abendgules | Entries tagged with training

2nd day of training of 2 day course (Sharepoint). Nowhere near enough time to even scratch the surface of this platform...

Current Mood: full

SO: the PLN is to attend Double Wars, fitter than I am right now, as fit as I can be (without sacrificing job and sanity) and authorised on the rapier field - possibly even in cut and thrust (C&T).

I checked my calendar today, and if DW is held on its traditional dates around Ascension day, this week is 40 weeks from the start of Double Wars -

liadethornegge or

camele0pard (or other Nordmark folk) can you confirm dates?

Since returning from Coronet in August, I've endeavoured to do something active every day. I had one day off for illness, but otherwise I now have a couple of weeks behind me of daily walking, running, yoga-ing, and fencing. I'm tracking my fencing and fitness training on the Drachenwald fighters forum, under training diaries.

So far, I'm feeling the extra activity in my legs - not strain or pain, just awareness that they're doing more work than before. I have no especial aspirations to shrink or change shape, but if it happens, that would be a happy bonus.

SO: who is with me?
Who wants to attend DW fit and strong and ready to surprise their opponents ('sh*t, he's gotten better since we last fought')?
Who wants to carve a swathe through Attemark with that great rallying cry,

Make way make way - Insulae Draconis is headed to the sauna!

Happy to take on extra travellers, who are prepared to commit to their own goals for this coming 40 weeks.

Current Mood: chipper

A short discussion about preparing for tournaments, with some tools for dealing with nerves.

Dealing with 'tournament nerves' is trickier than doing physical preparation. Most sports fans are familiar with seeing a good athlete 'choke' - not perform to their best ability, for no apparent reason.

This occurs to fighters when they are more concerned about the outcome of the tournament than the pleasure and the challenge of each bout. All they can think about is what others will think of them if they either win, or lose spectacularly.

(People who are so laid back they cannot get focused on tournaments have a different problem! nervousness and anxiety are much more common.)

One response is to develop goals for a tournament that do not include the outcome of the tournament: you cannot control that result, but you can manage how you approach the tournament yourself.

These goals can help keep you focused on your own performance, and worry less about the performances of others.

Some example goals - if I was discussing these with a fighter, I'd help them choose some goals relevant to their current performance:
- entering every bout at between 70-80% of full power/force (no 'no-brainer' bouts, no matter how new your opponent)
- focus on the current bout only ('wherever you are, be all there')
- engaging your opponent on your terms

A tool that can help you learn from your tournament experience more quickly is a fighting diary. Along with logging your practice goals and your practice sessions, keep a section of the diary for your tournaments.

During the tournament get a friend to help during you track your bouts, by:
- writing down each opponent's name
- as you (the fighter) come off the field, answer two questions very quickly:
1. How was your performance in this bout? Rate yourself out of 10 (strictly fighters' opinion, not scribes)
2. Give one or two keywords or phrases to help you remember what was special about the bout

You can do this yourself - but it's easier to get someone else to scribe, who isn't wearing gauntlets.

After the tournament, take 10-15 minutes to review these notes, and scribble down a slightly longer assessment of your performance. Be honest, but not needlessly hard on yourself. Think about whether or not you met the goals you'd set for yourself - fully, partially, only a bit. Describe the good parts and the bad parts of the tourney in your own terms.

This isn't a punishment. It's a very quick post-mortem, to help embed your experiences in a way that you can learn from them.

After your notes: shower, change, and feel free to set the tournament aside for the rest of the day.

As always - I'm happy to chat about ways to make more plans and preparations for tournaments, and have books to lend. Feel free to contact me directly.

Current Mood: satisfied

This is a sort of part 2 of my talk about tourney preparation - some more concrete examples of what can help you prepare to get the best performances - to reach 'The Zone' - when you want to.

Top performances in the Zone are a balance of being relaxed, focused and prepared.

Part 1
Think of your best performances. What were the circumstances that helped you reach that relaxed, focused and prepared state? Consider things like:

- venue? setting? travel?
- weather?
- armour condition?
- tourney format?
- other attendees?
- friends and family?
- food, drink, seating, comforts?
- noise level?
- distractions? annoyances?
- rest?
- personal condition?
- mental attitude?
- emotional state?

Describe those best performances in writing - physical, mental and emotional conditions.

Part 2
What can you do to create some of those conditions with your own preparations? Write down what you can do to prepare.

Part 3
That same list from part 1 can equally serve as a list of the stressors that make reaching the Zone difficult.
For each potential stressor, you develop a plan of response. Try out the planned responses, and see which ones help.

Example: weather - don't fight well in cold, wet conditions
Response:
pack a cloak
stand and rest between bouts out of the wet
change or waterproof footwear
make sure of 20 mins of warmup, from slow up to full speed, before tournament

Example: food - need a full stomach to fight
Response:
get up in time for breakfast :-)
bring extra food to snack on between bouts, in small amounts that are easy to handle even with gauntlets on

Example: tourney format - don't like waiting my turn in round robins, it takes too long
Responses:
ask a friend to keep you company between bouts to fight temptation to peek at results sheet
keep stretching and moving around between bouts

This preparation thing takes practice, but before long, it'll become routine, and you'll be glad of the familiarity of your own preparations on the day of the tournament.

