Practice in a Nutshell
Type of Practice: Melee
Students we have some great lessons for you! Please read them before you come so we can jump right in. Thank you teachers for volunteering to teach!
Swordsmen, you get some Open Workshop time, and then we would appreciate some help with implementing what the students have learned. If you ever want to just keep doing Open Workshop during that time you are totally welcome to. We want our Swordsmen to have time to work on their journeys too!
After lessons, Kane is planning activity time this week and will be building upon the melee conversation we’ve been having.
Lessons
- Newcomers: As Needed
- Initiates: Line Fighting
- Novices: Death Stick, Case
- Swordsmen: Open Workshop / Student Assistance
Announcements
Terrasylvae Birthday!
Hooray! It’s Birthday! Come and play Friday and Saturday. All fencers Initiate and up are welcome to participate in our Birthday Tourney at 10:30 on Saturday. Damian has planned a really fun tournament for us. Should you win you will be our Shire Tourney champ for the next year and can plan any fun tourneys you’d like to, as well as host next year’s Birthday Tourney.
Cryptids
We are drawing for melees for our Bipeds to compete in next week, and we will be drawing for our next two debating Horrors. We will be asking for volunteer debaters too.
Stag Tourney
Our event is up on the website and in BAND. Check out the schedule and the fun and games. Be thinking of a treat to share, and save those pennies.
Shay’s Thoughts
Hey Swordsmen, I got in a wonderful conversation with a couple of our Master Swordsmen last week. First off, I love how they think about you. They care about your experience, and I love that they communicated to me what they were thinking and feeling. It’s pretty cool to have these amazing fencers looking out for you. And second, they mentioned to me that perhaps we are not giving Swordsmen opportunities to be Swordsmen often enough. The concern is that you don’t have opportunities to grow and that you might be bored. Yuck! I don’t like that.
So, let’s do something about it!
Two things I want to focus on right away
One: I want to improve Open Workshop. So let’s do it together this week. If you’re interested. It’s your time so you don’t have to join me, but you’re welcome to. During that time I want to chat on how to improve it, and also to fence. It will help in an initial brainstorm sort of way.
And Two: I want to balance out some of the mentality. It is not a cultural shift, no grand earthquakes. A mentality tweak so to speak. But it has to come from both Leaders and Swordsmen. We have to pull together to move forward, or one or the other of us will be turning in circles around a stuck point, like an ox tethered to a stick in the mud.
The tweak for leadership is to give Swordsmen opportunities to make meaningful choices, ie: melee field commands focused on Swordsmen where they can shine more, votes for what kind of training you want, games you want to play, practice schedule adjustments, etc. We leaders will have to work hard, learn to listen better to you, and really develop meaningful choices and opportunities.
The tweak for Swordsmen is to make more out of those opportunities. When you’re asked, have an opinion, and share it. Take command opportunities, and do them well. Suggest trainings. Ask for games. Be involved. Leaders are not mind readers. If you need or want, something, we want to know. Please tell us.
A few weeks ago Damian taught us about bringing our best to the melee field. I want Swordsmen especially, to adopt that Attitude throughout practice. I feel that this is a defining Swordsman mentality. We should bring our best to leadership, and listening, to commands, classes, and feedback situations. Swordsmen should bring their best to life! We as leaders can provide training, games, command opportunities, and polls, till we run ragged, but, if Swordsmen don’t take advantage of them, by being engaged and bringing their best to situations, then all the opportunities are wasted. And if the Swordsmen a giving it their all, but leaders aren’t improving it’s still for naught. We all need to bring our best.
Let us neither Leaders or Swordsmen be a stick in the mud. Let’s pull together to grow and to stave off boredom!
