2002-02-26 - 3:20 p.m.

Last night was Armored combat practice.... Oh, I am so sore.... I meant to get home and shave down my tree trunks that are currently mascarading as my swords. Unfortunately, the lack of sleep angle caught up on me and decided it would be better if I napped. This left me through another series of bouts trying to muscle my swords around, at the expense of my wrists and elbows.

Started the evening fighting my knight. My god, I don't think I've ever been so utterly frustrated with myself. I was a walking pell. I came very close to just tossing my helmet in the bag and going home, it was so pathetic. Instead, I decided that I wasn't going to cave in and I was going to keep at it until I stopped doing stupid things. My agression level kicked up, but my left hip paid the price. Instead of the 2 or 3 usual poundings it takes in an evening, I think I took somewhere between 10-15 hits. Considering all I have there is my gambeson and my knight is not known for gentle contact, sitting is an interesting experience. Hard on my right shoulder today, as it isn't used to carrying my portable office (aka computer bag). Due to the weight of the swords I had to sacrifice a lot of my usual tricks at staying alive and fight a more 'Badouin'-esque fight. I managed to kill TBone a few times, but usually died in the process. Most of the exchanges were an arm or leg for getting killed....

Then I fought Andrew. I usually have to seriously rely on my repostes to get to him, and with the heavy swords there wasn't any chance of that working. I had to fall back on sniping and movement tricks. I'm fairly certain the only reason I had even margin success is Andrew was working out some other issues that didn't totally mangle my limitations.

Finished off the evening with Llewelyn. Was doing OK until I threw a block that missed and hyperextended my right wrist. wee..... It is mostly better now and tonight is fencing so it isn't going to take too much abuse. If it starts smarting I can always drop back to single rapier.

Also found out I won't be going to Orlando the week of Gulf Wars. The meeting has moved to the FAA's Tech Center near Atlantic City. Oh boy. wee... So now I have to be there for 3 days, after which I get to get home and repack to go on to Jamestown for MTA....sigh.... At this point, I'm just looking forward to the Gunsmithing symposium at Williamsburg this weekend.

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