The benefits (and perils) of cross gaming

I won't belabor that I've been around for a while anyone who reads this regularly already knows that.  For those who don't it's been 13 years.  I've pretty happily given myself to Belegarth as my primary sport.  But, in the interim I've played LARP (using the ragdoll system), as well as a few specific variants underneath that.  I've played some amtgard both at local parks and at more intense things like events/tournaments.  I've spent some time doing lightsaber combat, I've done some sparring with wooden shinai as well.  I haven't done any fencing, saber or armored combat like SCA or ARMA... although I've participated in some ARMA classes related to the proper use of German long sword.  I have also spent some time doing all sorts of random martial arts from karate to jiu jitsu for short periods of time.  It's always been my perception that a varied background better prepares you to be a good fighter.

Step 1: don't be a dick

It's important to remember that when you approach a new combat system that you treat it with the respect that it's due.  You are coming onto THEIR turf to try out THEIR thing.  If you want to do YOUR thing on YOUR time, you can do so.  Don't try to change THEIR thing and make it YOUR thing.  That's just being shitty.  Explain to the people running the thing that you are new to the system and try to make sure that you ask when you don't understand things.  Generally speaking if you fight well and are courteous most places will be happy to have you.  When adapting to their rules don't tell them that their rules are stupid (even if it's true).  Take the time to learn their rule system in its entirety and ask questions to clarify any grey areas (because there are always grey areas).  When you think you've got the system well in hand spend some time sparring with another person who knows the system well to get used to the new rules.

Not too hot

Additionally their hit threshold may vary from the sport you are used to.  Belegarth, in general, expects more force behind their hits then does Amtgard.  In Belegarth hits from Amtgard that would be perfectly fine in Amtgard are going to be called lite.  If you don't understand that higher hit threshold then you'll think all of your opponents are cheating.  To be fair, some of them may be, as with anything there are going to be people who are less then honorable.  But it's important to start with charity and assume the best then to immediately feel victimized and assume that you're being singled out.  When in doubt, ask questions and people will tell you, you just need to swing harder.  Ask them to demonstrate what a valid hit would be and then calibrate appropriately.  Also realize that things that aren't legal in your sport might be legal in their sport.  If you switch from amt to bel you'd be very surprised to suddenly be either shield kicked while prone or shot directly in the face.  But both of those things are legal in belegarth and very much a part of the game.  Understanding these distinctions is what allows you to adapt to the transition easily rather then becoming extremely offended about how the opponent is either angry at you or trying to harm you.

Not too cold

The reverse case is also equally valid.  You want to make sure that you aren't throwing shots with too much force, or to target zones are illegal.  Head shots when fighting with shinai are totally legal, but you're also required to wear a facemask to prevent anyone from being stabbed directly in the eye as getting a wooden sword to that target location could easily kill you.  Throwing the equivalent shot in belegarth is not only a dick move but also dangerous for the other person.  Head shots happen and the weapons are padded enough that theoretically this should be fine, but, put enough force behind a swing and you can still give opponents concussions.

You also don't want to come off as inherently angry or over aggressive.  If a bel fighter throws bel hits at an amt event they may very well leave bruises on their targets even if they aren't intending to throw any particularly vicious swings.  (Don't get me wrong we do this to each other, it's just that in bel we know what we're getting into).  If you do that on an amt field you may injure people as they haven't been fighting in such a way as to take those hits, and generally speaking they're just going to have a really shitty opinion of you.  This goes back to sparring with someone beforehand.  Have them demonstrate what a good hit is and then tone your hit taking and the force of your own throws down (or up) to that level.

Safety First

In each fighting system the rules are there for a reason.  It's important to make sure that you follow the rules as written in order to make sure that everyone stays safe.  As one example of this in larp systems arrows are often made out of nerf rockets or other similarly bored things like a roll of cardboard on the backside.  If this comes back at someone because it bounced off a target it's not really a big deal.  On the other hand in bel we use real arrows with a modified padded head.  If the rear end of that arrow strikes someone there's a very good chance they'll get impaled because we haven't done anything to the knock.  Since it's made form plastic it's not a danger to most of the time but if someone swings at it to knock it out of the air it means you've got a knock spinning through the air at eye height and that's just bad news for everyone.  So understand and follow the rules, if not for your own sake then for the sake of those around you.

