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They're finally up on my wall together with this awesome poster I got from my sister @_cajsan_ 😍😍 "Tusen pussar" is the name of this corner. ;) #medals #historicaleuropeanmartialarts #kiss https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq97DlwFVNT/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1y1leeoh19e6o

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Freddy Mercury. <3

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My TaurHEMAchia 2018

Silver in women’s longsword at Tauremachia 2018.

Swordfish 2018 just went by and I haven’t even posted about TaurHEMAchia yet, that happened at the beginning of last month. I’m being a lame blogger lately, I know, but most nights I’m training, so I have at least a good excuse and don’t feel too bad about it.

I have a soft spot for TaurHEMAchia in Turin because, two years ago when I was still living and training in the UK, it was my first Italian event ever, my first taste of Italian HEMA, where I realised the local scene’s healthy and growing. 

Taurhemachia 2018 happened in a complicated week-end for me and I could only manage to take part in the longsword tournaments on Saturday 6/10. I had to miss out on all the workshops offered, which was a shame. I’m especially sad I had to miss Keith Farrell’s one on Dussack, since I’m a fan of this weapon and I haven’t been playing with it in a while.

Six Lame Scaligere competitors plus three more club members with various tasks took part in the event and we all had a good time. In the open longsword, I had a tougher pool than I expected and I decided that 3-4, 3-4 and a win in a tough open pool, isn’t a bad result.

Finals were livestreamed, who knew!

The women’s longsword wasn’t very big, six women in all and, as usual, a small tournament makes me feel more under pressure to do well, which I’ll admit, spoilt my fun this time. I felt like I fenced really badly in my final against the excellent Eleonora Manoni, but when I re-watched it a couple days later, I realised it wasn’t a disaster. I actually liked it. I could see the mistakes, of course, but I also saw many things that I liked. Eleonora did a great job and we joked about the fact that we’re now even because we both won against the other twice so far, so… It’s on! :) 

What went wrong in the final was very clear to me and that’s been a precious bit of information in preparation for Swordfish, that I’ll post about, hopefully soon. Have faith.

All of us Lame Scaligere at the event. Go us!

Next on the Italian tournaments calendar is LangHEMA in Alba, that will host a  women’s longsword competition that’s part of the CSEN national ranking, so I will be there.

Stay tuned!

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Swordfish 2018

It wasn’t at all given that I was attending Swordfish this year. I missed a lot of trainings because of illness and that made my motivation to go there really low. My registration was in the last minute and I almost dropped out of the competition the week before, but I got my shit together and went there. I told myself to have fun during the event, no matter what. Carl asked me the week before what my goal was and I told him that I just wanted to walk away from the competition with a good feeling, knowing that I did my best and being able to enjoy the whole event. Having fun is one of the most important thing when you are having a hobby. It’s not your job, it’s your free-time. I wasn’t at all happy with how I performed during training the month before Swordfish. I talked with a friend about my cause, who is also into HEMA but isn’t active right now in his training. He asked me if I wanted to come over the weekend before to train with him. Said and done, I went there. We trained together and I could teach him a lot of stuff, making me feel good about my fencing and my self-esteem went up. It was really fun, and we had a blast the whole weekend. The day before the competition I and a friend at training went to my job to hold a fencing seminar for all the kids who I am working with. The seminar went really good and at the end we sparred to show them how it fencing could look like. I was really nervous doing this to be honest, but it turned out to be the best fencing I’ve done for a long time. I promised myself to hold on to that feeling during the weekend. And I did. Normally during my warmup I listen to music to get “in the right mood”. But I realized that I don’t even know what the right mood is.. So why should I be listening to music making me get into a mood I don’t even know about? I also always had things I always do before competing, like warming up for an hour. Stretching and running a lot, making my pulse go up. Almost like I had some kind of schedule in my head with things I have to do. I told myself to skip that, because it only make me feel stressed. I tried something different. I asked myself what I wanted to feel like when I was up on the mat. I wanted to be relaxed and enjoy myself. So, I took parts from what I used to do – but in a different manner. I asked friends to spar with me, and instead of having that feeling: I want to win! I have to be good now! I felt: Oh this is fun! One more round! And that feeling was the one I took with me on the mat. I was nervous of course, but not as much as I can be. My first match were against Carla Huvermann. We talked a bit before, and it was really fun to having her as my first opponent. The match was intense, I remember that she hit me so hard in the head that I went dizzy for a moment. It was a blast, and I really got to challenge myself. The match ended up as a draw. So did my next against Jane Johnston whom also gave me a challenge. In the beginning she was the leader of the match, but I managed to change that in the middle of it. In the end I even took the lead with two points, but Jane managed to thrust me in the last exchange. It was thrilling! I will remember those two matches for a very long time. They are in the top of my list over the hardest fight I ever had during my career as a fencer. After that I lost against Minna, and my last match was against Cynthia which I won. I ended up 9, and only 8 went through to the eliminations. So close to making it! But I am happy anyway, and proud. I set a goal and I made it through. It felt like I had a flow during the whole tournament, just like I wanted. 

