dammit, where doesn't it hurt?

I think in part because Nationals went so smoothly, the month since I got back has felt unfairly painful. Some of the causes were beyond my control, some not, but what I do about it is.

I got a little big for my britches and thought I might have "graduated" to flexible shoe inserts. I thought wrong. A couple of practices with these uncovered wildly painful shin splints in my leading (right) foot, so much so that Friday the skin was sore to the touch. I'm back on my hard ones now, but Badger showed me the real fix was this unprepossessing little thing appears for all the world like a little slip of Spandex but makes a huge, huge difference.

A little harder have been my arms. In this case it's the cause that appeared to be a little thing - I got a new computer at work. However, something about the new style of mouse is off because my right wrist and forearm have been angrier than usual. My hands have always gone numb easily but it's segued into pain that rides up the arm in the last couple of weeks.

I finally broke down and got carpal tunnel splits to sleep in and a tennis elbow brace for sewing (and yeah, fencing) with. The former keep me from clenching and turning my wrists in my sleep and the latter keeps the pressure from hand sewing from going up my arm into my shoulder. Both seem to be working as advertised. D. doesn't like the splints; thinks they're scratchy when I put my hands on his bare back in bed. He is not wrong, poor man, but we're going to work with them.

target practice*

Targets are all I've looked at all week, at least on the strip.

In my one-on-one lesson this was the product of my asking how to take the parry while retreating - for ages, it's been like my legs or my arms work, but not together. I lost my Nationals DE that way and it was frustrating to see the problem and not be able to address it effectively.

It was the overriding theme for both private and group lessons on Tuesday: just finding the target and concentrating on it. This is easier said than done, but V. has a talent for breaking things down into enough tiny pieces to make concepts clear even when they don't convey tidily in words.

I was told to pick out a single spot on my target/opponent - as much use as our equipment gets it wasn't hard to pick out a little ding or scuff. First part was just concentrating on that ding. Then extending at reach distance, while concentrating. Then lunging. Then while preparing (blade and footwork). Then, all of these against a moving opponent.

And you know what? This worked. Not because I hit that exact spot, but because I was so stuck on controlling my distance from that spot that I wasn't stressed about anything else - my feet, my blade, or those of my opponent. V. was right - control the distance, and my feet and arms would act on their own (though, the physical aspects of these can always use work - see my previous post about ow ow owie ow).

This is all I concentrated on for Friday and most of today. Today, indeed, I was almost in an altered state, the focus was strange and kind of nice, though mentally draining. I can retreat and parry at once if I'm not thinking about it - now I have something else to think about.

Mind, now I need to weave this into more aggressive actions - attacking/feinting and getting out when I miss. But hey, there's always something new to work on.

*I really, really struggled not to title this post "stay on target, stay on target". I figured one movie paraphrase per day was plenty :P