Monday, September 8, 2014

What a weekend!

I have been too busy as of late. It is a very good thing but it means I have not had a lot of time to talk about what has been going on.

Sword related stuff:
This is a blog about me and my sword stuff so I will start there. In June, just before my first match at Combat Con the zipper on my jacket broke. That is why I was fighting in red duct tape in all of my matches. :)  We bought some straps to close it while we were in Vegas, so I could do some sparring but I knew I needed to get the zipper fixed, and since it is a pain to sew the jacket, that job went to someone else. We took it into a tailor and it was fixed last Friday, so now I am all ready to fight in it again for the competition I have coming up, my trip to California, and all things going well, will be able to wear it all winter to fight in. (Did it last year and made it so I did not need another coat while at sword, definitely a plus.)

Competition!
We have a group competition coming up on October 11th and I am stoked. My press releases are already out, and we will be on TV some time the week before so that is nice. The rules are changing a bit so we are focusing more on defense than offense so it should be cool to watch it all play out. As it is coming quick I am trying to really get my head in the game and be ready for it. The night of competition we are also leaving for Disneyland so while I am in Southern California, I am going to hit up some sword people and get some more sparring in. (As if I need it, but I do love me some sword work.)

Logan!
As some of my readers are not from Utah a brief introduction.
Logan is the home of Utah State University and is about 80 miles north of my house. Over the summer, we had a student show up who wanted to start a student group there, but as we do not have anyone who lives up there besides her we came to compromise. I would drive up once a month, teach their class, and then on the off weeks they can practice what we went over. After talking to my instructor, he said that I was ok to do this as long as I was actively working towards my instructor rank. (Something I have been lazy on the last little bit, but am getting back on.) This week was my first meeting with them and I had 6 students. We went over a lot of the basics I like to cover and though we did not hit it all, I feel like it went very well. It was a great week, and I really look forward to working with these students in the future. :)

Renaissance festival!
Ok, not really sword related. (Yes, but no) I have been invited by the House of Tudor guild in Salt Lake to perform as Henry VIII at the upcoming festival on the 26th and 27th of September. As a result I have been spending a lot of time studying the man,  and the history of the period so that I understand the character and can really play it well, as well as have fun with it. It has been a really solid couple of months researching, and finding some things that will help the costume, and me to make the best of the character I can. It is exciting, and looks to be a lot of fun! I am putting as much as I can into it and to me it is the little things that matter, the right hose, as close to right as I can shoes, the right period sword.

That is really the take away. Do what matters. Do what you do right. Just as practice does not make perfect perfect practice makes perfect, Do your best at everything you do. If it fails, don't kill yourself about it, just do it better next time.

Life is really busy right now, but life is good.
Happy Swording my friends.