Me and Carla. Photo:  Francesco Fuà

I take a lot with me from this year swordfish. I went there, and thanks to that I came through as a wiser person and fencer. Learning to not be so hard on yourself really payed of. The change of my attitude meant a lot to me, a thing I think will be very important to me in my future career as a martial artist. This is what I love about HEMA. I never did martial arts before, but since I started ive grown so much as a human being. Thanks to our community and all the people in the HEMA scene. Not at least, because of me. That I wanted to. And still is. Except the competition I really had a blast with my friends. I missed a few of them, but I will get to meet you soon enough anyhow. Love Lotta

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Nature, where magic happens <3 #clarendon #photography #nature (på/i Karlslunds herrgård med trädgård) https://www.instagram.com/p/BoezVLjHWdt/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=zijvoa7oe186

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Home and sick, results to this.

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Since I love strawberries and dogs, I must reblog this. <3

strawberry: licked ✅

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My Oslo Penguin Cup 2018

My Penguin silver loot. And I love the T-shirt, super comfy!

Oslo! So glad this happened to be my first international tournament since serious injury, that kept me out of competition for nine long months, happened one year ago at the Oslo leg of the Nordic Historical Fencing League.

Since I got back to training in November last year and to competing in February this year, in a new country and new club, I entered all the Italian tournaments I could, working hard to be competitive again on the international scene.

For this reason, Oslo was an especially important test for me.

Group shot with all the fencers in the women’s longsword tournament, photo stolen from Igor Netto.

The women’s longsword kicked off on Saturday morning. We were 8 women in all but with the level of the fencers taking part, 5 rounds of Swiss system meant the tournament got tough pretty quickly. Loved it. My first time with this kind of system and I enjoyed it a lot. I didn’t get to fence everybody but I was happy I had a chance to meet Finnish champion Sara Vertanen, back in the game after a break from competition, and finally Hanne Eik Pilskog with whom I couldn’t finish my pool bout last year when my knee gave up. She’s such a good fencer and tough opponent. I won all my bouts and got to the final against Kristine Konsmo.

To celebrate my return to international competition (not that I have a problem signing up for all I can, I quit when I want, right?), I’d signed up for the open as well. It was tough. I had a hard pool which included Håvard Eidheim and Mikko Lehto. I enjoyed my first two bouts, then in the third a good hit to the hand started worrying me about injury jeopardizing the women’s longsword final and I couldn’t keep my head in the game much after that. In the end I won 1, lost 3 and I was just happy I could focus on the final in the evening. Waiting for it, I enjoyed cheering for my friends from WSG  Alexander “Sasha” Makarov and one of the latest additions, the talented Rowan Skilbeck, and watching fencers such as Dennis Ljungqvist, Axel Pettersson, Kristian Ruokonen, Håvard Eidheim and Magnus Lundborg, just to name a few, battling it out. Told you the level was no joke, didn’t I?

In the women’s longsword final, Kristine had her game on from the outset and I think we put up a good show. The score was super tight all the way through but - Alas! - In the end I was one point down so I took home the silver.

Kristine needs no introduction and her longsword skills have really come into their own. With her experience and insight from other weapons such as rapier and sword & buckler, and no less than Axel Pettersson in her corner (for the non HEMA readers out there, it’s like our Steffi Graff and Andre Agassi :D) you know she’ll always give you hell, in the best way. Yes, because there’s always something to learn when you fence somebody like Kristine. Just how mentally strong she is, is an inspiration.

