Dakao v. 2.0 - The Crooked Cut

Hooligan Handling 101

Ξ April 28th, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Fitness / HEMA, SCA |

Well, I’ve been to A&M twice now. Old college rivalries aside, I like visiting. It’s close and the SCA student group there is moderately active.

I’m finding that I still have a lot to learn about keeping a class focused and on track. I don’t have a clear progression of drills and exercises that build upon one another. I get the distinct feeling that I’m not conveying the point (yuk yuk) to the students.

I.33 was easy to teach, but rapier requires a bit more thinking. I do appreciate the Aggies putting up with me, though, as I continue in my probational instructor period. A couple of them have had little light bulb moments, which let me know that I’m not totally mucking it up.

After practice, we went out for food afterwards (Bennigan’s and Antonio’s pizza), talked not-so-idly about plans for a port-O-castle with flushies and a dungeon (with midgets), and watched Dangerous Beauty.

We’ll see how the summer and fall shape up, schedule-wise.

All kinds of green

Ξ April 18th, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Work |

Well, I’m still looking for the princess whose puckered lips will turn me into a svelte, slick, banjo-playin’, tune-hummin’, porcinephile amphibian.

…But, I got a new job. Pay is modest (only 3.2 on the green-O-meter), but I really like the environment (har har), the team I’m working with (7.6 green-O-meter), and the company’s overall direction (8.5 green-O-meter). So check out www.greenmountain.com, sign up, and give ‘em my name as agent. You can go to www.consumerchoice.com and www.powertochoose.org to see what other companies’ rates are for electricity. No, we are not the cheapest. Yes, we are getting cheaper (cheaper than Reliant, for sure!). And we’re the only company in TX to buy all our power from nonpolluting, renewable sources.

Now that I’m done pimping my job, I can share the upsides of it. I’ll be working the International festival and Earth Day related events, and there’s the Dragonboat festival coming up next month. Can’t really roam around, but it’ll be fun getting out to places that I don’t see from my workshop. Goon ta hafter leirn the tricky ways o’ navigatin’ doon toon, a’ weil.

Plastic carnage

Ξ April 11th, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Fitness / HEMA |

On Sunday, we had an all-day practice. David taught sidesword and Italian rapier in the early part of the day. Kevin, Tristan, Candace, Jed, and Hallie were there.

Then, as the afternoon light waned, we set up my cutting post and filled plastic jugs with water. Tristan and Jed both had some pretty positive experiences with cutting with the longsword. I walked both of them through the basic Zornhau from rightside vom Tag, to ensure that they wouldn’t lop off a leg or something.

David spent a frustrating while working on cuts fendente and tondo with his sidesword. We speculated on various reasons why his cuts weren’t working very well. Peak impulse at contact, angle of the strike, edge geometry, sharpness, and a couple other reasons (in descending order of my preference) were all fingered as suspect causes.

The longsword was much more forgiving and gratifying to use. We all slaughtered bottles galore with it. I worked on cutting from guards and ending in guards. Totally wiffed with several zwerchhau cuts, but I nailed my krumphau cuts just fine. Didn’t feel quite up to practicing follow-up cuts (i.e. cutting twice on the same target), b/c I wasn’t feeling stable enough.

Gulf Wars XV

Ξ April 11th, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Fitness / HEMA, SCA |

Impressions?

Wet.

Stimulating.

Exciting.

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