Friends with Benefits

Forcing yourself to have to tune your hit taking threshold up and down is a really useful skill set to learn.  Being able to be in tune with your body and feel the feedback from all your fights will improve your hit taking overall not just in any specific system.  Fighting with a different hit threshold will also force you to develop more control over your swings so that you can add or remove force while still throwing the shots you're used to throwing.  The ability to modulate how much force is behind your swing is incredibly useful.  The musculature that this builds in your arms means that pulling head shots is easier and it also means you can provide additional force for a thicker opponent without having to resort to swinging wildly.  As different systems make different assumptions about how to fight you'll also likely learn new skill sets or new shots.  Not all of them may transfer but some of them will.  Transferring from bel to amt taught me a lot of holes in my guard that are only really present when you move fast enough.  Learning to block at those locations meant that when I went back to bel I was harder to hit.  When going from amt to bel I notice that many fighters in amt do not attempt to block for their legs, so leg shots, as well as hip wraps disguised as leg shots become super easy.  The first person to figure out that I'm taking those swings in amt is going to suddenly have a much easier time killing me :-P.

That guy...

Assuming you've followed all the stuff I've said above there shouldn't be any.  The downsides of cross gaming come when someone has done it poorly.  If you do it poorly then you develop a poor reputation for yourself in that particular sport.  If you aren't taking hits because you haven't adapted to a new hit threshold then you're a cheater.  If you haven't toned up your hits to the required force then you're bad.  If you haven't toned down your shots to the right threshold then you can also be an asshole, a brute, etc.  If you don't follow their rules then you're rude and disrespectful.  If you don't clarify and work to understand their system then they'll assume you don't care.  All of this is bad reputation and makes you look bad.  But what makes it worse is that if you are the first person from your fighting system to interact with them they're going to assume everyone else is like you.  So not only do you ruin it for yourself but you ruin it for anyone who comes after you, by leaving it up to them to have to fix the bad perceptions you've not placed on your system.

So go out, have fun and see what all is out there.  You may discover in your travels that you've been in the wrong family all along :-P.

Cross Gaming. Let's do this.

Bel -> Amt

This is my first lazy attempt to lay out the differences between the different sports. I'll probably re-tinker it later. For the time being though a quick guide to the differences in amtgard for belegarth fighters. I'll post other ones later and try to do reverse translations at a time when it's not 1am :-P.

Terminology

In ampgaard you do not have heralds. The closest equivalent is a reeve but in addition to doing things like make the battles go they're also responsible for the general rules adjudication in the case of any of the special rules that may exist. As in Belegarth make sure you listen to the reeves. In belegarth we have a full set of colors for various types of weapons; blue, green, red, yellow, black, etc. In amtgard you do not have any kind of color classification. The main reason for this being that all weapons do one point of damage to a target location, slash or stab. This also means that being stabbed twice, regardless of target location, will kill you, in much the same way that two slashed limbs will. In some scenarios they do distinguish between type of weapon relative to the class that's using it. In this case weapons are split up into daggers, short, long, great and projectile, based on the length or type of the weapon.

Culture

If a player cannot place their dead knee in contact with the ground, the foot of the wounded leg must remain stationary, and must immediately notify the opponent by stating “posting” in order to avoid dropping to his/her knees. Rules related to dead legs still apply as they do in Bel. Shields must be wielded in order for it to block a shot. Shots to an unwielded shield would count as if the shield was not there. Amtgard is NOT a full contact sport in the same way that bel is and as such body to body contact is prohibited. Shield bashing is also out so no shield to body contact from ANY direction. Shield manipulation is still allowed so long as you are ONLY manipulating your opponents shield and not knocking them around. Forcing a player’s weapons against them with your body or shield is prohibited. Weapons cannot be trapped or grabbed by body contact. That means that if a person stabs past you and misses you cannot bind their weapon. Also note that swatting a person's weapon aside in a deliberate attempt to manipulate it is at the very least discouraged if not illegal. To that end the usual trick of parrying a red weapon to the side and pinning it to the ground with one hand is also out.

That's all for now

I'll write up the other direction another time, as well as start adding primers for other sports as we run into them. For now I hope to see some of you at Saturday (today/tomorrow's) tournament.

On starting

Starting anything is hard.  Even in writing posts getting from one sentence to the next is often simply the result of trying to string enough words together so that I can reach the end of that sentence.  But even when I'm trying to ineptly put to words, muscle memory and images of fighting from my head down on the page, having simply decided that I would try is often enough to fill the page.  Eventually it gets easier, eventually, having successfully phrased part of an idea the rest of it starts to flow.  If only starting to learn how to fight were as easy.

