Stamford Bridge

My kit for this weekend is darn near finished. With the progress that I have made, I should be able to fight in it at Crapaud tomorrow night. In the spirit of these two coming events, I am going to write about The Battle of Stamford Bridge, and the inspiration I found in reading the tale. These are the words that I will speak at the opening of Crapaud. For those who don't know, Stamford Bridge was where the Saxons beat the Vikings days before the Battle of Hastings between the Saxons and Normans.

"With the battle of Hastings upon us this weekend, I come prepared today as I will be this Saturday, in the semblance of a Norman persona (as best as I could with minimal time and resources). Many, if not all of you know the history of the battle, as well as the battle only days before. The battle at Stamford Bridge. As I did research to complete this kit I became inspired by a tale of this earlier battle.

So the story goes, a lone Norseman and his axe stood on the bridge to delay the Saxon army from crossing. The unnamed Norseman was said to have bested 40 Saxons before being cut down from beneath the bridge, by a spear. Weather this tale is true or not is unknown, but it is stories like this that draw me closer to this hobby of ours. Sacrificing his life, in a feat of heroics, so that his Viking brothers could organize, and have a possibility of defeating the Saxons.

Despite the outcome of the battle, I toast such heroics. May the coming battle bring us closer to our ancient brothers in arms, that we may have the chance to celebrate the heroes of history, that they may be remembered for all time."

Cheers!

One Gallon in a 16oz Glass

So, Monday practice ended up not happening for me. A little bit of mis-communication lead me to leave 5 minutes before the guys from out of area showed up, after waiting about 40 minutes. Shit happens I guess. I ended up doing some spear work, and pell work with the sword at home for a while. This week has been up and down for me as far as working out goes, its been difficult to do anything too extensive since the wife has been working closing shifts since Wednesday. No worries though, I am having a couple poeple over tomorrow to do some work to get ready for Hastings. Then Monday practice, Thursday Crapaud, Saturday Hastings. I need to remember that I can only do so much right now, and that my focus is fun, not martial perfection. I'll do what I can when I can, and I'm hoping that next year's tourney and war season will be more active for me, depending on our situation of course.

On a lighter note, I had my first EMT class on Tuesday. A packed lecture class in the afternoon, contrasted with a 14 (out of 16) person lab class that evening was actually kinda fun. It looks like its going to be a challenging class, but I think it will go well. Its funny watching the kids just out of highschool that are treating this class like all their others, not paying attention, texting durring lecture, hoping to just pass to get their cert. Makes me glad that there is a 50% drop rate. News flash, skills for saving lives are a bit more important to learn than skills for writing a book report. Get a 75% on your english paper, you still pass. Get a 75% in EMT, yeah, you might get your cert, but not knowing 25% of your practical skills might get a patient killed, or compromise your or your coworkers safety. Anyway, its a long overdue class for me. At this point, if I get work because of it, 3 days a week or so, and the wife finds a 9-5, life with a child will become much easier. And we should have more time to spend doing the things we like to do (SCA being one of those).

Today is my dad's birthday (happy b-day dad, even though you most likely won't see this part of the WWW), gonna spend some time with him and my mom tonight. We may bbq on most every special occasion, but its damn worth it every time, good food never gets old. Hope he enjoys his day, and his gifts, and I hope I am in as good of shape as him at 56. Many more to come, old man.


Cheers.

Progress

Thursday I decided not to workout, partially because I didn't have a bunch of spare time, so that made it convenient to take a day of rest. Friday I was stuck at my parents house when it was 100 outside, and I didn't go home because my truck has no AC, I don't want to subject my kid to that. Saturday I hit 1000 spear thrusts in a day, and tried a recipe for a drink to keep my muscles from being too sore. Today, I feel tons better than I did on Tuesday. I need to perfect the drink recipe, but it works.
I'm thinking leg work and 250+ with the spear, maybe a little sword work on the pell. Practice tomorrow night, so I don't want to go too crazy.
Must find time to work on garb and gauntlets.

The Workout

So far so good. Hit 500+ tonight. I put the plus in there because sometimes I loose track, or I work on combos to try something. Really, I do more than the number I put up there, but those are the ones I track. I am getting a serious workout, and hopefully this new style works out for the upcoming event. It is a lot of fun right now, but I have yet to actually fight someone like this. We will see next monday.
Until monday I will add a little bit of armor here and there to get used to the feel, and the weight. I am actually going to try to wear my chain shirt for this. I'm freakin crazy, the thing is 16g galvanized round ring, buted, it weighs about 30lbs. I need a flat ring, welded shirt to fight in, but don't have the $500 to buy one. It's hard to drop that kind of cash on armor that doesn't really provide any protection in the SCA.
Plans for the workout? 500+ spear thrusts every other day, 250+ and a leg workout on the off days, no workout on practice nights. I really want to hit 1000 per day on the last few workout days before the event, It would be nice to know that I made some progress in 3 weeks.
Stretch, food, shower, beer, bed... peace!

Heraldry Revisited

I like this, simple, effective. It gets the point across I think. I think I got to complex before, I'm a simple kinda guy, ya know?

What to do...

What do I do when there is no practice? Well, most of the time, not much. The past few days however have been quite busy.

There is an event coming up that is based on the battle of Hastings, 1066ce, and a few of us are working on accurate kits to attend. I've got a workable "cover" for the stuff that is not period, and have been working on garb and armor. I really hope I can get this low profile coat of plates done in time, I think it will work much better that what I am currently wearing. The other thing I have been doing is toying with the idea of fighting the Hastings battles with a more period weapon style, spear and shield.