Women’s longsword podium, photo stolen from Axel Pettersson.

Personally, I’m satisfied enough with how I fenced in the Swiss but in the final I’m aware I couldn’t keep it as clean as I would have liked. Too many hits and afterblows for my taste and I’m not happy with many of the points I scored because of this reason. Goal for next time with Kristine, cleaner fencing from me, cleaner points.

Next, one of my favourite moments in life: when the women’s longsword finals are done, I sit down, relax and enjoy the rest of the finals. Really, I love this moment. A feast of good fencing unfolded as I watched my friend Sasha win gold in rapier vs Axel Pettersson who proceeded to win bronze in the open longsword. Håvard Eidheim took silver and - surprise! - legend Dennis Ljvnquvist took yet another gold. You know when you think, “Well OK, nobody wins everything.” And then there’s Dennis. He’s just something else. Congratulations to all the medallists and thank you for the great show of skill!

I’ve especially liked the judges’ attention to the quality of the hits, with many being dismissed as not good enough a lot more than usual. I also liked that the referee would give a brief explanation of the exchange before assigning the points. It never left you wondering if your hit wasn’t seen or just not good enough, you always knew why the score was what it was.

I had to miss the sword & buckler and sabre competitions on Sunday because I had to catch an early flight. Shame, because I couldn’t enter the s&b tournament even if a spot had become available and I had to miss Rowan winning bronze in sabre. I did however manage to catch up with Reinier van Noort and his lovely family, who let me crash at theirs for the night. Knowing I’d been after a MBlade swing for some time, Reineir even relocated his old one with me. Thank you so much, I’m in debt.

Thank you to Fekteklubben Frie Duellister for organising this smooth event that combined fencing of the highest level with a friendly relaxed atmosphere. Many big names and good vibes under one roof, loved it!

Last but not least, I want to say that training with my new club Ordine delle Lame Scaligere (yes,“fun” to pronounce if you don’t speak Italian!) through thick and thin these past months, is paying off. I’ve been working hard on fixing my known issues to complement my fencing with better distance management, better footwork and form, under very good guidance. So thank you Lame Scaligere, while you couldn’t be in Oslo with me, all our hard work was!

Penguins!

Next tournament for me will be Albion Cup in the UK next month and hey, don’t wanna go back to England without showing off my improvement, do I?

So, to the salle!

[glookie]

I have this planner with these absolutely ridiculous pages with like “motivational” quotes on them that are just these bullshit things like “Let your heart sing” and “Always believe in your dreams”

and like that’s always struck me as such meaningless bullshit, I’ve always hated those. They’ve never had that element that truly motivates me.

So, I took matters into my own hands and I made my own artsy motivational wallpapers. Enjoy.

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Pressure during training

Now I am talking about pressure in a mental state. When you go to the gym and make yourself go harder and harder every time, having this voice in your head saying: ONE MORE REP!! JUST ONE MORE REP!! YOU CAN DO IT! This doesn’t have to be bad, some people actually need that to keep on going. But for me, it’s always gets out of hand. I started going to a gym when I was 16 or 17, a friend of me made me go there. I didn’t have any experience or knowledge about training in beforehand, I just liked to move my ass around on my bicycle a lot and had been riding from the age of 6 – 16 but that was all.

