Good Day, Bad Day

As human being we'll all have our good days and bad days.  There will be days when, as a fighter, you are on point.  You get all the blocks you're looking for, your shots go exactly where you send them and the more technical/tricky shots you know just seem to execute flawlessly.  But for every day like that you'll have an off day.  A day where your feet don't move, your blocks don't seem to be in the right place and your shots just don't do quite what they need to.  In between those days is your average.  The place where you get some of your blocks, some of your swings, and your footwork is adequate.  While I wish I could give you some magic advice to make it so that you had nothing but good days... that's not what this post is about.  This is more about how to deal with your bad days, how to up your average performance, and what you can try to do to have more good days then bad ones.

Upping your game, set a high par for the course.

One of the easiest ways to not appear to have a bad day is to have a very high base level so that when you aren't on point you're still not completely failing either.  There are limits to doing this of course, if your muscles are so toasted that they can't move, or you're falling asleep on the field even having a good base isn't going to do much for you.  That's more of a personal problem to try and solve by taking care of yourself.  So let's set that state aside for the time being.  Having a strong base means having a solid set of fundamentals.  That means that you've developed good BASIC footwork, a decent RESTING guard and a set of RELIABLE swings.

When I say basic footwork what I mean is that you have enough footwork to comfortable maneuver around and away from a person.  This does not mean any of the sort of tricky shit you see vets pull like spin shots.  I'm talking about a basic, step forward to engage, step back to disengage level of footwork.  If you can grind that into your brain so it's something that you don't have to think about then you may even be able to fight in your sleep :-P.  (That was meant to be funny, please don't actually try to fight when you're on the verge of passing out).  That basic set of footwork if it's practiced often enough will become muscle memory.  That means that whenever you tell yourself to move you will execute those steps without having to think about them because it's what your brain remembers when you tell it to move.  Without having to think about it, without processing any additional information it's going to execute those steps to whatever degree you've practiced them.  It's important that when you do practice those steps (or any other skill) you do so when you're in a good state.  Practice does not make perfect.  Practice makes permanent.  You encode whatever you've done over and over again.  So if you practice doing steps wrong what you've actually done is encode that bad footwork into your head.  If you can, find a vet to train with initially so they can clean up your form while you commit the basics into muscle memory.  If you try to train and practice while you're tired it's much more likely that your footwork will be sloppy and that's what will be encoded into your brain.  Then when you later want to fix it you'll have to work TWICE as hard, because you'll have to correct for your earlier mistakes.  You can TOTALLY fix it.  I've worked with people who have had bad footwork for 5, 10, even 15 years and it's something that you can get around.  But for most people it takes time while they unlearn bad habits.

A decent resting guard is the things that you cover and protect WITHOUT having to move.  Your active guard is the blocks that you know and execute with movement.  So, having a good resting guard means you've got the minimum number of available target areas exposed at any given time.  The fewer targets your enemy has the less likely they will be able to exploit your compromised state.  If you're fighting sword and board this means having the board cover as much of your box (shoulders to hips) as you can at least on one side of your body while your sword cover the other half.  If you're a red fighter or someone with range this means making sure that your stance keeps your weapon out in front of you and in the way of your opponent whenever they try to close.  If you're a florentine fighter you get the short end of the stick but similar to a sword and board fighter each arm should try to cover the space between your hip and shoulders on both sides.  As a florentine fighter you can also tilt your chest to make it more difficult to stab you.  Since you may eventually read something else I've written (or have already) I'm talking about it now as resting guard but I also refer to it sometimes as either a passive or neutral guard.  In my head it's all the same thing, it's the guard you have when you don't have to move.  To that end, having an efficient ACTIVE guard is also useful in this regard.  If you learn to move very little when someone swings at you then even when you're having an off day the minimal motions you've learned give you less room to make mistakes.  If you've learned to make really big motions, like blocking way outside your body, then when you're off, you'll be more susceptible to feints and manipulation by your opponents.  This is true of all weapon sets regardless of what you've learned to pick up.  Economy of motion is always a useful thing to have.

Reliable swings means swings that you can 1) execute consistently and 2) don't rely on you risking part of your body in order to execute them.  As an old florentine fighter I have an encyclopedia worth of trick shots that I've developed.  Everything from variations on a single strike, to two handed maneuvers to, to shots I can only execute while in motion, or while fighting multiple opponents.  Hell, I've even developed a shot to snipe Juggernaut's leg (love you juggy) and for the most part I just use it on him.  But when it comes right down to it I probably use the same 5 or 6 shots 90% of the time.  The reason for this is because I know that I can execute those throws consistently, they have a high rate of success, and they involve minimal risk to my person when throwing them.  As an added bonus, I tend to try to use shots that don't require a ton of energy to throw.  I certainly know HOW to throw an absurdly deep shoulder wrap, but the amount of energy required for that usually means I'll pick another shot first.  So, when you develop whatever your 5 or 6 shots are to be used consistently keep those metrics in mind.  If you're a new fighter just learning how to throw wrap shots, that should not be your go to shot.  I'm not telling you to avoid learning it, after all you need to develop as a fighter, I'm just saying that should probably not be your opener.  As a sword and board fighter one of the safer swings is a leg sweep.  If you want to got for a kill shot and it's open a shoulder pick, or a side wrap tend to also be pretty safe.  A high cross, even though it's much maligned by more serious fighters, is actually not all that bad for a new fighter.  If you throw it shallow, without extending your arm too far, it's often a good way to bait the other to throw more dangerous swings without risking too much.  The problem is that many people who throw this shot overextend their arms, drop their shield out of guard to throw the swing, get wrapped up in themselves, or destroy their balance/footwork in order to execute the swing.  ...I do a few of these, so this is more of a do what I say rather then do what I do.  As it turns out, I still have bad habits too.  I am, after all, only human.  If you fight florentine learning to get good at stabbing with your off hand and wrapping with your primary hand tends to be pretty efficient, as, even though you're exposing yourself when either hand swings, you'll also have a weapon left to defend yourself if your gamble doesn't pay off.  As a florentine fighter hunting an S&B opponents sword arm tends to be pretty safe.

