possible new practice

Today wasn't the first day of practice proper, just a "walk through" to survey the site and facilities.

Pro:

• The room is very large and has a nice floor (footwork!) as well as outdoor area in good weather. We only get half the room, but that's more than enough.
  
• The organizers want to emphasize drills and beginning/learning more than what they call "bear pit" fighting (mock tourney rather than practicing technique)
  
• It's only 15 minutes away
  
• New/more people to fight with
  
• The way it stands now there are enough SCA fighter practices in the metro area that one could theoretically fence every day of the week except Saturday (I also do sport fencing so I could fence every day and twice or more on some)
  

Con:

• The regional SCA fighter-culture seems to not be overly enamored of drills, technique, or "deconstructing" bouts to try and learn something - lots of fencing gets done, but not much technical progress.
  
• The organizers, despite their goals, don't seem to have a clear plan of how to change the culture from within
  
• There seems to be lack of support from the local group for the practice because there are so many others
  
• The organizers don't have a rapier marshall (yet?)
  

Notice I keep switching from "we" to "them" above. The organizers seem to be cool people whose fencing goals align with my own, so I'm really tempted to count myself among them. At the same time, I'm new to the SCA, SCA fighting, and am unsure what to make of the "lack of scholarship" mentality, so I still kinda feel like an outsider.

I'm also beating my inner sword snob with a stick, reminding myself that this is a different sort of shindig than I'm used to and I can't expect or demand an already established community to do things My Way.

I'd really like this to work out - fencing rapier/other historic weapons only twice a month means that I'm "catching up" far more than I'm progressing, and having a nearby weekly group would help me get into that tasty "zone" that I've managed to find with sport foil.

I'm reserving judgment until I know more.

PSA: MRSA, MRSA, MRSA!

Silly subject line (thanks D.!) aside, it's serious business when multidrug resistant staph is more deadly and more prevalent than before. This used to be only a concern for hospital and nursing home patients but this isn't the case anymore - you can now get it through ordinary everyday contacts (I posted about the possibility of infection through shared sporting equipment back in the spring).

Given that I constantly have "dings" of some sort on my skin (zit, hangnail, etc.) and get sweaty-yukky at least once a week, I'm continuing my cleaning of equipment/self and am trying to be more careful about disinfecting/bandaging hangnails and the like. CDC has more preventative measures.