The Armour Archive

Someone whould be queing up the theme song from 'Rocky' about now.

List off what you did last week, what your short-term fighting goals are, and some long term ones.

Well, I spent the first day of the new year 2005 with a sword in my hand. Got my new turkish saber in from Popinj and I've been working with it. Much, much fun. Also spent that evening learning more metalworking techniques from the good Sir Johann.

Short term - Lose this motherf**kin' holiday weight. Tweak out my heavy kit including fix my camail and eventually start working on a pimpalicious surcoat. Retape my polearm.

Workout schedule for the week.
1000 pell blows on mondays, fencing on tuesdays, armoured combat on wednesdays, rest day thursday, friday, SCA saturdays, and local fighter practices wherever I happen to be on Sunday.

Long term - Enter Tournament of Ymir with sword & buckler and make it to the third round. Bribe Broadway's girlie to put 'Tiger Balm' in his shorts before fighting at Ymir. Increase the size & scope of my armoured combat unit. Get my armoured kit to be not only functional, but better looking.

You? How's about it? Chazz? Maelgwyn? Illadore? Shamey? Freiman? Bueller....

Last week: Did Physical Therapy on the knee and read a good bit. Added "Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi: 15th Century Swordsmanship of Master Filippo Vadi" to my collection of books and started going through it. (I was impressed by the dagger work there.)

Short Term Goals: Recover from knee surgery. I've been having ups and downs with the knee, entirely because my knee starts to feel better and then I end up stressing it and doing too much. Finish Dr. Sydney Anglo's "The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe."

Long term goals: Authorize in heavy: sword and board and spear. Fight in both the heavy and rapier field battles at Pennsic. Kick ass and chew bubblegum.

Last week, I fought all day sunday. Had my lovely fiance video tape my fights (christmas presents rule!), and then spent the afternoon, looking at all my mistakes in slo-motion.

Short term goals: Holidays are over, back on weight loss regime.

Long term goals...

Enter Tournament of Ymir and beat Baron Alejandro with sword & buckler before he makes it to the third round...

Did a day of pell and one practice. Very bad Mnkee.

My Wife has finally climbed on the "Get heathier" train with me. She is a skinny little junk food junkie whos best clothes don't fit anymore. So, no midnight cookie breaks or bags of chocolate candy for her. Better food for both of us, more fruits and veggies etc.

Short Term-I still have 14 lbs. to lose and 10 to redistribute. Work to make armoring not hurt. My right arm is still a knot every morning.

Long Term- Quit Smoking! I was alomst done with it a couple months ago but my Wife gave up after 3 weeks of trying and her smoking constantly in the house was killing me. I started smoking a pipe again and chewing on cigars and we're gonna try to quit again. For my fighting I want to gain enough prowess to be able to look good and give any opponant a worthy fight. And get my kit up to par.

(1) Finish moving into our new house (woohoo)
(2) Finish the initial tweaking at out new house (woohoo)
(3) Drop to 176 lbs by year end
(4) Finish my kit upgrade
(5) Fight fight fight
(6) Do my best as co-autocrat of Spring Coronation in Atlantia

Short-term goals:

- Fight more. My schedule last year sucked for making it to any regular practice, but has been changed.
- Keep up the 100 blows a day routine to work on technique.
- Participate and win Drachenwald Crown again in March.

Long term goals:

- Get my new fighting style working better. Have been switching, and find myself stopping to "think" every now and then.
- Get more comfortable with my new weapon style as well.
- Get a LOT more aggressive. I usually counterfight, but decided that I want to take, and keep, the initiative in fights.
- Keep up the technique training and extra fighter practices with Raven in the hopes of in addition to learning new stuff also try to become a better teacher. (Her excellent and fun fight diary can be found
here.

drop to under 200 lbs.
have not been there in 8 years.

rebuild my kit from the ground up by icedragon next year.

build up my endurance enuff to walk to and from the pennsic woods battle at a decent pace in full kit.
I think this year we are fighting at the far side of the woods. camping near coopers bath house.

fininish up all of my autherizations for both heavey light and side sword.
finish my marshalet for archery and light combat.

today worked on finishing up the work bench.
did two miles on the eliptical machine.

Baron Alejandro wrote:List off what you did last week, what your short-term fighting goals are, and some long term ones.

Last week I did no training of any kind, despite my best intentions to hit a Steppes/Elfsea mid-week practice. I got back on the wagon this morning with a good workout and the rest of the week seems promising. I might even make it to Steppes for the big after-12th-night practice on Sunday.

Short term goals - Get to a maintenance level with my strength training (100 HS, 50 HP and 4 15-second bridges 3 times/week). Continue aerobic maintenance (3 sets of 30 min. aerobics/week, usually nordic track) Add skill training in the form of pell sessions.