If your bad days get better, so do your average days.

If you've taken the time to improve your game on bad days, by developing solid fundamentals, then you've likely eliminated some of the slop or bad habits from your movements as a whole.  This in turn will make it so that your base level of fighting is higher then it was previously.  It stands to reason then that your sort of average days will also see an increase in your fighting acumen.  It means that on your average days you can practice fine tuning the skills that you have slowly beat into your brain as muscle memory.  If you notice (because you're awake enough to be present) that your footwork is off then that's something you can correct at that moment in time.  If you notice that a block isn't quite where it needs to be then that's also something you can fix.  Being present as a fighter also means that you can work on your active blocks much more while also being aware of your passive guard.  Is someone hitting you in the same place over and over again?  Why? What are they doing that's bypassing your guard?  Ask them to show you how they hit you.  Most belegrim are chill people and will tell you what they're doing if you ask them nicely.  On these days you can also tune the amount of energy you put into your shots/blocks/footwork.  On a day when you're exhausted or otherwise out of it there's a tendency to always do the least that you can possibly do when executing your shots/blocks/footwork.  That isn't necessarily bad, but often what we'll do is not actually fully execute a shot/block or footstep and wind up failing to actually complete what we set out to do.  That foot never moves, the block doesn't move to where it needed to go, or that shot just doesn't have the force it needs to score.  So, learning how to reduce the energy that's needed to execute a shot/block or footstep when you have the energy to do it right can help you become better when you're having an off day.  It also means that when you're having an on day, that additional efficiency that you've learned can help to make you more effective.

When you're on fire

During a day when you are on fire all the gains that you've made during your off days and average days will pay dividends.  Having a solid foundation to work from and learning how to move efficiently will mean that you can focus on trying things that you would have previously thought to be impossible.  When you're firing on all cylinders you can attempt shots that seem risky, that you haven't quite got the mechanics down for, or make otherwise questionable tactical choices... and it's fine.  Sure, it's not going to work out for you every time.  You'll attempt to break through that gap in the lines and still die 8 out of 10 attempts.  But 2 out of 10 times you'll make it, and learning to do that at all, under any circumstances, could mean that in one fight you turn the tide of battle.  The other thing is that if every time you think you're on point you push yourself to do the impossible, the impossible gets easier.  That gap that you were used to shooting while you were on point, suddenly you start making it across 4 out of 10 attempts.  Eventually you make it across 6 out of 10 attempts.  At this point you can now start trying to do that thing when you're having just an average day because you've learned the muscle memory for doing it successfully by trying it over and over again at a time when you were on point.  There's nothing wrong with failure.  There's nothing wrong with missing a shot, missing a block, failing to be standing in the right place.  Especially if you're having an on day, the next fight, the next attempt you may well succeed.  If you don't then at least your bread and butter mechanics are still working out for you.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take

Trying to push yourself to master some new trick shot you've been slowly rolling over in your head when you can barely stand is probably not a good idea.  The things that are causing you to be barely standing are likely to mean that doing something you're not practiced at will lead to you hurting either yourself (if it's a sufficiently mechanically difficult shot) or injuring your opponent (if it requires a great deal of precision to have it land well).  So if you can barely stand, don't try for something crazy.  That having been said you won't learn and you won't improve if you don't push yourself.  There is nothing wrong with failing, especially if you do so in a spectacular fashion.  Have a sense of humor about it.  Be in a good enough mood that you can handle not being the hero, or not being on point.  It's how you get better.  Seek out death when you're having your on days by doing things that push you out of your comfort zone.  You can go back to doing well, to being mediocre when you're having an average day.  Learning to do something that you're uncomfortable with at first when you're on point will lend you the muscle memory and the confidence to do that same thing when you're not having an especially good day.

Do it, but do it safely

Always exercise your best judgement when learning to do something you aren't practiced with.  If it's a new shot don't throw it full force immediately, but rather throw a slightly lighter version of the shot while you work out the kinks.  Once you've got the mechanics right so you aren't likely to injure yourself and your precision to the point where it lands in the same place consistently then you can add more speed/force to the swing.  If you're trying to learn how to do a shoulder pick for the first time angle the shots as it goes in so that even if you screw up you don't wind up beaning someone dead in the face because your 1 to 5 became a 12 to 6 after you or your opponent moved.  By having the shot come in at a 1 to 7 angle the worst case scenario for a head shot usually becomes a strike to the neck or side of the jaw.  If you're trying to learn something that's mechanically difficult that may lead to you injuring yourself, make sure that you warm your body up first.  Practice that new shot at greatly reduced speed first to make sure you've got the body mechanics correct before you throw it at full speed.  When you are ready to start throwing it at full speed first throw it at half speed to make sure that when you add force to your mechanics you still don't injure yourself.  If you have a pel to work with then practice on the pel first before you start throwing a new shot on people.  Also, never throw a shot with 100% of your available power.  Always save some of the power you can generate to put the breaks on your swing if you realize that it's not going where you want it to.

That's all I got for now.  See you in a week.