave up because I was failing at my task, and set myself to learning some rapier choreography.

But lately I've been thinking about it.  Link was always my favorite video game character when I was much younger and more keen on gaming.  He was brave, agile, capable, a thinker, an adventurer, and always keen to help (if needlessly cruel to chickens on ocassion).  But above all of that, he was a hero.  An old school sword swinging, princess saving, monster slaying hero.  Hero.  The word carries power, and has a lot of different images and symbols associated with it.  My favorite of those images?  The sword, and to a lesser extent, the bow.

I want people to think I'm Link.  I want to be that brave, clever, agile adventurer. 

I want to be a hero.

Heroism is a curious thing though.  The sword doesn't make anyone a hero.  So why take the sword up?  Or the bow, for that matter?  Because the equipment doesn't make me a hero, but it has made me stronger, better, more confident, wiser, more attentive, patient, tactical, agile, and capable.  Through my learnings with the sword and the bow, I am coming closer with every lunge, cut, and shot, to being the hero I idolized through my youth.

Why should anyone take up archery or swordplay?  There are probably as many reasons as there are students of the arts.  Why did I take up archery and swordplay?  Because it connects me to my heroes, and to my own vision of heroism.  Everything else that has happened since pursuing my training is just the result of connecting with that heroism.

Am I a hero though?

No.  Not right now.  But heroism is a topic for another day.

Rank Exam #2

"Aaron, could you come here for a minute?"

I hate hearing those words.  They very rarely are portents of anything good.

I went over to see Clint and hear the fateful words.
"You didn't make it this time."

I like to be flip about it and say that it would have taken a miracle to pass that exam, and that I'd rather save that miracle for my silver cord or my gold cord.

I like to look at the positives, which was that my wrestling, which was my weakest point in my last exam, was my strongest point in this exam.

I like to make excuses too.  I spent all summer in knight camp, I hadn't trained in months, I was thinking about getting to work on time, I spent too long trying to check my form in the mirror, and a great many others. 

But the simple fact was that I wasn't ready. 

The biggest piece of feedback that I got was that my sword moved in a two foot wide circle, and that it needs to move in a three inch circle.

I waited a few days for the feedback form, and was more than a little crushed when I got it.  There are three grades listed on the feedback for each section:
1. Exceeded Expectations (EE)
2. Met Expectation (ME)
3. Did Not Meet Expectations (DME)

I exceeded expectations on my wrestling, and didn't meet the expectations on anything else. The feedback pointed out what was wrong, and to my frustration, there was a lot that I had been working on in the feedback that still hadn't improved.  The feedback is necessary to my growth within the Academie, within the art, and as a swordsman.

The last lesson I could take away was a fairly important one.  Failure is good.  It keeps me humble, and reminds me that I have a standard to live up to; that I need to continue my training; that I need to keep chasing that dream.

Cascadia and the Iron Waffle

The timeline for Cascadia and my specific experience with it was something of a long one.  It began in hypotheticals, half promises, and lots of confusion.  Was I volunteering?  How much was I paying to go?  What would my duties be?  How much running and stress was there going to be?
The last thing on my mind was lesson content.  I was only going to be a volunteer.  My duties (theoretically) included the same things I did in the city: set up the range, tear down the range, marshal the range when Jason needs a break, and make sure no one does anything crazy.

I booked the time off work.

I packed up the van and the trailer on Friday afternoon.

I rode out to North Van, unloaded the van, and hopped on the boat (still confused).

"Oh Aaron, you're teaching the Beginner Archery workshop."

"Wait, what now?"

Yep.  Teaching.  I was supposed to run the standard 2-hour workshop that I had spent a great many hours watching and assisting for the last several months.  A bit of a bombshell, but my options included getting Jason to teach the course, trying to teach it and crumbling to itty bitty pieces, or actually doing a good job of it.

I was introduced to the man representing Jubilee for the weekend and then I set myself to work.

Assess the facilities, determine how much equipment I would have, plot the lesson, talk to Jason during supper and get his thoughts, and then drink myself into a stupor and spin fire with Terri.  (by the way, fire spinning is stupid amounts of fun)

Then the next day was the lesson.  Up bright and early to stretch by the dock, then a big breakfast, then a bit of prep work on the Jubilee range, and then I went to fetch my students for the morning.

I gave the history talk to the late comers on the way up, had a short talk on the bow and it's technology and was terribly nervous through the whole affair.  Once the history talk and the preliminaries were done, I got into the physical component, and then everything got easy.  Helping someone's form is easy.  Eventually Jason got one the scene and started running a couple other lines, and then before I knew it, it was all done.

I didn't know what to think of it.  In all honesty, I still don't.  I've heard nothing but good feedback from everyone, including Rish, so I guess I can take that as a sign that the job was well done.  Well done, but not done to my own standards.  The goal for next time is to be able to deliver the whole spiel without appearing so obviously nervous, and to make non-awkward conversation for the first half of the workshop.