Long term goals - Enter into a formalized training relationship with one of the local armoured combat experts. I need more feedback on what I'm doing in order to improve at a good pace. I feel that I'm geting to the point where I am able to keep fighting long enough to really work on technique rather than just working on remembering to breathe. Now I need observation and instruction to be sure that I'm working on effective technique.

Arturious, good luck. Having a partner in working out/getting healthy is great. I'm having to climb this hill on my own. I found one thing that helped me was substitutions. I switched from chocolate to dates and lost some weight. I cut my portions in half and lost some more.

Broadway would lose 20lbs right off the bat if he shaved that danged 'fro he gots goin' on.

A,
You are just jealous of his golden locks....

Yesterday we had practice in the back yard. First time in armour since the beginning of December. Took it easy. Enjoyed my stylish new elbow cops.

Bought a copy of Total Medieval War for ten bucks at Best Buy....that was a huge mistake....stayed up all night saturday night playing...still paying for that.

Tuesday is practice, later in the week is the gym.

A current food goal is to get all the holiday junk out of the house so I won't graze on it.

Plan on going back on the Protein Power diet and execising and fighting more. Time will tell.

BdeB wrote:A,
You are just jealous of his golden locks....

Yesterday we had practice in the back yard. First time in armour since the beginning of December. Took it easy. Enjoyed my stylish new elbow cops.

Bought a copy of Total Medieval War for ten bucks at Best Buy....that was a huge mistake....stayed up all night saturday night playing...still paying for that.

Tuesday is practice, later in the week is the gym.

A current food goal is to get all the holiday junk out of the house so I won't graze on it.

Plan on going back on the Protein Power diet and execising and fighting more. Time will tell.

Oh, come now, Brother! You must start working on your knightly paunce! Here's how it works:

Step A. Eat pizza. Drink good beer. Never pass-up a chance to eat a donut or chocolate. You get the idea: consume. Consume until your knees hurt or you can rub you gut and burp loudly (the ability to burp loudly is very useful at Chiv. Meetings--trust me on this one, Bro).

Step B. Go to your Doctor. Watch your doctor frown. Hear your doctor call you names that not repeatable here and scare the ever-living crud out of you.

Step C. Remember exercising? Start again.

Mord.

My 'paunce' is huge! Call me Kanga...

I had fresh microbrewery Wheat Beer last night, thank you very much!

BdeB wrote:My 'paunce' is huge! Call me Kanga...

I had fresh microbrewery Wheat Beer last night, thank you very much!

But did you have pizza? Donuts? Chocolate Donuts?

Yeah, I can't have much of that these days. I go back to my Doctor at the end of this week. I've lost about 20 -25 pounds in the last year.

Mord.

No, just a eight ounce burger and fries...

Good for you on the weight loss!

OK,OK my 2005 goals.

165 would be great...but I'll settle for 170. Right now there is a box of doughnuts sitting not more than 6 feet from me. They have been there all day.

walk 4 miles a day.

100 hindu squats each morning. (I'm doing it now. I just need to keep at it.)

convince local knight that he should teach me heavy fighting.

become authorized in sword and shield, then spear. (My goal was to fight at Pennsic but since I can't go this year I have to find something else.)

Tuesday night rapier practice.

Sunday afternoons heavy.

Oh yeah...I should probable get some armour together!

like others, I have done all of nothing this week, unless you count aerobic car-washing.

I won't be able to do much group training this semester, which sucketh. But I can keep working out on my own.
short term goals; work up to 20x2 HPs, 10x3 handstand pushups, 60x2 HS, 40x2 Ps, all 4 times per week.

long term goals; 300 cuts each day. Ten more pounds of muscle. Walk 3-4 miles a day, run 3-4 miles at least 4 times a week. Get a medium bodybag to do some striking practice. Get someone to be a willing practice dummy for joint lock setups.
-Mag

Date Weight Ave# Target# Calories SQ PU RP TM CR JO ZA
Dec 27 197.0 197.4 195.5 1500 80 40 40 20 40 5 10
-100 sword cuts
-2.0 walk

Dec 28 196.0 197.2 195.3 2450 80 40 40 20 40 5 10
-100 sword cuts
-2.0 walk

Dec 29 196.0 197.1 195.1
-nothing

Dec 30 196.0 197.0 194.9
-3.0 mile walk
-worked on portable Japanese gate

Dec 31 196.0 196.9 194.7
-3.0 mile walk

Jan 01 196.5 196.9 194.5
-1.5 mile walk
-banged out some rough gauntlets and splints to take with me

Jan 02 196.5 196.8 194.2
-Fly to VA with 50# of armour and swords (who knew plastic weighed so much)

--------------------
Weight slipped up some these last two weeks but not too bad and I should be able to recover easily enough. Still cruising on training, but that is about to change.
--------------------

BdeB wrote:Tuesday is practice

See you there.

