Capoferro: Week Four (A Partial Update)

I've made progress on my two main goals from last week -- walking through the notes I was less clear on and starting to put things into an organization scheme -- but not enough to warrant a full update.

So instead some initial observations and notes from the last week of practices and tournaments:

The Issues With Specificity
I noted earlier that as early as I am in the text, Capoferro is waffling back and forth between broad, general theory and very specific action-reaction descriptions. I assume when I get into the actual plates and plays, there will be even more of the specifics. And that's great on the one hand, because that level of specificity makes it easy to walk through, test, and pull apart. But to pull everything together for actual fighting I need something broader.

I can't remember a vast collection of (currently) disparate potential events. I can at best remember one or two, and other than that I run best off generalities and re-deriving what I should be doing on the fly according to base principles. At least, that's true for everything I've learned other than fencing, and I have no reason to expect fencing to be any different.

So! All the more reason to start pulling together the generalized theory from these specific plays. First step: groupings for similar actions. Eventual end goal: flow charts for days, and enough generalities that I can figure out what to do against folks not playing the Italian game.

I know people have made flow charts off of Capoferro already, but theoretically the point of my read through is to generate my own conclusions. So I'll avoid looking at those for the time being.


Tournament Mindspace and Warm Ups
The last two tournaments I've been in have gone roughly the same way. I start the day feeling bad and doing poorly, improve over the course of things, and by the end of the day feel comfortable and fight well. That's not really ideal. I clearly need some kind of warm up, but so far all I've got for a plan there is "Spar or slow fence with someone who fights like an Italian." That usually reminds me that I do have at least some idea of what I'm doing, and kicks my brain back into thinking about my fight in the right way. Otherwise the gears turn so slowly that I've barely developed a plan before I'm dead.

I'm not fond of this as a plan, since it relies on someone else wanting to warm up with me, but I don't think solo drills will knock me out of my sluggish anxiety state.

Weekly status:

 - Only drilled sporadically.
 - Restarted running! Back to the beginning.

Practice notes:
   - Elbow has started drooping consistently.
   - Keep an eye on footwork.
   - Withdraw, turn hand, pivot elbow. Practice.
   - Be better about turning my hand when gaining the blade.
   - At least four drills/sparring sessions/whathaveyou per fencing practice.
   - Knee started to get upset from lack of stretching. Stretch!
   - Lunges.

Weekly goals:

 - Keep up running. Add in other exercises.

 - Work on practice notes.
 - Work on generalized Capoferro structure.