Current Mood: working

Originally posted to the Thamesreach list.

Many thanks to the fighters who came out last night to listen to a short talk about goal setting for improving your fighting, and a bit about tournament preparation.

As it's been awhile since I talked about these subjects, I went home with a head dancing full of clever things I *should* have said about goal setting - mainly providing some examples of what I meant, and how they might apply to your fighting.

So consider this the take-home assignment. :-)

Re. setting goals in your fighting plans. If you are honestly confident that the current level of effort you are investing in your fighting will achieve your dream, than the next step is to set goals.

- Short term goal: occurring between a week and a month from now.
- Medium term: 1 month - 1 season
- Long term: 1 season up to a full year - or up to five or ten year plan.

Many top athletes work towards an Olympics or world championships that don't run every year, so five year plans are not unusual.

SMART goals are:
Specific - clear and positive language (vs. 'stop dropping my shield')
Measureable - so you know once you've achieved it
Achieveable - like Goldilocks: 'not too hard' and 'not too easy'
Relevant - has to apply to *your* fighting plan
Time-bound - has to occur within a deadline

Here are some examples of short term goals.

The numbers suggested are pulled out of my head, but if I were developing goals with you, I'd work with your known skills & weaknesses, possibly by consulting an experienced fighter who has seen you fight.

Let's say you 'want to be a better fighter in time for spring'.

From the very broad and general goal of improving your fighting, you can tease out several more specific, relevant and time-limited goals, eg.

a. new skill: building a new double combination of blows by end of March
b. improved skill:learn to defend effectively against head shots - improve ratio of survival from current 10% to 40%
c. overall fitness: fight all the sparring bouts available at practice for the next 2 weeks

Next step - how do you achieve those smaller goals? Examples:

Learning a new combination:
- ask Sir Knight to walk me through a double combo on the pell
- practice the new combination for 10 mins at the start of every practice
- include the new combination in my sparring X times between now and end of March

Learn to defend effectively against head shots:
- do shield lifts 2-3x week, working up to 20 lifts/set, 2-3 sets,
- consult w/ armour geek about positioning my shield on my arm: is this the best angle for me?
- work on shield position and angle in sparring

Fight all the sparring bouts: this requires fewer strategies, but some support would include:
- showing up to practice on time
- getting into fighting kit upon arrival (rather than waiting for others to show up)
- using the pelle while waiting for others to armour up
- do 2 bouts of other aerobic activity per week, in addition to fighting

Sounds persnickety? It's certainly detailed, and takes practice, and followup, but it's not hard.

For homework: come up with 1-3 goals for short, medium and long term, and flesh them out with your plans to achieve them. I'm happy to correspond with anyone who wants to work on their goal-setting language and planning.

Is this on the test? In a manner of speaking - the test results are on the field. :-)

Current Mood: satisfied

Robert was disappointed with his own performance on the field at Coronet, and I have to agree it wasn't his best. However, we've talked the circumstances over a bit, and I think we can see where we both need to work on preparing for tournaments, and freeing both of us up from multiple commitments through an event may be a start.

At Katherine of Great Chesterfield's suggestion I'm actually going to practice to talk to all the fighters about setting performance goals, and planning for tournaments. It's rather nostalgic, actually - tapping into an area of knowledge that used to be at the forefront of my mind, and was only piqued recently somewhat by watching the Olympics over the past few weeks.

Watching the Olympics themselves, and listening to Canadian commentators and athletes, was a bit of a nostalgia trip all on its own. To my own shock, I found myself watching curling and hockey - two games I would ~~rather driven hot needles into my eyes~~ have avoided in the past. But because Canada was playing, I found I wanted to watch.

I was pretty horrified by the level of aggression in the hockey though. I know lots of fans love the punch ups as much as the plays, but to me, it takes away a lot of the value of the game. Plenty of aggressive sports have no trouble separating the game from just plain violence; martial arts, Olympic or sumo wrestling, rugby. Hockey could clean up its act if there was a genuine desire (or a strong mandate) to do so. I wonder what it will take to bring it in.

(For comparison value, take a look at the footage of Gordie Howe games from the 50s and 60s on CBC archives.)
http://archives.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/topics/3529/

Watching the games from the 60s is fascinating: no helmets, no faceguards, no heavy shoulder padding.

The players' posture is far more upright on the ice, leading with their sticks on the ice, rather than bent over and leading with their heads and shoulders. The speed is about 3/4 the speed of the Olympic game from the weekend. I saw one elbowing incident, and no crashes, either into each other, or into the boards.

So evidently even the 'scrappy' players like Howe had a lighter touch pre-padding.

The 1979 clip shows Gordie Howe playing with Wayne Gretsky, who is barely old enough to see over the top of his skates. The players are still only half-helmeted, and still only lightly padded; the pace has picked up , but still isn't nearly as nasty as the gold medal game last month.