I’ve always had a competitive brain. This is something that I think comes from that I, as a child, always felt unseen and I had to do stuff to get credit for it. In school, for example, the only thing that matter was my grades. Not me. Even when I tried my best, it wasn’t good enough. Anyhow, starting out on a gym triggered my competitive side a lot. I could see progress every time I went there and I loved it! The feeling of getting better raised my self-esteem and I felt like I was the king of the world! The only problem was that I got this mental thing in my head, telling me that I had to be better the next time. I HAD to take more weight or more reps, and I kept going on the same training routine forever. Guess what happened? Well, my body started to say: Stop. I don’t want to. I hated it. Training for me turned into self-hate. If I couldn’t do as many reps as the last time, it made me angry and it felt like shit. I stopped going to the gym for 1 or 2 years. Then I started again, on a different gym with another approach. I remember I went to swimming a lot. And I started to run, which I’ve tried before. But guess what? It ended up in the same way as before. Same routine all over again, I stopped with both training and running. During this time I also worked on a farm, which is hard work and on top of that I went to the gym 3-6 times a week. Looking back at that now, I was a maniac who pressed my body to its limit several times a week. What happened this time? I started to suffer from nausea and dizziness almost every day. But hey it’s good for you to train right? You want to be healthy! I got some type of depression as well, where I felt I didn’t want to eat and an obsession with numbers. I had a scale, which I looked at every day. The goal was to lose weight and for every kilo I lost I felt “better”. So, I trained a lot, pushed myself all the time and I didn’t eat as I should. A lot of this is thanks to the way society hunts us with all this: Go and train! Be slim! Get muscles! You know of what I am talking about, right? For me, as I talked about earlier, when I felt like I had to get good grades to become someone, all those things got triggered even more. I worked with those things for several years now. When I started out with HEMA I trained like a hamster doing 13-14 pass every week, at the gym, running, workout classes – you name it. People told me I was a lunatic, I just laughed at them. I thought I felt good doing all this, because right there and then I did. My body pumped me up with endorphins which became my drug. During my time in HEMA I realized that this shit is not sustainable, and I’ve been training a lot mentally to get rid of all this prestige in training. I still have issues with it and it’s really hard to find a balance that works out. I have a hard time to start going to the gym again, I am afraid that this will trigger me once again to get it going like that lunatic I once was. I want to learn how to take care of me in a good manner. How to make me stronger in the long run, not just for today. The Swedish Championship in HEMA is coming along later this summer and because of this our trainer made up a training plan for us, If we want to do it or not is up to us. This is something that made me anxious. I didn’t even want to see post of the others going to the gym on Facebook, because TRIGGERS ARE ALL OVER THE PLACE!! But, I know that this training program they’ve come up with is far from how I am used to train. It’s made to get the body in shape for what we are actually putting it up for. I’ve decided to give it a try, me and a friend actually went to the gym today and my friend is also somewhat of a gym maniac (sorry but you know what I mean <3) together we went through all exercises together without pressure or anything. Just making them. It felt odd going to the gym without all that mental pressure. We just had a good time and it was more like we were going out taking a coffee together. Weird. But good. Feels like the start of a new beginning, actually.

I think that the thing I want to say with all this is: You only live once. Take care of yourself. Don’t press yourself that hard. Results will show anyhow. Lots of love. Lotta

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Fight your fears

Last weekend I went to Houston with my team members of Örebro HEMA. My beloved friend Suri was supposed to go with us, but couldn’t because their dog went ill and had to go through an emergency surgery. Suri and I booked our flight together and didn’t have the same flights as the others on our way home. I was calm with this when we booked, but when Suri couldn’t follow it stressed me out since I haven’t flown by myself before. Not this long either, I’ve only been on flights that took me an hour or so. It was also a stress not having one of my best friends with me during the entire stay. Before we left I was actually having thoughts about leaving in the whole trip, because I couldn’t handle the thought of me having to take that flight home by myself. 

When we got to Arlanda I was calm though, this wasn’t the hardest part of our journey – it was the easiest since I had company with the others during the whole flight to Houston. I was a little bit nervous about the security check in Chicago, since I’ve heard stories about them. “You know, a big guy ala CIA will make an interview with you in a room asking you why you come and visit the USA. They will take your prints and everything!” When we finally reached Chicago it wasn’t that terrifying. You just had to answer a few question on a machine, stand in another line with some ppl behind desks and when it was your turn you just went there, they took your fingerprint and asked: Why are you coming here? Jesper was in the line before me and he told the guy: We are going to a fencing competition. When it was my turn the guy just asked me: Are you in the fencing team as well? Yes! And that was how I put my feet in America the first time. Not that hard actually! We got to Houston in the middle of the night because of flights being delayed. We were a bunch of tired fencers, our trip took like 24 hours or so – no wonder we were tired! Now we just needed to get to the place we were going to stay, at the Grepares family. Our host came along to give some of us a ride (we were to many to fit in just one car) and the others got to rent a car. Very convenient. The Grepares has been incredible as hosts during the whole trip! They took care of us and it was like getting a whole new family. I am very thankful for that! We had 2 days of free time before the competition was held. During these two days we went to a winery trying out wines and had a picnic, we went to the museum and was out dining. The museum was really cool, they had like tons of skeletons from dinosaurs. 

