Howdy y'all. Here's what I've been up to towards the end of 2022.
New Digs
The big news is the move: my partner and I have moved to Victoria, on the south end of Vancouver Island. We co-bought a place with another couple, they went in for 2/3 and we went in for 1/3, so when we found a 3 storey house, we decided that we'd get the bottom level, and they'd get the top two. Our level is currently split in half between a finished suite (the South Wing), and an unfinished workshop area (the North Wing). We're pretty much moved in and sorted in the South Wing, and the next month will see us fitting out the North Wing with a few walls, so it'll be an additional two rooms for a rentable room and an office/den area, while keeping the bulk of the unfinished workshop unfinished, which we'll be using as a workout/training area. There will be a squat rack, kettlebells, indian clubs, plyo box, rings and agility ladders, as well as space for a short piste/fencing area.
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| A view of the North Wing. Shelves are going to come down, and we're going to clear some ceiling space. The window in the background will be obscured by one of the new walls. |
Beat the Crap Out of Cancer XIII
At the start of November, Maelstrom Martial Arts hosted the latest iteration of their annual event that raises funds for the BC Cancer Agency. This is probably my favourite event every year, and you better believe that even though I've moved to the island, I'll be coming back again next year. The format runs relatively close to a Dog Brothers gathering (I'm told, I've never been), in that fights are agreed upon by the combatants themselves, and they run for a set time (two minutes), and at the end of the clock the fighters hug/shake hands and no victor is declared. The difference from a gathering is that fights aren't full-force no-holds-barred, but each pair can decide if they want to do technical (no/minimal contact), light (reduced speed & power), or heavy (full gusto, but not actively trying to break each other). Also, any given pair is free to add any other restrictions they want (no throws, no groundwork, restricted targets, whatever).
I managed to get eight fights in, a blend of Nova Scrimia assalto cortese, sword vs sword, sword vs two daggers, single short stick, double short stick, and walking stick vs double stick. It was a blast, but I don't think I'm training enough right now for it to really be an effective feedback mechanism. The main feedback that I got was that it's been a while, and I'm out of shape!
Daze of Derby
A week after BTCOOC the folks over at NWO roller derby in Chilliwack hosted Daze of Derby, an event that they usually run annually, but it's taken a few years off due to the plague. I was scheduled to be a support ref, which I was excited for (local derby's small enough that I usually end up as head ref for any given event), but one of the three crew heads had to call in sick at the last minute, and I ended up inheriting the role of crew head ref.
The tournament overall was a whole lot of fun, even with some organizational scrambling at the beginning of the day. With two tracks right next to each other, we tried to use Fox 40 Pearl whistles on one track, and Fox 40 Classics on the other, but only 2/3 crews got the memo, which led to a handful of very confusing jam transitions, where one track had started/called off a jam and the other track thought it was their track that had started/finished. Overall, for a first post-covid run, I think the event went pretty smoothly, and I'm fully confident that next year will be even better.
Book Club
Back in September, when I went to WMAW in Racine, WI, Michael Heveran invited me to join his book club, which was about to start tackling FA Marcelli's Rules of Fencing, originally published in 1686. We've been meeting weekly (ish) for two hours or so, on Sundays, getting through a chapter or three each time. I'm super grateful to Michael for the invite; I've been collecting Holzman translations for so long, it's nice to finally start reading one.
New Town, New Job
After five and a half years at the little shop on Broadway, I've moved over to Victory Barbers here in Victoria. I knew that I was going to need a place to land as soon as we made the decision to move, back in the spring, and I'd already talked to Paul, the head barber at Victory, about the barbering scene in Victoria, so when I saw a posting for barbers back in June, I dropped them a line. It was an odd place to be: I wasn't sure where I was going to be living, nor when we'd actually be moving over, but Victory's central location made it accessible from wherever we'd be getting a place, and Josh seemed amenable to me just coming over for a couple of Monday/Tuesdays once or twice a month until I could actually make it out full time.
Looking Forward
What's next? I've now unpacked so many of my to-read books that there's a part of me that thinks I have no time for anything that isn't reading my to-read books, at least for the next few months, but I know that's also a road towards stir-craziness. Locally, I'm just getting to the point of figuring out what I want to do training-wise. I've reached out to a few boxing gyms, and I'll be looking up fencing clubs and HEMA groups in the next few weeks as well, although I'm not sure the extent to which I'll be down to clutter up my schedule in the immediate future.
In the new year I'm planning on heading over to Vancouver at some point in January, for a full day of training/sparring. Forms in the morning, sticks/sparring in the afternoon? Location(s) and time TBD.