The problem with trying to learn how to fight is that the usual process for learning something doesn't really work as well.  To some degree it's all just trial by fire and you learn how to do the right thing by being punished repeatedly for doing the wrong thing.  The usual process for learning something new by breaking it down into its component pieces and then working through them one at a time, correcting your mistakes as you go, doesn't work out on a fighting field.  There is no such thing as learning PART of combat.  As soon as lay on is called you need to instantly be able to move your feet, swing your weapon, block incoming shots, and take hits that someone lands on you.  That is the MINIMUM requirement to be able to be out on the field and actually participating in the stuff going on.  You can of course stand there, fail to block, fail to swing and simply wait for someone to hit you but then you aren't REALLY being a part of the action.

Now there's something to be said for the difference between going out and having fun as opposed to taking the game seriously by trying to get better.  No one is under any obligation to learn how to be an effective fighter and even when you have learned to be an effective fighter you aren't supposed to stop having fun.  If anything learning how to master yourself and your weapons should add to the joy you experience from fighting.  There are some people who never learn to swing a sword because they're casual fighters.  They run around behind people and try to back other fighters because they have neither the skill nor the confidence to fight them face to face.  That's fine.  Don't demonize those people.

But assuming a person does actually want to become proficient at fighting then we go back a paragraph.  There's a certain base level of skill that's required to really even play regardless of a person's level of effectiveness and as a new person it's all pretty overwhelming.  That having been said there are things you can do that will make that transition a little bit less painful for the new person.

Ignorance is Bliss

The first piece being that if a person doesn't need to know about a rule or other bit of information in order to participate out on the field as it currently is, DO NOT TELL THEM.  That doesn't mean don't teach someone safety calls because from my perspective those are always relevant; what this means is that if a person is stepping onto the field for the first time and there is no armor, you don't need to explain to them the armor rules.  Likewise if there are no reds, they don't need the red rules right then and there.  If there are no projectiles, skip that bit for the time being.

This also extends to teaching a person new skills.  While someone like myself has a wealth of information to draw on when teaching new skills, unloading 13 years of theory on someone about how and why you hold your arm a certain way for the guard, is not going to be helpful to them.  This doesn't mean that you can't answer questions if prompted, but at least initially just teach them the bit they need to know (eg, put your arm HERE to be in proper guard).  When they've mastered the skill then you can talk more about why you had them learn it that way and go over the variations that exist for that particular skill.  Giving a person a PARTIAL explanation for why you're teaching them a particular thing may also be helpful when trying to correct a bad habit or bad behavior, but again the full nuance of every possible alteration to a block/strike/bit of footwork is going to be too much.

Be Transparent

The counter point to leaving out bits and pieces of information is make sure you let the other person know that you're leaving things out.  There's nothing quite like a vet ambushing a new person with a bunch of rules they don't know about to kill them.  Having extra rules thrown on at the last second is confusing and all frustrating when you're trying to get a grasp on how exactly fighting works.

Similarly when teaching someone a shot/block/bit of footwork make sure that you're clear that the thing you're teaching is your own style.  Everyone has their own subtly different style and if you want to teach someone that then good on you for contributing to the community.  The danger however is that multiple people try and teach someone different styles which leads to your new person becoming very confused.  Generally speaking ask them to show you what they know and then tweak that, rather then try to have them start from scratch.  If you can, keep teaching them the thing they already knew, even if it's not how you do things.  If you are going to teach them something different, then again, clarify that it's your version.

K.I.S.S.

Keep it simple.  Many bits of fighting have a ton of variation and subtlety to them that can take time to unravel.  As it stands even with a good understanding of the rules there are still some grey areas in there.  (You'll notice we've got a project to try and clean that up some :-P).  Whenever possible try to reduce the amount that you need to teach someone at any given time.  This is different from simply leaving things out.  I'm not saying for instance, don't teach a person footwork because it's too complex, I'm saying teach them the simplest, easiest steps first.  Teach them how to do one step well before teaching them how to do any other step and only after they've mastered that first step do you teach them variations on it and then other steps.  Yes, I know, it's tedious.  But getting good fundamentals is as important as it is time consuming.