From the museum

On Saturday we went off early to the sports arena where the competitions should be held, all the guys from us were competing this day. We realized they didn’t have any showers on site (!) not even locker rooms! This was such a weird thing not to have in a sports arena, at least for me but maybe it’s normal not to have? Anyhow, I was a bit nervous to get there since I was very tired before our trip started. I felt like I didn’t want to socialize that much since my energy was out. I told myself in beforehand that I didn’t had to. That it was ok not being all happy all the time talking to everyone, that I would make contact with people anyway. This is something I’ve been working hard on, that I don’t have to be the center of attention. Cause god damn that takes a lot of energy! And I don’t have it. I think none of us do. You know what? I’ve made new friends anyway. Just being the way I am, and this is a very important lesson for me. The open division started and I was very happy just being an audience. It was fun watching my teammates fight, and they did great! I jumped in as a judge during some of the pool fights instead of Carl. In this competition everyone that is competing also have to staff to make everything work out. It was fun judging, the fencing over there is a bit different from what I am used to. Always interesting seeing and learning new stuff. The next day it was my turn. I was up to competition! Or was I? Remember being tired and not very motivated at all. I felt it was a bit messy on sight – but it always is in some manner. I wasn’t as nervous in beforehand as I can be. I was going to be in the second pool, found out on site – maybe this was the reason why I wasn’t as nervous because usually you get that information the night before, making the whole situation “real”. I barely had the time to do a proper warmup, which is important for me. This was because of the fact that I thought that the women’s should be on one mat but it was held on two. Made me going straight up for my first match not at all ready for it. Jesper was my coach and he did a nice job. Now I became really nervous, nausea and everything! I asked myself: Why am I doing this?!?! A question that always run through my mind when I have my feet on the mat. Feels like my legs are made of syrup and having a hard time moving around, cause they won’t listen. I hate it! Still I put myself up there every time. I went through my first match and I won even though I had somewhat of a struggle at first. Than the second one, still nervous but made it through, also a win. Third, same procedure but now I started to feel like I should – telling Jesper so. He laughs and replies with: “Ok. You just had to win three matches with a hell of advantage first?!” That is Jesper just being, Jesper. The final match of our pool was me against Rebecca Glass. It was really fun, I had a blast even though I don’t remember that much from our match. But I never do, it’s like I’m in my own bubble when I compete. I won four out of four matches, and I am very proud doing so. I felt really good. Until Carl came up and told me and Britt that it might be a slight chance that we had to meet each other in the first rounds of eliminations. Whaa!! I didn’t travel that far to meet one of my teammates. Carl wasn’t mistaken – this was the way it ended up. I was ranked number three and Britt as number 6 after the pools. I told myself that I should just give it everything I’ve got. We both did, and this was the greatest match I had during the competition. It was very even between us for a very long time. Then Britt managed to hit me with a nice thrust, and the match was done. Britt won and I lost. She came through to the finals and came home with gold. Well done!! She is very well deserved of it, working hard every week to become a better fencer. After the competition we went home, took a shower and went on to the castle feast. This is a big Castle which is built in the middle of nowhere just because they wanted to have a castle. Things that can only happen in America folks! We ate a lot of meat and stuff, it was nice but.. Cold!

During my stay I’ve met so many people, Josh for example who I had contact with for 2 years thanks to a blogpost I wrote back then. It was a pleasure meeting you Josh!

I made new friends that I miss already, and I hope all of you are coming to Sweden soon!

But hey, now you might wonder. What happened with that flight on the way home?!

Well, this is the worst part of this trip by far. I was exhausted after the competition, and I also won this bad cold (which I still have because of it stubborn nature...). When we got to the airport I calmed myself down with the fact that I was going to take the first flight with the others to Chicago, then I should go to London by myself making another transit to Stockholm from there. On our way to Houston we had been both to London and Chicago, which made me feel safer. I went off to the machine to check in. It didn’t work out. I tried again, it failed once more. Then I had to talk to one of the staff to check out what was going on. She told me that one of my flights had been cancelled. My mind just freaked out. Cancelled?

