social context linkages

badmagic has some interesting conversations going on about direct asking vs. hinting here and here - are you an Asker or a Hinter, or some combination depending on context?

I think he and his commenters spoke to some stuff I've had on my mind about my difficulty reading "between the lines" and sometimes embarrassing literalism, but have not been able to hammer out into anything coherent. Good reading.

Also linked to the Five Geek Social Fallacies, all of which I've fallen for at one time or another :P

Veddy interesting.....

fencing feu

Just when I think I'm getting rusty, I take a lesson and it irons my brain back out. I don't think I've had such immaculate concentration in a month! It felt good :)

I'm still working on fencing in close quarters, which means fencing from the elbow instead of the wrist. I think in this case my brains may be ahead of my muscles, as my impulse to death-grip when I swing my arm around wears me out - I know what I want to do but don't have the strength for it yet.

Maybe it's my imagination, but I noticed that coach V.'s "sword" forearm seems bigger/buffer than his free arm and I'm in no doubt as to why - assuming my arm doesn't fall off, will I start looking like an uneven Popeye as well? :P

Also had a long lecture/demo on distance, and how to control it. It's very hard to describe and while I get the basics of what V.'s trying to tell us, I haven't fully internalized it and likely won't without a lot more practice. I'm trying to be patient but I get frustrated when I feel like I'm just at the edge of "groking" something fully....

I'm signed up for another tournament Saturday, the same venue/achievement level as my first. I feel about as prepared as I'm going to feel: I'm going to get a good night's sleep tomorrow, get out there and fence to the best of my ability, whatever that ends up being. It looks like my fencing buddy A. will be going as well (just when I thought he'd given up on competition, he's decided he likes it) so I have someone to practice against to work out the pre-game jitters.