#ochs

happy birthday, phil.

85 years ago a truly brilliant mind was born, i miss him so much every single day. thank you for all you did <3

The wind knocked some pretty large branches down today, and among them were two that were perfectly sword-sized and hilt-thick. (Well, one was slightly shorter than the longswords I'm used to and the other was slightly taller than I was.)

You bet I was out there doing Zwerchhau and Ochs and this and that with all my steps and combos under a moody sky until the approaching thunderstorm drove me inside. (I've recently taken up HEMA and haven't gotten a true sword of my own yet.)

Anyway, one of my characters carries around this long ax (which I should probably be calling a bardiche), so before the wind knocked the power out I did a little writeup on just how easily I could manipulate a stick so long, how safe it really feels to have all that range, and how I could see feeling cramped with it in close quarters.

Thanks to sticks, my combat scenes are going to be even better in my novel's second draft, because I'll have that much more experience behind them. (Toootallly didn't join a sword fighting and archery club to make my fight scenes more realistic. Totes didn't take a History of Books elective to help me describe my arcane tomes and pretend I was a wizard.)

Let me just say that as a writer (and HEMA enthusiast), I like opportunities to bring out my inner child for "research".

Beastie Boys in Los Angeles, c. 1987