While not as much an effective style of fighting in the SCA, it looks way cool and period. Also, since I have been playing with the 5 1/2 foot spear I made, it feels like its going to be a very fun style. That could change when I actually get on the field though. I don't think I'm going to kill too many people with it, I think I'm gonna get killed a lot, but I don't really care.

I have about three weeks to get my spear arm in to battle ready condition. That in mind, I am going to take it to practice on monday nights, and I set a goal for myself to do 100 spear thrusts a day minimum so that I might be ready. Funny enough, I just got done with about 100+ tonight and I am feeling soreness in areas of my body that I didn't know could be sore. Who knew that I used the upper half of my left butt cheek when I fight like this...

With hope that my prowess will honor my inspiration on the battlefield. Time for a beer, and to watch Troy. Cheers.

**Edit**
I'm adding this, after I have done another 100 spear thrusts. After 200, my arm feels a little burn, I can feel it in my delts, and my upper left glut is getting used to the soreness. I think this is just the begining, I need to push myself more if I want to get better. I will aim high, to 1000, and see where I and up. What's the big deal? It's only one more 0, right?

**Edit**
After 500, my heart rate is up a bit more, to the level of fighting at practice. My arm is beginning to feel tired, like "gonna be sore tomorrow" tired. My shoulder is getting a workout for sure. The inside of my thighs is starting to feel it, once I figured out how to switch muscle groups for the thrust (which is going to help me a ton on the field). My hand is starting to feel a hot spot on the outside, where the spear rests on full extension (and I am figuring out how to switch the spot on the hand that it rests, so I don't end up with a blister). And yeah, I know I can do more, I have had a few beers by now, and not really in the best condition to finish the full 1000. But I know I can, within a few days I will. I have to, it is what I need.

From Monday

I don't know if I have written about this, but I'm not going to go back and look at all my blogs to check. Our local practice is a small one. Myself and two other guys are the regular locals, the ones that show up fairly regularly. We have a handful of people who show up now and again, a few of them local, and some of them from outside the area. I am very grateful to those who drive a distance just to hang out and play with us, as the price of gas right now makes it hard for anyone to want to drive anywhere. This is all better than not having a local practice at all, but I want more. Honestly, we are lucky to have the monthly tournament, Crapaud, at our local practice spot.

Maybe its because I am feeling very motivated to learn to fight better. I am excited at the possibility of going to events and not looking like a stooge, having a lot of fun in armor, and just playing the game in general. I would love to have more time to go to other practices, and a better gas mileage car so it wasn't so darned expensive. The more I fight, the more I want to fight with new people. And I think the past two practices I have been to has really brought that out in me.

This week, I thought it was just going to be the three of us, but we had two visiting fighters from Vinhold (a nearby barony) show up as well. Something just made the night so much fun, and I don't know how it was different than too many other nights, other than I got to fight someone I hadn't before. I was even having breathing problems, and overheating issues, but I didn't let that get me down. Another guy got hit in a bad spot on the inside of the elbow, and he shook it off and went right back at it. This really is just good 'ol clean fun (maybe not clean, but fun for sure).

So, I have spent time reflecting this week, and working on my upcoming 1200 Danish baltic crusader kit. I got a pell set up in the garage tonight, and working on it for a bit really made me see the light, I need to make that a habbit. Oh, a pell is a stationary object that we hit to practice on, usualy not in armor, mostly a workout thing. I might hit a practice tomorrow in Vinhold, not sure yet, making it to next payday is going to be a pain and gas still sucks. The Hastings event is coming up in a few weeks and it is nearby, I really should go, it's going to be fun.

Next Crapaud I think I'm going to make it a point to meet more of the other fighters. I'm not good at that because I'm usually nervous about fighting in the actual tournament. The pick up fights after I get knocked out are really fun though, that's mostly the reason I go. Maybe eventually I'll get over my anti-social side that seems to reveal itself when I am around more than 2 or 3 people I don't know. Ten years later and my highschool mentality is still f@#king me up.

Anyway, back to drinking a beer, and waiting for more people to post videos and pics of this year's Pennsic. Cheers.

Bad Blogger

Ok, so Im not a good blogger. I'm a lot better at reading the few that I do read. But, in my defense I haven't been fighting recently. I took a nice shot on my unarmored shoulder blade at the principality war and got to thinking that it might not be a good idea to fight without medical insurance.

I'm better now though. It only took about two weeks to heal back to normal, but I still didn't have insurance for another month or so after that. Coupled with low attendance at monday practice and not a whole lot of extra cash for gas, and there we have a recipe for "slacker." I think I'm discovering the ever evolving, never ending quest for better armor too. Which means I'm slightly dissatisfied with my current kit setup. Part of that has to do with lack of time and money to make the changes.

Last week though, I went to practice. We had a gentleman out from the east kingdom that was looking for a practice during his visit. It wasn't a huge turnout, but the fighting was fun. I pushed myself decently, and ended up with sore leggs at the end of the night. It was a good workout overall, and a good time.

So, to make up for my interwebs slackyness, I decided to show everyone how my kid is doing. His current lessons include pillage and plunder. He has two swords that he loves to play with, and his faitful steed. I need to make him a shield soon, even if it ends up hanging on the wall for a while. He's a brute, every day a new bump or briuse. We are getting close enough to the terrible two's that he has begun the tantrums, which seem more dramatic since he flails about on a hardwood floor.

I need a job, to bad the economy sucks right now. Oh well, hopefully I'll blog again before next month.

cheers