Short Term Goals have not changed much.
-I am 8 weeks into an 18 program.
-I have concentrated on spear training to the detriment of sword and dagger
-I have lost ~10 pounds with another 16 to go.
-For the next six weeks
--run three times a week
--bike three times a week
--swim three times a week
--continue calisthenics
--continue kata/pell work
--fighter practise at Caer Mear
--fighter practise around Hampton Roads?
--(I am considering riding lessons while I am travelling.)
-Estrella War in Febuary
-Fight a tourney in March in full metal jacket.

Long Term Goals are hard to set when my schedule is in so much flux. But I have read several times that it takes 1000 days to learn the spear. So three years of spear dedication it is. I hope to learn as much Japanese, Chinese, and HWMA spear as I can in that time (three years) and train in some way everyday.

In addition, Tokugawa-jidai samurai were admonished to practise horsemanship, arms, archery, and literature. I aim to improve in some way in each of these during the coming year.

I posted a "come and get some" type email to the local fighter practice mailing list... complete with a "you're a bunch of sissies" type quote from a distant knight. THAT should earn some good training.

My short term goals:

Try rapier fighting and if it's half as much fun as I expect, work on getting the gear and authorizations, so I can fight rapier in the war points at Pennsic (at least the ones that don't interfere with the heavy fighting ones.

Start working hard on losing weight and getting in much better shape.. specifically so I can fight all day at Pennsic


Long term goals:

Work on redoing my armor, so I can start fighting sword and shield again.. specifically working on new chest and leg armor, that fits.. so I don't spend 90% of my time fighting my armor.

Start training with a spear, so I can authorize with it and fight with one during the non-ca war points at Pennsic. I have to wait on my new helm, before I can do this and that's likely to be mid-April

I also want to get a heater shield and try fighting with that... instead of my round shield.

Mostly, I want to work on getting and better shape.. and attending at least 2 fighter practices a week (prob starting in March/April) for my heavy fighting training.. to see how well I can do, while pushing myself hard. Now that I can finally throw those blows the way that Duke Michael and Sir Kane taught me all of those years ago.. I'm excited about fighting sword and shield again.. so I want to do my best and see how I do. First step is figuring out chest and leg armor that will work for me, so if anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to email them to me, off line. tessathehuntress@earthlink.net

Tessa

Bryce, don't listen to Mord. If I see you with a doughnut or something like that I reserve the right to call you a fat-@$$ pansy in front of Melisent.
And just WAIT'll she finds out how cool bald guys really are.

Guy, those doughnuts can stay right where they bloody well are. Which do you want more, to be a streamlined kick-@$$ fighter, or a doughnut?

Tessa, you should go bug Illadore about rapier. It's lots of fun. And as I progress more & more in the SCA, i'm becoming more convinced that cross-training is the Way To Go. Those who are proficient in all types of arms are the future of our Society.

Baron Alejandro wrote:
Guy, those doughnuts can stay right where they bloody well are. Which do you want more, to be a streamlined kick-@$$ fighter, or a doughnut?

Hmmm. Gimme a minute now, don't rush me. Krispy's chocolate covered glazed doughnuts?

I did nothing of use last week.
Short(ish) term - Get past being pregnant.
Long term - Practice enough to be of some use at Pennsic.

Baron Alejandro wrote:Guy, those doughnuts can stay right where they bloody well are. Which do you want more, to be a streamlined kick-@$$ fighter, or a doughnut?

Tessa, you should go bug Illadore about rapier. It's lots of fun. And as I progress more & more in the SCA, i'm becoming more convinced that cross-training is the Way To Go. Those who are proficient in all types of arms are the future of our Society.

I beat the doughnuts! Today there is a box of Fannie May Pixies in their place!

Last week got my butt kicked by Prince Malcolm and Syr Finn... ow

Short-term goals:
Making a sword I can actually use... get back to consistently throwing good flat snaps... trying to get back to discovering the fun.

Long-term goals:
Make my foes beg for mercy at my feet *mwahahahaha* Ok, that' a long- long term goal... Get into the best shape I can so I can fight the best I can and have people start thinking I'm someone that will be able to give them a good hard fight.

Ron Broberg wrote:

BdeB wrote:Tuesday is practice

See you there.

Or not.

But I did get to see many other good men. Sir Corby and Sir Hroth. Lords Lotharo and Malcom. Senore Dominico. Gorm. No doubt I have mangled all these name and for that I am sorry. This was my first out of kingdom fighter practise and the courtesy extended by the fighting men of Caer Mear made me sure of my welcome. They also politely pointed out a consistent weakness in my stance, a weakness in my left hand block, and a general slowness that could use improvement. I look forward to my next Caer Mear practise.

Guy, f**k fannie may too. She can go hang.

Tristam, if we ever meet in armoured combat and I actually beat you (snort, snicker), I reserve the right to lean down and whisper 'go have another doughnut' in your ear.

That ought to earn me a whoopin'.

Shameless, does that begging for mercy happen on the FIELD, or somewhere else?