ts all about the violence.  So sayeth Count Daffyd.  Heavy weapons combat is about the need for violence, both the application of and the distribution of.

Fighter practice tonight was unusual.  The cool weather allowed everyone a lot of excess energy I think.  I know that recent stresses in work, the northern regional mailing list, and confusion regarding the date of fighter
practice made it hard for me to get into practice at first.  Gilyan commented that it looked like everyone was out fighting really seriously. Not sure why, but I think the subconscious stress of the week translated into my fighting.  Angus even came up once and asked if I was "OK".  I was like "Yeah, why?" and he just said it looked like I was mad.  I wasn't but I wonder why I appeared that way.

I was late to practice, and most everyone was in armour by the time I got in.  Gunhilda and Oxlade were fighting while I put on armour.  Angus and I warmed up with some mace and shield.  It was unusual enough for us to get some practical use out of it.  However, we are both very much used to our sword lengths, and there was a lot of Whiff shots tonight.

After that Ivo came out and I fought with him some.  Ivo has a big ole Ansteorran war door (2x4) and its really hard to get around. There were a couple of nice kills I got, but that shield is tough.  I still was not really into the fights though.  I was moving and fighting, but the joy and thrill just wasn't there.  It wasn't really until I got in a bunch of fights with Oxlade that I started to feel the joy.

Oxlade and I had a bunch of fun fights.  My new fighting style requires lots of lateral movement and combinations to be truly effective, and Oxlades style counteract each other effectively.  Oxlade has a tight controlled counter-punching style.  So I would dance (well as much as a fat man can) around and throwing shots, while Oxlade would be turning blocking and throwing back slot shots, rips, and the occasional wrap.  All in all it was like an violent chess match.  Fairly enjoyable really.

I took a break, and Ox and Ivo got some fights in,  then I switched back in and got some more fights in.  Once again, felt like I was fighting "OK", but just was not hitting the "Turbo mode" switch that makes the fights extra enjoyable.

Finally, I took a break, and Ox went out and got a last round in with Ivo. Ox's sword  (which was swwwwweeeeeet)  lost its lanyard and he borrowed mine that I traded Wiggen for.  Well they have this big ole drawn out knock down shield bash fight, and in the end Ox fires this ferocious shot that I though was just going to crush Ivo.  I hear this CRACK  and I see about the last six inches of my sword broken off and hanging from the splinters of the sword.  So we decided that was it for the night.

I had a talk with Gilyan and we started discussing fighting and what it was about.  I made some comments about how I like the fighting to look, and she said

"Aha, so its not about the violence," says she. "Its about how the fight looks."

"Well, no.", I reply.  "Its about the application of violence.  The application of violence should be controlled, for that is when it reaches maximum effectiveness.  The engine of an automobile is a violent place, with thousands of explosions happening per second.   Yet, the harnessing of that violence is a thing of beauty. "

Btw, my paragraph is a condensed version of all the discussion we had. Sort of the Reader's Digest Version.

We left the conversation there, but I've thought more about it.  Fighting is about violence, but a Tasmanian devil style of violence is in general a wasteful one.  Just from watching Bugs Bunny, who's well timed clever violence would outperform the raw violence of his opponents, one can see that the goal is in the precision application of violence to accomplish the goal desired.

Oh well, gonna leave it there.

Except for these pictures of my sword: (click to blow up)

and the close up (also click to see larger version):

Ld. Jean Paul de Sens

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