Tournaments.

My esteemed and honourable maestro is a particular fan of pressure testing and throwing himself into the deep end. It is something he recommends to anyone that will listen. A good way of creating pressure is by entering tournaments, especially with unfamiliar weapons. In fact, the harder you make it for yourself, the better. This is not my way, I am trying to maintain some kind of focus with my fighting. It is too easy to be distracted by all the interesting things to do and end up knowing a little of everything. I will permit myself that distraction once I'm happier with my rapier.

However. One of our Scrappers (I should do something about naming them at some point) bravely embraced his ignorance of the rapier and followed our maestro's example. The first match was painful to watch, he froze and was beaten to within an inch of his dignity and barely out of his corner. Still, every thing is a learning experience.

The second match was much better, he was facing a smallsword- something that is close to an epée in weight, reach and size. This gave him an advantage of around a foot, obviously this gave him the courage to attack and move around. Some strikes landed and when it was all over, he actually looked pretty good. He lost, but he had clawed back some dignity.

I'll be honest, I was expecting the last fight to turn into an absolute bloodbath. Our Stalwart Scrapper was up against Mr N. who graciously came and gave us a little instruction a while ago. Mr N. knows his stuff, whereas our Scrapper knows which end should go in the bad guy. This was a match with rapier and dagger, after all, if you're going to get obliterated you may as well really confuse yourself.

As the air rang with the word 'Fight' I was counting the seconds until the first 10 hits. Expecting our chap to be stabbed, cut, pommelled and disarmed every time he thought about striking. Except this didn't happen. Somehow he had found his game. Mr N. had difficulty predicting what was going to happen because he was up against an inexperienced fighter- the textbook precision of Mr N. was reduced because our fellow didn't read the damn thing. Our chap defended himself very well. In fact, according to one of the judges, he spent a little time in the lead.

So, I say well done our man. You may not have won any of those matches but you should hold your head up high. You did very well, all things considered.

The idea of pressure testing is a great one. Your fight changes utterly in competition, experimentation goes out of the window and you stick with what you have coded into your muscles. I think the orientals have a word for when your mind goes blank and you stop thinking and start fighting. I find this much easier to achieve under pressure- during freeplay/sparring it's about finding new methods and intellectually choosing openings. But a fight is not the time to be thinking, a second's thought is a second you're not protecting yourself.