A person over the course of their fighting career is going to benefit much more from having learned to do one step well then they will have from learning how to throw one trick shot.  Sure, that trick shot might let them beat all other new people, but new people don't stay new people for long.  Either they drop out or they get better which means that the trick shot your new person learned won't work for long regardless.  So be patient.  Give them time.  Let them work on each thing slowly rather then trying to do everything well all at once.

Out of the frying pan

Sometimes the best way to learn is just to do.  When trying to teach someone a new thing it is acceptable to punish them for the same mistake over and over again.  If I am teaching someone to guard their arm and I see a chicken wing, I'm going to shoot for that shot every time.  My goal with this is not to try to leave a bruise or otherwise injure the person from repeated strikes, but rather to isolate a particular skill (guarding their arm) and to force them to try to learn that thing by making it relevant to their survival over and over again.  Typically I'll teach a person how to protect part of their body and then ONLY swing for that target zone until I can't hit it any more.  This will likely STILL leave bruises because over the course of a fight getting hit in the same place over and over again does that.  My hope however is that teaching a person to guard that area while pulling my shots some will make them less likely to get trucked in that target zone in the future.  There's something to be said for training but eventually you also have to turn that into doing.  There's a real difference between knowing the theory behind something and being able to actually execute on it.

Swiss army knife

There are MANY distinct skills that are required to be even a moderately competent fighter and many many more in order to become a highly skilled fighter.  They don't come all at once, and each individual skill still requires that you work at it.  As one of the more notorious examples, hit taking is actually a skill related to fighting.  To be able to judge where you were hit, how hard you were hit, what you were hit by, when you were hit by that thing and then to respond in the appropriate manner as instantaneously as possible is by no means a trivial thing to do.  Asking a person to do this when they are also full of adrenaline just makes it even harder because adrenaline as a mechanism in our system has been designed so that we aren't supposed to feel pain.  This skill starts out on a fundamental level at being able to notice you got hit and where so that you can at least eventually take that damage.  As your skill at doing this thing increases you can take the damage faster and more accurately notice where it hit you in addition to how hard.  Once you've got that piece you can figure out when you got hit in the sequence of swings.  After that you can figure out what it felt like you got hit with so you can distinguish between a stab, a flat, a haft, etc.  But it all takes time.  As you do it more you get better at it and your processing speed increases.  But if a vet walks up to a new fighter and lights them up it's going to take a while for the new fighter to catch up.  It's important to remember that they aren't sluffing deliberately, they are just still developing that skill.  Blocking, swinging, aim/accuracy, control over the force/speed of a swing, footwork, maneuvering at high speeds, field awareness, dealing with arrows and other projectiles, not shot calling, taking shots, communicating damage, all of these are skills that a person has to learn.  They won't happen overnight so work on the most important things first.  Fortunately not every one of those skill is critical to being able to participate so you can teach them in bits and pieces.

If you're new and reading this.  

Take heart.  We were all terrible once (myself very much included).  Ask questions. Try hard.  It may not seem like you're improving if the gulf between your skill level and your opponents is too great but in all likelihood it's just because you can't see your own progress.  If you ever get the opportunity fight other new people, ESPECIALLY after you've been fighting/training with vets.  You'll be amazed at how much you've grown.

Florentine Manual: Combo Fundamentals

There are an INFINITE number of combos.  There is no possible way for me to cover every conceivable series of shots.  Even if I start with 30 basic swings I think I'll be doing you a disservice.  So instead I'm going to talk about the big meta picture of all the ways you can make combos and then leave you to make your own.  In the process of trying to get there though I'll leave you with more then a few examples so that you've got some building blocks to work with at the very least.  What I often did when training people is that I'd teach them one series of shots, ranging from 2 to 5 swings and then, once they'd learn that I'd ask them to modify that setup by changing their target locations.  If you can get the basics of a combo down, like the timing and footwork of the swings, then changing out the target locations for where you swing is easy enough.  There's 4 basic things you can attempt to accomplish by stringing together a series of shots (a combination).  The first thing that you can attempt to accomplish with a combo is to fire shots off fast enough at target locations that are far away from each other (divide).  (I'll unpack that I swear).  The second strategy is to manipulate your opponents defense in order to get around it (overwhelm).  The third strategy is get your opponent to follow you only to then go in the opposite direction that you set up (outsmart).  The fourth strategy is the bait and switch which I've talked about in the past under the heading of the 3 split in which one shot can easily become 3 other similar swings.

