My pointy things

My swords and stuff :)

New sword, old tricks

I bought a new longsword (after breaking the last one twice). And of course I had to test it, so I took a basic-level Fiore class for the first time in ages.

What keeps surprising me is that I learn nothing new in basic-level classes, even though it's been over a year (or two... or three...) since I attended even semi-semi-regularly. The drills are not exactly the same, but because the basics are embedded in my spine, I get everything on an intellectual level. Certainly execution lags behind reason, both because I'm out of shape and because yes, it's been a while, but I'm not learning anything as I understand learning.

I have two Big Learning Things in my life that I can't seem to shake and that I keep wanting to learn more of: swordsmanship and English. The way I now learn English is to make it work for me. I write in English, I work in English, I read in English, and every now and then I learn a new tidbit about how English works. This all keeps me interested.

With swords, I have no way of making it work for me. Going to classes is like taking beginner-level courses in a  language for the fifth time, never advancing. But I also can't take more advanced Fiore classes, because they assume an intimate familiarity with set drills and exercises that I no longer have (which is a real handicap as I truly suck at remembering and executing specific series of movements). This annoys me. Yes, I could start German style longsword, but that would be like taking the Chinese basic level class for the third time - only marginally less boring.

So how to make swordsmanship work for me? I can't teach it. I can't enlist in a 15th century mercenary army. What to do?

Anyone want to start a Sword Fight Club with me in Espoo? We could just do freeplay, at whatever speed is good for the parties concerned. We'd need an experienced arbitrator (like Guy or Ilkka or someone).

First things first

Ilkka gave private lessonettes today (an actual lesson would be longer than five minutes :)  Unsurprisingly, mine was about not fudging things together but doing separate things separately. Like, for instance, first ensuring I don't get hit, and only then hitting the other guy.

You'd think I would have learned this in nine years of swords, but then, you'd think that of a lot of stuff I've failed to learn.

Learning to fence, part II

So, it's been a while since I went to the SESH salle. In fact, I'm afraid I may have let my membership lapse by mistake, but then again, not only is the school no longer in desperate need of my euros, but I've begun to think that paying, on average, 50 euros per class may not be the best possible use of my limited funds. (Annual fee + monthly training fee comes to about that, if I manage to attend one class a month. But numbers are not my strong suite.)

Instead, I've been training (when I've been training) at the EHMS. Instead of owning a salle, EHMS has training sessions in various places around Espoo, all of them remarkably closer to my Espoo home that Jakomäki is. Even the times are more convenient (although it says something about my social life that I find Friday night a convenable time to train), especially now that there are two sessions a week. To my surprise I also find that I enjoy the slightly ad hoc feeling of the migratory school.

The training that Ilkka leads at EHMS feels very different from Guy's at SESH. On the one hand, I really enjoy the sessions at the Jakomäki salle that fill all the senses and employ all the faculties, where a class without sections on body mechanics and wrestling is incomplete, and where the warm-up alone is liable to disable you from actual training. (Yep, I'm very much out of shape and keep forgetting it.) On the other hand, EHMS is lighter, easier on the ego, less likely to induce angst about incompetence.

Most of the differences are due simply to the fact that I've trained at Jakomäki for nine years (if you consider my last three to have qualified as training) and that time has encompassed a lot of things: advancing quickly to become a free scholar and class leader, then having two children and falling back into regular student-hood with all the attendant difficulties of motivation, status and skill deficit... All accompanied by acute emotions, I'm not ashamed to admit. So whenever I step in the salle door, the past hits me in the face with almost palpable force and by the time I've changed into my black-and-whites I'm sweating with annoyance and anxiety. Not to mention envy of anyone who's been with the school for less time that I but who outperforms me, which includes almost everybody. My problems are mostly, if not exclusively, in my own head and heart, but that doesn't make them less real. At EHMS I can leave all that crap behind and just fence. And although the Bolognese style is not as thoroughly me as Fiore's longsword, I end up going more often because it's just easier on so many levels.