Then she told me she had to send me to Philadelphia. My head starting to zoom out. I couldn’t really hear what she was saying anymore. I told Carl to get there, so we could solve things out because I couldn’t handle it there and then. Philadelphia… I felt so small! I wanted to run away and call someone who could come along and pick me up. But.. I had to do it. I almost started to cry from all the anxiety building up in my chest. Carl tried to fix so I could fly with them instead, but that flight was full. I told Carl that, well, after this I can fly everywhere! But right now I feel like shit.

We went through the security check. Of course they had to check my bag. I had Gertrud inside of it, so I thought: they will probably check her through. The guy working there took her out from her bag which has a suspicious look. He opened the bag, stared at Gertrud (who is my mascot – a lizard with rainbow-colored skin) I had a hard time to not start to laugh. I just wanted to say things like: Say hello to my magical lizard Gertrud! But I had to shut my mouth. This was hilarious! My team followed me to my gate, said goodbye and then I was on my own. Terrified and in somewhat panic mode.

Once I was on my flight I calmed down, it was the point of no return. I got to Philadelphia and was still in that anxiety mode, making me insecure. I almost took a bus to the wrong terminal. At least I realized what I was doing before I actually did it. Then I asked one of the staff where I was going to get to the right gate, just to calm myself down. He wasn’t helpful at all actually, just stressed me out even more acting like I was a stupid person. Maybe I am but hey, don’t act like it. Finally I got to the right gate, got my ass on the plane which was delayed by 45 minutes. When I got to London I got myself a new ticket to another flight since I missed my transit. You know what happened? I was on the same plane as my team-members. When we got to Stockholm my bag was lost, but it didn’t matter. I was in the right country and I grew as a human being during that flight. Now I can see the world on my own, no doubt about that!

I could write a whole book about my experience in Houston, but I’ll save that till later. The most important stuff is that this story had a happy ending.

The end!

xoxo

Lotta

[glookie]

Letting go

I went to my first training pass in HEMA November 2014. From the very start I knew that this was something I’ve been searching for during a long period of time. I wanted something challenging in my everyday life, something that always have new challenges to give. It was a lucky coincidence I found HEMA and today I am very glad I did. The challenges I’ve been going through during those years have been bigger than I could ever imagine. Surprisingly enough the roughest challenges HEMA has given to me is not my development as a fencer, but as a human being overall. One of the many things I had to handle is the performance anxiety I always get when I want to do something. Doesn’t matter what I do. If I want to run, then I always tells myself I have to get better. I’ve been through the similar thoughts during my time in HEMA. This creates such a pressure on me that I, when I get to tournaments or a normal training, perform on a level that is far below my actually performance level. I’ve been asking myself a lot about this; where are those thoughts coming from? Why am I thinking like this? I don’t have the complete answer on this though. I think it has a lot to do with the society and how it’s build. We go through school and have to perform to get grades in subjects the system told us to be good at. Even though those are subjects that you maybe don’t even care about. Maybe you had a family that didn’t give you as much attention as you deserved, that all that mattered was how good you were in school and what grade you was given. It was like this for me. I was my grades. If I didn’t perform well I wasn’t good enough. Of course there is a lot of other things than just this that is a ground to all of this anxiety about performing in other situations, this was just an example on what could be the reason why we are telling ourselves that we aren’t good enough. I’ve been working a lot with these thoughts. Even before I started with HEMA. But for me, practicing HEMA helped me a lot getting through and pass those obstacles in my mind. They are still being a fucking bitch to me at times, but I’ve got a lot better on this front. I had a discussion with my trainer before this term started about those things. He told me that I can perform better than I think, but that my mind is getting a grip over me. This started a process. Almost every training I went to made me feel anxiety in some way. I was never happy with my own performance. Every hit I took during sparring made me feel angry, why, WHY, where the others better than me?! Why was I always getting hit by them? Why didn’t I parry better? Why was I such a bad fencer?! First of all: I wasn’t bad. The others, well they are always “winning” over me. But that, in fact, is not at all weird. They have been training for several more years than me. And even if they were beginners who were better than me, why would that matter? I train for my own sake. I want to get better from my level, not theirs? I started to tell myself to let go of that feeling. Let go of that shit that I HAVE to be better than everyone else. I don’t. I don’t even have to be better than the last time I trained. The only thing I need to stay focused is to not getting stressed up during training, cause this my friends, is the worst thing you can do if you want to learn and perform better. Relax. It will be alright, you will learn. If you just let yourself be.. Mediocre at something. We all have to start somewhere, right? I’ve told myself this over and over again. That I am not a champion. Everything you do needs practice. No one of us could walk when we was born. Still, walking in our everyday life is something the most of us take for granted. But at first, taking your very first steps took hours of training. You fell, and got up again. Everything you do that is new to you will be hard and rough. You will have easier for some things than others, and the other way around. But when you start to accept your ground level you can rise that bar in small steps. Little by little. You just need to keep doing it, and accept that Rome wasn’t built in a day. For me, those insights made a lot for me lately. Now I often feel pretty satisfied with my performance during trainings, and I actually think that my fencing level increased a lot lately just by letting myself go and accepting that I was not born with a sword in my hand. I just need to let myself learn how to handle it. 

