Yup, this blog is for reals still going! It's just that life has been busy and when sleep is that hard, so are blog updates.
Here we are, though! Let's get caught up.
In my world of rubber meets the road fencing, I won this year's King's and Queen's Rapier Championship. The tournament was fantastically well run, and was full of good fencing, good people, and was as problem-free a tournament as I've ever seen. People were excellent to each other, fought their best, and kept it clean. I was so excited to get to fight my buddy Devillin (who was chosen as Queen's Champion, which is great!) in the finals, and thrilled to get to fight the fights that we had. (Plus, people got video, so I've been able to re-watch them ad-nauseum and critique my Fabris form. This isn't a good idea for long term mental health. Obsess over videos of your fights in moderation!)
In the world of I Do Research Papers About Martial Arts, I entered my paper on applying Fabris' system to the buckler in St. Elegius back in November, incorporated feedback from that, and entered it into King's and Queen's A&S Champions this past weekend. While I didn't make it to the final round, I am so stoked that Doroga - whose blog is over here and you should check it out - was selected as the Queen's A&S Champion for his paper on Destreza. Big congratulations to him for that!
I got some very good feedback from from the judges about my paper (and I was very happy that while the rubric forms were handed out to all the entrants, feedback was delivered verbally and allowed for good discussions over it); primarily structural issues with it, which are definitely good to hear about from a fresh set of eyes. It was interesting to hear that the judges would have liked to see some secondary sources, as opposed to just the primary ones that I had - we had a good laugh over how it's almost always the other way around. I think a paper with a broader topic would have been more interesting for the judges, but I had made the active decision to walk into a narrow but deep topic instead and focus on Fabris. It hamstrung me somewhat on being able to write to the rubric, so that is what it is. While I would have liked to have done better in the competition, folks were very enthusiastic about my research and it went over very well - so I'm pleased with all that. Also, I'm just ridiculously excited for my friend Doroga and he deserves every bit of praise for his selection as champion! And the first martial A&S champion in the East, no less! This is going to be a great year.
Also, while it wasn't martial work, I want to take the moment to congratulate Elena Hylton for winning King's A&S Champion! Her webpage is here and there's buckets of amazing stuff up there.
I'm planning on hitting Aedult Swim this coming weekend, and while I'm not teaching any formal classes, I'm absolutely always going to be up for working on Fabris or other Italian rapier plays and such with folks, troubleshooting problems, and otherwise swordnerding out.
...maybe I'll look into a formal block of time for doing that at Mudthaw next month? I'll have to see what the schedule for the day looks like.
That's about that! I'll hopefully be able to get back to more regular updates now that the sun is coming back. I've got some headspace thoughts percolating, which could turn into a post any day now.