Divide

To unpack that first piece I'm going to have to spend some time setting up terms.  The first one is quadrants.  You can divide a person into 4 target zones that go left to right and then top to bottom in the same way you'd set up a graph.  This provides you with two high quadrants, one left, one right and two low quadrants, one left, one right.  Your goal when trying to exploit the first strategy for combos is to make sure that when you throw shots you don't have any 2 land in the same quadrant.  As a concrete example of this, so I don't lose anyone, there's a shot that's been pretty commonly referred to as the tick-tock.  You start on one side of a person's body with your first throw (let's say quadrant II [top, and right]) then you immediately transfer the momentum from the rebound from that first shot by flipping your wrist to immediately take a shot to the opposite side of their body (per our example you go to quadrant I).  This shot is pretty easy to execute which is probably why it's both so well known and so popular.  But a better version of the same shot would transfer from quadrant II to quadrant III, so that in addition to switching from left to right you also switch from high to low.  This type of combination shot relies on a person either leaving their guard in place so that they don't move their guard to absorb the second shot, OR if you get really lucky, they overblock the first swing, causing your second swing to have an even bigger opening.  While the one shot example I've listed off is a 2 shot series you can basically arbitrarily chain shots together in order to accomplish the same thing.  A 3 shot version of the same idea would be to go quadrant II (high right), quadrant I (high left), quadrant 4 (low right) or shoulder, high cross, hip wrap.  I'm just talking about big ideas for now so rather then see any example as "the best thing ever" just try to absorb the concept.  Generally speaking if your first shot is on the right side your second shot should be on the left (unless we're discussing the second style of combo).  If your first shot is high your second shot should be low, yesterday I was able to repeatedly land a (missed) should shot into a leg sweep.  The person responded to the shoulder pick by raising their shield they left their lower half open making the leg sweep a sure thing. (Bait and Switch)

Overwhelm

The second combo strategy is about forcing your way through a person's defense.  Rather then try to give your opponent bad information by throwing to one side and then the other you're more likely to target the same zone repeatedly with just minor changes to your shots or your shot placement.  With a red weapon a common strategy for this is to go for the shield side shoulder twice in a row.  The first shot is simply thrown to swat the shield down, while the second shot is designed to get the kill.  The beauty of doing this shot with a red is that so long as there is sufficient force on both swings even if you fuck up the combo you can still have broken the shield.  A similar sort of technique with a florentine set is to instead target your opponents sword (something I normally rail against) with one hand, only to immediately follow up with the other hand.  If you can pin their weapon, or knock it down you can then bypass their guard by following up with a shot immediately.  That particular strategy to beat a person's sword arm is almost uniquely a setup that's granted by fighting florentine, as with any other weapon set you don't have get a second swing after you pin their weapon.  A one handed version of this shot is to strike at a person's hand outside their guard in order to get them to pull their guard out.  Once you've thrown that shot a number of times, if your opponent does not fully return to guard, then you'll have an available shot at that arm.  Other versions of this particular tactic can involve deliberately missing a shot in order to mis-portray your range, only to then throw the exact same shot but at your maximum reach.  To execute that shot simply choke up on your weapon for the first swing then pull your hand down towards the pommel for the second swing.  There's a lot more you can do to increase your range.  If you're curious check out the book of rift on page 50 under cheating with range.  I'm not sure I've yet written that out somewhere else... so perhaps another time :-P.  You can also throw a shot to a target location (like their weapon) and then throw the same shot but turn your wrist (turn a slash into a half wrap) to bypass the angle of their guard (turning a shot on their weapon into a half-wrap onto their arm).  This works especially well if a person thinks you don't actually know how to throw that kind of shot.

Outsmart 

The third strategy for a combo is to feint in one direction and then move in another direction.  It's as though you followed the first strategy without actually throwing the first shot.  This is a higher level skill relative to the other two strategies, but if you can convincingly threaten/feint shots it's also infinitely safer because you aren't worried about being exposed.  One of the perhaps more obvious examples of this was recently taught to some Norcalians by Bhakdar in his tutorials on feinting.  I think he called it the body feint, but even if he didn't... that's what it is.  When you move to engage your opponent you shift your body weight in one direction - you lean that way, you look that way, you move your arms in that direction and then - you throw a shot to the other side.  One example I can think of from a florentine setup is to feint a wrap with your right hand (usually against a right handed sword and board fighter) while sliding to the right.  Once the person reacts to this movement (usually by turning and stepping back the other way) you drop in a stab with your left hand towards their gut.  You can throw this same shot flatfooted but the deviousness of doing it with the method I've just described is that often your opponent will step directly into your stab so that even if you were going to miss, or not have enough force for the stab in the first place, you'll wind up having enough force and good placement simply because of their movement.  If all you do is plant that stab and move to the right your opponent may do the rest of the work for you.

