Getting back into medieval fighting has taken some time. I didn't pick up a sword in earnest for maybe two years after I first hit England - I was too busy exploring and travelling and singing in pubs.
When I first joined the Company of Chivalry, I started learning the bill. These buggers are heavy - three inch hexagonal shafts with an unwieldy lump o' metal on the end. I've yearned for my 9 foot spear and all my old skill and dexterity, that once had someone (who was no mean fighter himself) dub me 'one of Australia's best' at pole arms combat. Not so in England. Swimming muscles and fighting muscles might live in the same arms, under the one skin, but they are NOT the same thing!
Dispirited after weeks of aching biceps, and turning on the wrong heel in interminable 'drill', I turned back to swordplay. Here, I'm sure, is something I won't have forgotten... And indeed I haven't, but my 14thC blade is half a foot longer than my old 10thC jobby (my first ever joint purchase with a boy, made mine after I bought him a blade of his own). And this new club do edge blocks, and no head blows. It's maddening, and stuff that would have been deemed unsafe back home is de rigeur in CoC, and elsewhere.
It's taken time, but I have persevered, and I think it's finally paying off. This last weapons training, having swapped a bill for a spear, the point seemed to come alive in my hands and targets (bellies mostly) were just easier to hit. Maybe I'm not quite ready yet to retire ...
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