[glookie]

This weekend I traveled to Borås to participate in the Swedish championship of HEMA. The event this year was bigger than ever since we were a part of “SM-veckan”. A week where over fifty sports have their finals in one week. This is like a big kick-ass party for the whole town and I was one of those people representing HEMA, competing for my club. It’s big for the entire HEMA-scene in Sweden. I was nervous as fuck. It all started out with a whole lot of stress of getting there since I found out the day before left off that I didn’t have anyone to travel with. Panic. The stress was absorbing my entire being. Fuck. I decided to take the train and sleep at a friend in Gothenburg. To make it easier, I took all my packing to a friend in town the same night to make it easier for me to take them to the train after work. I got home and was going to book the train ticket. They were all sold out the time I planned to go. This wasn’t a very big issue, but since I was all stressed out already it became a very much larger problem than it actually was. More stress! GAH. Since I was stressed out my mind started to see problems instead of solutions. I hate when this happens! It all sorted out in the end, I booked an earlier train and got my stuff from my friend during the morning. After I had booked the tickets – of course another team member told me I could go with him. Blurgh! This was pretty late in the evening and since I’ve already payed my ticket I decided to stick with my plan. I arrived at Gothenburg around 7 Friday evening. My friend waited for me at the station and we went to her place. We hanged out for a while before it was time to go to sleep. Guess what happens? I woke up in the middle of the night with pain in my throat and a nose that was dripping. Fuck. Not now. Not again. Tried to sleep some more.  A cat woke me up at around 04:30 night time. Hell yeah! This didn’t start out well. We got up, got some breakfast and got going to Borås with bus. Got to the place 10 minutes before it all started up. I was stressed out to the maximum. Lack of sleep, lack of.. Everything? The noises around us was overwhelming. There was people everywhere! And the space we had for warmup wasn’t very large at all. Gosh. I barely landed at the site before it all started up. This made me nervous. I didn’t know If I had a coach or someone to warm up together with. Luckily I got hold of another fencer that told me he could do both if necessary which calmed me down a lot (Thanks Jimmy). We looked at the first matches and then I started my warmup.  Jesper came after a while and helped me out, he was actually going to fight Jimmy later in the men’s longsword. I asked Jesper if he could coach me, if he had the time. He was uncertain at first but then decided it was possible. Thank god, it’s always better to have a coach that you know and who knows you. I sparred some rounds with Jesper, being aware of the fact that this time I was just getting through 2 matches since the pools were already done in the qualifications earlier this year. My first match was against Jenny Sellén which I know is a hard opponent. It was really hot outside and I was trying to stay as cool as possible – not easy at all in fencing equipment. It was time for the ladies longsword, me and Jesper went to the arena. I didn’t like this at all. All the noise and all the people everywhere. But, I realized the following: I have 10 minutes on the mat. No matter how this end up, it is only 10 minutes of my life. Ok. I took a deep breath and went up there to face Jenny. It felt like mud on my legs and my body, like I’ve forgotten how to fence. Jenny took the lead. I had the feeling that I wasn’t able to take it back. But I tried anyhow and started to relax in what I was doing – now something happened. Suddenly I hit her and got points. I know I hit through her guard twice and hit her in the head that the judges didn’t see. This happens, nothing to be grumpy about – it’s up to me to have clear exchanges and if the judges doesn’t see.. Well, they don’t. The match ended up 9-7 to her, which was good since Jenny was leading with 6-0 the first half of the match. I was disappointed though, I know by heart I can do better than this. I did get one minute rest. Now I had to face Nina Morgan Olsson, who did her second competition ever I think, about the bronze. The first thing Nina managed to do was to give me a nice thrust in the chest, something I didn’t expected at all! I almost lost my mind there, fuck. Am I losing this? Like last year? No. I will not. I did what felt like terrible fencing, but after two rounds against Nina I won with 32-10 I think. Not sure at all but it was something like that, even though I got the bronze it didn’t felt like I’ve earned it. My performance wasn’t good, I can do much better than this and I know that. Nina did a very good job though, since it was her second competition in longsword and managed to become 4 th in Sweden. That is awesome. I really hope that she will enter more competitions later on. Men’s longsword. Jesper. Seriously. Jesper Christansen. Since I started doing competition in HEMA he have been there on almost every single competition (not in Norway this year but that is the only one he missed out from) I’ve been on. He always had very big goals for himself, making him frustrated as hell every time he didn’t get there. This year he have gotten more relaxed in competition moments. And what happened? Well. During the Swedish nationals he won his first match against Jimmy. He went on to Semi- finals and won against Nyzell like he hadn’t been doing anything else in his entire life. He lost against Dennis in the final match, ending up with a silver medal in his hand. This is the second medal Jesper got and in a very short range of time, last one being on Sweden Open where he ended up as third. He has been working his ass off to get here, and finally it pays off. I am very proud to be his team-mate and to have the honor to follow his journey. Well done, friend! Oscar, also from our club, ended up as fifth in the sabre tournament. He wasn’t happy with the result, but he had a very nice development later. I think that the world have to watch out for us from now on. 

