Tomas de Courcy

Investiture

I got to fight in my first investiture tourney this week. It was my second tourney since I’ve been back.

I fought well, and placed better than I expected, defeating three people. One of whom went on to win.

On the Sunday I fought in the Cadet Tourney, sponsored by Oberst Luther Magnus. I did much better than I expected in this tourney, with 14 victories, which is almost 50/50. Luther gave me some tips which helped a lot, bringing my dagger lower, and pulling my sword closer to me.

With the dagger lower, it needs to move a bit more to protect my head, but it needs to move less to protect the rest of me, which I found was useful in my parries, and kept me alive much better.

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By Tomas de Courcy, 15 years ago

Rapier

January 14, 2010

Note to self, taking three weeks off is a little too long. I had a rather punishing practice on the 14th. I did my 50 lunges, and then worked on my dagger parries, we were practicing moving sword and dagger as one. Then I started practicing with Don Godfrey. It Read more…

By Tomas de Courcy, 15 years ago

Rapier

Practice Plan Jan 14, 2010

Back to fencing tonight after the winter break. I’ve got two tournaments coming up, so I’m trying to get back on the horse in time. First up is going to be Winter’s Tourney on the 23rd, which should be a lot of fun. It will be my first full tournament Read more…

By Tomas de Courcy, 15 years ago

Rapier

December 17 2009

Fencing last night was great. I had the opportunity to fight vs longsword. Very interesting. I had a speed advantage, but that was balanced by his strength. When I was using dagger we were very much equals, but when I was fighting open hand I was definatly strugling. My guard Read more…

By Tomas de Courcy, 15 years ago

Rapier

To bring us up to speed

Things I have been working on up to now.

Don Godfrey has been helping me work with the shorter blade that I use rather than trying to imitate those with longer blades. Makes sense. Instead of trying to mimic the strengths of the stronger blade focus on your own strengths and find your opponents weaknesses.

One new thing on this is that I’m now only using sword and dagger. The reason behind this is that with the shorter blade I have two choices: I can stand further out beyond my opponent’s reach (and much beyond my own) and counter punch what they throw, which may be sometimes effective, but I can’t parry everything all of the time; and the second is to close to where I am within a comfortable distance and my opponent is having troubles because I”m too close for them. What this means is that I”m at a range where I can use a sword, but my opponent will be using his dagger. In order to combat that I will need to use a dagger myself. That way I will equalize their advantage, and surpass it. I will have two blades which I can easily wield at that range, and my opponent will only have one.

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By Tomas de Courcy, 15 years ago

Rapier

Fencing Journal

I figured that it would be a good idea to have a rapier journal again. So here we begin. I decided on using WP because I didn’t feel like carrying around a book this time, and this way I can’t lose it.

By Tomas de Courcy, 15 years ago