Bait and Switch

Bait and switch is the idea that you set someone up for one swing knowing in advance that you won't necessarily take that swing, because you can also take up to 3 other target locations from that same motion or from that same starting shot.  If you step in towards someone that only really tells them that you are about to swing at them.  It may hint that you're going to go for a wrap, as that's often a good setup for a scorpion wrap (shoulder pick thrown high), a side wrap (wrap thrown wide around the shield/guard) or a booty wrap (wrap thrown under and up around a shield/guard) but without a person knowing which one you're going to throw ahead of time they are at a disadvantage.  For instance if they tilt back to absorb a shoulder wrap but I'm throwing a booty wrap instead they have just made my life much easier.  In that case instead of throwing a wrap I may even be able to just throw a flat wrap to that person's hip instead.

There is no right answer

Any way that you string a combo together is valid if it works.  Hell, even when it doesn't work in one particular instance doesn't make it a bad combo.  Sometimes you just get read when you try to do something tricky, sometimes your opponent just beats you to the punch as you start throwing shots.  Whatever the case may be, don't get discouraged if at first you don't succeed.  Putting together a combo is a matter of getting all the right component pieces that you can gather and then remixing them so that you eventually throw something your opponent hasn't seen before and doesn't know how to block.  While I've talked about the generally strategy for throwing shots, there's more to a combo then just where you strike.  A combo also takes into account your footwork which controls where you stand relative to your opponent so that you can modify the angles you get to swing at, when talking about a divide strategy if you can step right and then left quickly, you can amplify that distance between your swings to make that strategy more effective.  Timing is also a part of a combo as changing the tempo of your swings, or waiting for your opponents reaction to a certain movement can set you up for success.  Blocking, is often also part of a combo as you mix your offense and defense so that after you throw a strike you are also prepared to block, or that somehow your block comes out of your swing.  As one example if you chop a target with your right hand, thereby exposing that arm to be struck, it may be possible to flip your pommel up as the shot starts to come back, thereby turning your return from the shot into a high guard for your arm.  This in turn can become it's own bait to catch out your opponent even if, as a guard, it's not something you'd normally use.  I was watching a video a while back in which the guy teaching the class said something along the lines of "I feel like offense is a result of a person's own creative mix, because you need to be creative with offense, but for defense I can't think of a good reason to be fancy, for defense it's good to keep it simple".  I also totally stole that bit about quadrants from him as it's useful imagery.

In an ideal world you don't rely solely on one of the above strategies in the same way that you don't develop one set style.  The ultimate form of mastery is to know how to do all the things so that you can flow seamlessly between them as you discover what works best against the opponent directly in front of you.  If a person has extremely fast hands doing a divide strategy is going to get you killed while you look for an opening.  But if that opponent is slow it may be a great idea.  Against an opponent that doesn't move much trying to feint them out with a bunch of movement may just waste your energy making an outsmart strategy a poor plan, while using a divide strategy may pay larger dividends.  The reverse of course is also true with a person with fast hands.  If they're able to easily snipe your limbs when you throw at extreme angles it also probably means they'll be more active and more susceptible to feints so trying to outsmart them or get them to flinch may work better.  In the end it's up to you how you want to chain shots together.  As before it's about thinking it through so that you at least have a plan as you attempt to mix your offense up.  Since combos tend to be both relatively complex and can involve many technical shots it's often best to commit a combo to memory before you have to use it in a fight.  This means taking the time to come up with a combo and then taking the time to actually practice that combo so that you can execute on it consistently.  As with most things to become really excellent at fighting you just have to put the time in.  If you want to become a top tier fighting it involves a lot of work.  That may not be for you and it's possible to still become a good fighter without having to devote all your free time to fighting.  My goal in telling you this is not to try to get you to spend all your free time training, it's to make sure you know that you get out of fighting what you put in.  Reading this blog may help, but not if you don't practice and apply what you learn.

Stay vicious my friends.

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.