One concrete difference I can point to is the number of reps. Ilkka has us do lots more repetitions of each action before going on to the next technique, and at EHMS I haven't really had the experience yet of my head becoming full before the class ends. At SESH my brain usually fills up about halfway through the longsword material, and I maintain that this is not due to it being a more complicated art but rather to Guy's way of having less reps in favour of covering more material. I'm kinda dumb, and the less-brain-more-brawn is more suited to my personal learning profile.

After a months-long hiatus in training, and then basically coming to a whole new style on restarting, it's interesting to observe what happens to old skills and reflexes. Last Friday I was painfully aware of my hands having forgotten how to cut. Today, to my delight, they had begun to remember. My basic footwork is awful, but the slightly more advanced footwork is actually passable. I'm also now beginning to get back into a training mentality, instead of the "I can beat you, I want to beat you!" insanity of the past few weeks.

A sword is never just a sword

High drama available here: I believe I'm quitting swords, at least for a while. At one school my swords get lost or break, at another they're never given to me. I'm superstitious about swords, so I'm definitely taking this as a sign that it's time to give up.

This is for the best, anyway. I'm turning 39 this year. Historically, most swordsmen were dead before they ever reached that age, or crippled at the very least, by which we infer that swords come with an age limit. Also, I'm quite old enough to be a grandmother. Go ahead, picture your granny with a sword. Get my point yet?

The only thing I regret is that I have absolutely nothing to show for these nine years. I'm still the clumsy, uncoordinated fool I was when I first set foot in the Jakomäki salle. I advanced once, but it's been downhill  for a very long time, all the way down to the bottom. And I don't even have a sword because, you know, they're all either lost, broken or never received. I would have liked to keep at least one for when I'm actually a grandmother, to show little Raimo and Ritva and tell them "This used to be granny's weapon!" And their eyes would shine, and they'd go: "Oh g'wan, pull the other one!" And then I'd take out The Swordsman's Companion and show them my picture, and they'd be all "Wow, granny! You used to be really thin!"

Ah well.

Of course, I do have something to show for it all: friends. For a little while, at least, until they move on with their studies and I move on with home life and work, and we become too different to have anything to say to each other.

You know, right now I really need someone to tell me that it'll be okay, that swords are not the only thing worth having in the world.

I'll probably delete this post tomorrow, swallow my anger and go back. I always go back. I've swallowed too much crap at this point to refuse this load, big though it is. (But if you swallow too much crap, do you turn to crap inside?) (And is it possible to feel too sorry for yourself to keep living?)

EDIT: and then I found this picture. 

Centre and balance

The key to balance is finding the centre, rather like the balance point of a sword is found by balancing it on one finger and finding the place where letting go with your other hand doesn't cause the sword to fall on the floor with a godawful noise. Finding your own balance point, your centre, is similar.

I have terrible balance. Guy agrees, the instructor at the yoga class I took agrees, my mother agrees, and anyone who has seen me stumbling against doorframes or spill drinks or simply sway suddenly when standing quietly in line in class will agree. You may say this is a problem in my inner ear. I'm not saying you're not right, but improving my balance doesn't require inner ear surgery.

The key to finding my centre, my balance point, (and this is personal - you may well have your own key, and if you'd like to tell me in comments what it is I would be very interested) is figuring out what things are part of me and what things are not part of me. This is one of those Big Life Lessons for me, because I have a poor sense of personal boundaries. So if I manage to define my boundaries, say clearly for example: "That chair is on the outside; that person is on the outside; this arm is on the inside; this head is on the inside...", then my brain knows what are valid objects to try to adjust and align in order to achieve balance.

Do, or do not. There is no try.

When you're trying to aim a parry, the right frame of mind is NOT "this bit of my blade must touch that bit of her blade". The way to aim a parry is "I'll catch that with this".

The difference is one of unity. Thinking of it as a catch, a hit, a ding, or whatever your preference is, unifies the action into something that has a certain shape. That shape may involve two bits of steel approaching and then hitting each other, but this is not essential; what is essential is the general shape of the action.

Kind of like trying to touch your forefingers together with your arms straight. If you just move both fingers and try to aim one at the other, you fumble. If you just execute the action where two hands and fingers join, you just do it.

Cutting exercise

Guy taught me the new (well, not so new anymore) cutting exercise yesterday. It goes (Italian grammar notwithstanding): fendenti+sottani, mezani, punti. Simple as anything :)