About a week and a half ago, while assailed by a Funk, I wrote about all the things I felt I didn’t have time to do, and how that was stressing me out. Now that I have clawed my way free of that Funk (realizing how silly you’re being works!), I can approach things a bit more rationally. Obviously, not all of the things I listed were “projects” in the sense that they have a deadline, or even a possible end. But I was not thinking straight, and could only see how much I “had” to do, in contrast with how little time or energy I had to do it (at that moment).

But now that I’m out of that Funk, I’ve started thinking about some of those things, primarily my teaching efforts in the SCA. I realized that I had lumped together two different projects, both with the potential to be quite large, and at very different stages of progress.

Getting fencing drills back up and running is something I’ve been thinking about for quite a while. It’s taken me at least this long to get comfortable with the new style, and I’ve been brainstorming curriculum for about a month. It’s gotten to a point where I feel I can do some beta testing with small groups, and responses seem to be good so far. Case in point: last week I was planning on leading drills for a few people, around three. Eight ended up showing up. Even the week before, when I had just been testing the drills with my girlfriend (to make sure they made sense to someone other than me), I ended up talking with other people about them. I’ve gotten some good feedback, and hope to start “official” drills next week/month (tell your friends!).

Heavy, on the other hand, is in a different place. The (current) drive for these drills seems to largely have been sparked by the Oplomachia seminar last month. And while it was awesome, Oplomachia is effectively a new fighting style, similar but not identical to what has developed locally. As a result, I found myself in a position of having to rush to learn things enough to be comfortable teaching them. That hasn’t really happened; I know enough to realize how much I don’t know, and I feel it would be unprofessional to lead people astray through uninformed but well-intentioned instruction on my part.

To prepare two wholly separate curricula would be difficult at the best of times, let alone when you’re still in the process of learning one yourself. So I think I would be doing both efforts a disservice if I continued both efforts equally. As such, I feel I need to step back from the development of heavy drills and concentrate on the fencing ones, since those were farther along to start.

That is not to say I won’t be doing and facilitating drills in heavy, just that I don’t feel comfortable at this point leading them. For my own peace of mind, I need to let things stew and develop a bit more. Maybe in a few month’s time I’ll have enough experience that my feelings will change, but for the time being I feel I need to be a student more than a teacher. Luckily there are other experienced fighters (my knight included) that want to see more training and drilling happen that there is already enough impetus to make sure these things happen.

So in summary: I will continue to lead fencing drills, and will participate (but not necessarily direct) in heavy drills for the foreseeable future.

Hope to see you there!