Sunday 28th January 2018

I have two swordfighting competitions in the next month.  They’re not for my primary weapon type (rapier & dagger) so I’m not too worried about them.  My hope is that they are a way to ease myself back into competition.
First I have the English Sidesword Open.  I’m fighting single sidesword as well as sidesword and rotella (think Captain America shield).  I’ve fought single sidesword before, doing a variation of it at Fightcamp last year and making it to second in my pool.  Sidesword & Rotella I’ve never done before so it’s pretty much going to be improvised.
The following week I have Kings of the North where I’ll be fighting single rapier.  This one matters to me a little more.  Whilst not a primary weapon there’s part of me that would like to do well in it, especially as I’ve been teaching it of late.  The last time I fought this was also at Fightcamp and I made it to the quarter finals.
I therefore made a point of dragging myself to Sunday sparring today.  Easing myself back into swordfighting seems to have been a good strategy as I really enjoyed myself today.  I was nearly late after an accident between Basingstoke and Kingsclere closed the road and had me taking a detour down roads so narrow the hedges brushed both my wing mirrors.
There were just a few people there but I got to fight some single rapier as well as rapier & dagger.  I felt I fought OK.  I need to remind myself that the people I train with are also some of the world’s best, that we’ve all levelled up together.  It’s so easy to see a friend progress and see it as some failing of your own progression, rather than seeing the bigger picture of how our school has put multiple skilled fighters into the top 100.
I came back home and did some more work on the short story.  Usually I work on stories linearly but today I felt I wanted to capture some prose I’d thought about on the drive regarding the story’s key scene.  So I jumped ahead and wrote some of that.  It’s very emotionally wrought and I found that despite writing very little, the words were of a high quality and drained me in doing so.
I got to chill out this evening though.  My friend came round and we watched Insidious.  It was only rated 3 stars but I actually quite liked it for trying to do something a little different… although apologies to the main actor but I did think he was the one they cast when they realised that Chris Pratt was too expensive.
It was the usual evening of a bunch of laughs and fart jokes and I had a really great time.
It was the perfect mix for me.  I got some training in ahead of competition,  did some more writing and still had time to chill out with friends and a movie.  Whilst there were no major milestones or epiphanies sometimes achievements are made by putting in the work on days like these.
If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels.  Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.

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