After time away during the holidays and some time spent fighting a nasty chest cold, it's been a few weeks of diminished fencing activity for me. Certainly now is a good time to say that I'm ramping up again and that you should expect another Capoferro post next Tuesday, etc. etc. But more interesting to me right now is to see what I can learn from this hiatus.
Along those lines, some thoughts and observations:
Given a few weeks away from fencing, I don't "forget how to fence." My movements get sloppier, and my muscles are weaker, but that's it. This is perhaps a no brainer to some, but it's good for me to know and account for. 2016 was filled with similar hiatuses for me, and every time I returned from them I decided I needed to focus on the basics again, and I stopped learning. Given the previous point, this is a ridiculous thought and I should simply move forward to the next thing. Drilling and exercise will fix the hiatus issues without having to devote all of my time and mental energy to them. This is good, because I enjoy fencing more when I'm moving forward and not constantly stalling or backtracking, and more enjoyment = more momentum = more progress, in general.
Fencing helps my posture. I already knew that, but over the past couple weeks I've caught my shoulders clenching up due to stress, anxiety, or habit. For years, I had knots and tense muscles all through my neck and shoulders, and that definitely lessened over 2015/2016, but it's returned full force already. Fencing will bring that back to the front of my mind and make me correct my posture throughout the day, and regular stretching will help as well.
My environment makes a big difference on how often I exercise and/or drill. One day maybe I'll have a devoted space for these sorts of things so that I don't have to wrestle discarded bed frames out of the way to make room for footwork.
Going to practice once a week is not enough to break me out of a hiatus mindset. I need to be Working On A Thing (Or Things). I'm also more likely to drill if I'm doing it to achieve a specific result rather than general habit/improvement. At least when starting back up from zero.
