Week 7 Diary Entry

An Assortment of Thoughts

"Don't do that, that's how you get dead."

I've just come home from class, week 7. Mostly revision of the different guards, parries and the various Molinelli. A couple of new faces and some returning ones, which were all nice to see.

This entry isn't going to be particularly well structured or cleverly written, so apologies in advance - I just want to try and organize my general thoughts about my progress and my feelings towards the class so far. I expect this blog will be a mixture of diary entry-type posts, as well as some considered commentary on the broader context of my experiences within HEMA. Hopefully you will find both approaches worthwhile and enjoyable.

In no particular order, here are some thoughts:

1. During our warm up exercises and stretches I have been forced to pay much more attention than I usually would to my body and its limitations. My knees in particular don't always seem to want to do the things I ask of them (which is concerning for a twenty year old), and I guess I am going to try and be really aware of not putting too much strain on them. I don't want old lady knees this early on in life!

2. A tendency to 'over-lunge' is something I am struggling with, which might explain why my legs and butt are always so sore the day after class - not that a little soreness is necessarily a bad thing. I generally take it as a sign that I've worked hard, but it's still important to pay attention to any possible warning signs. Injury in martial arts seems to mean that you'll be on the bench for weeks, which is something I'd like to avoid.

3. I am going to have to start thinking much more about my fitness regime outside of class - I have just started sparring and have found that it leaves me out of breath much sooner than I would like to admit. Cardio and strength training would both be of great benefit to my sword training so I will endeavour to get that happening much more regularly - not to mention for my general health and well-being!

4. Silly as it sounds, I worry a little about developing uneven musculature as a result of only using one arm in sabre - though I realize as a woman any muscle I gain at all will be sadly pretty minimal (real talk: I've always wanted massive guns). Should I be concerned about becoming weirdly lopsided? I have recurring mental images of some caveman type guy with one massive arm dragging along the ground and one limp, weak one. For your benefit, I have illustrated this below.

(I am a woman of many talents, I know)

A little extreme, maybe, but eventually I may have to think about tailoring some training to strengthen my non-dominant side as well.

5. Speaking of sparring (we were, a little further up) I had my second go at it this evening. I was quite hesitant to try it out last week, for reasons that I may end up expanding on in a future post - but I spent all of this past week psyching myself up to spar and - happily - I was keen to try it out again. I had more or less the same amount of success as last week (see: none) but it was still an exciting challenge. I have a lot of trouble putting all the technical skills we have been drilling for the past seven weeks into such fast-paced practice, it feels very much like I just end up flailing around a lot, hoping I get a hit in somehow (I do not).

My main goal for the moment is to try and get to a point where I can find a calm and measured head space during sparring, because at the moment my internal monologue sounds mostly like:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

Which really makes trying to remember all my parries and strikes quite difficult. However already I feel as though I've come a huge way from how panicky I was about it last week, but I know it'll be a while still until I'm completely comfortable.

6. On the more social side - we seem to be developing a nice class rapport. I think we have struck a good balance in that there's a lot of joking and piss-taking of one another, but I think we also know how to give the training and the instructor the gravitas and respect they deserve. Others may feel differently, and I can think of a couple of times where I could have stood to rein it in a little (Lord knows I can get carried away) - but overall I think we're all getting along famously and I look forward to seeing all these new relationships grow.

There were talks of post-class drinks and other such social outings, which seem like a really nice addition to what we've already got going. As I reflected on this on the drive home I realized just how little I actually know about my fellow students - so I'd like an excuse to sit down and actually chat to everyone instead of doing all our conversing with wooden sticks (not that you can't learn a lot about a person in that context, too!)

All in all, I feel good. The things I was getting wrong in the first few weeks I seem to be doing better at - but of course I'm discovering new things to work on all the time. Most importantly, I find myself really wanting to improve. As someone who, in all honesty, can be prone to apathy about most things, it's nice to have something to be earnestly dedicating a part of myself to - out of a real and honest desire to better myself and my abilities.

I consider this blog, in some respects, to be a way of encouraging myself to keep going. I am holding myself accountable here - for all to see. That's a scary thought, but it's also empowering. As a self-professed Serial Quitter of Things, it's going to be a totally new challenge to try and stick to something like this long-term.

But, for now, I don't see any reason why I wouldn't want to.