Today, once again, I’m doing lunges for my daily fencing. I’m doing them at the last possible minute.

Practice at the park was cancelled because of the weather. I was relieved. I hope a little more time will help me get back out there.

I spent my day hanging around the house with two other fencers, but we were all unmotivated, and we never got it together to practice. We’re all disappoint that we’re stuck doing games, lunges, point work, or nothing today.

This has to get better.

Today Nik took some of our students to an event. I had an online class meeting this morning and didn’t want to miss, so I didn’t go to War College.

I weighed in this morning. I’m still sitting at 202 lbs, but I feel stronger, and I think my clothes are fitting a little better, so I’m not letting the number on the scale get me down. We’ll see what my fat percentage looks like in a week or two.

Since I couldn’t fence at the event today, I’m doing 100 lunges to get my practice in for the day. I’m not aiming for a particular target. This is about body mechanics. I want to make sure I’m following the sword into the lunge, and once I’m there, I’m checking the placement of my knee in relation to my toe.

Tomorrow is a regularly scheduled practice day at the park. I’m a little apprehensive about going. I don’t want to see the people who saw me break down last week. I don’t want my mental condition to overshadow my other characteristics. I know I’m the only one who sees it. That’s the great thing about having an invisible illness. Logically, you know other people can’t see it. But when it weighs on you like this, it’s all you see in the mirror. We’ll see how I’m doing tomorrow. All I can do for now is take things one day at a time.

Buckler Cam

Okay, I’m holding the phone in my off hand; I don’t have the tech to attach a camera to my buckler (tiny shield). Here I’m practicing some cuts on the pell (see previous entry) in no particular order.

That terrible noise is my sword. It’s my training sword, so it’s a little beat up. That makes it a good choice for pell work. I’m not causing undue damage to my new sword.

Now that I’ve gotten my training out of the way, I’m ready for whatever this day has in store for me!

This morning I met up with my friends and did shoulder day. I forgot to take a photo of my set list, so I’ll upload it later.

I didn’t get the chance to fence or drill with another person, so I used the pell at Francois’ house instead. For those of you unfamiliar with pell work, a pell is a target you use for solo practice. In this case, it’s a 4×4 mounted vertically on a base and wrapped in rope with extra tape at the top. The rope and tape cushion the 4×4 so that hitting it doesn’t hurt your sword or chew up your target. Since the ceilings are high at Francois’ house, I was able to practice some cuts indoors with my arming sword.

Tomorrow I may get another 100 cuts in before we start our day. If we don’t have time, I’ll come up with something to do once we return to Pensacola.

Today was officially rest day for me. I got some stuff done around the house, and when Nik went to lift before fencing, I tagged along to do cardio.

At the gym, I tried a new machine that appears to be the unholy union of an elliptical and a stair master. I tried to keep my heart rate between 135-145. That was certainly a challenge. In 30 minutes, I think i logged about 3 miles.

After that I went to fencing. I was a little bit nervous, but I got to work with new people, and I did more actual fencing than I have in ages. I had a really good practice. I felt really healthy today.