Team Örebro. 

Now to something completely different. People. I very often tend to think that people are morons and stupid hurting both themselves and others. I try to not be one of them, making an effort every single day trying to make the world a better place. This weekend not only one but three was offering me somewhere to sleep. I ended up at Nina’s place afterwards, exhausted from the event also trying to find somewhere to shower. This was fucked up, when I finally found the place they told us they had no shower rooms for us. Bwah! We had to call the janitor who fixed it all up. After that walk who took about 20 minutes with all my packing and that answer I really just wanted to go home. I decided to get the bus back to Gothenburg, tired, hungry and not in the greatest mood. Nina asked me if I wanted to go to Jimmy’s party after and I said yes. Then she offered me to sleep at her place, she even had food for me! OMG yes! I went to her place, got food and ice cream (I think I told her that I loved her in the moment when she offered me to go there). And then we went to Jimmy’s place. I am very grateful for having these people as my friends. I haven’t known any of them for so long, but they mean a lot for me. Just having someone’s keys in case of something messing up along the way means a lot to me. I could also had slept at Jimmy’s place. I had tons of alternatives! Normally this kind of situation should have stressed me out totally, instead I got home with the nicest feeling inside of me. I love you friends! Now, I’ve learned a lot during this weekend – both in HEMA and in life. I will continue to develop as a human being and as a fencer. I have plans for them both. Just you wait. ;)

[glookie]

The role of tournaments

“At this point I think it would be good to briefly talk about the role of tournaments, especially since their purpose often is misunderstood. Some people make the mistake of thinking that fencers stick to simple techniques because they “want to win.” That is not the reason. They stick to simple techniques because that is the only thing they dare to do when they risk something. Tournaments are actually a lot more stressful than some outsiders seem to understand, especially tournaments that have an audience.

When you simultaneously argue that tournament fencing should be more controlled, artful, and contain more techniques, while at the same time criticizing tournament fencers for not having a martial approach because “tournaments aren’t like a real fight”, it becomes obvious that you are missing the point. Tournament fencing is often less artistic because there is more at stake, in the same way that real fighting is less artistic than sparring because there is more at stake.

There are many reasons to hold and fight in a tournament (and the different purposes should be reflected in the rules). But one of the overarching reasons for all tournaments is that it provides a stressful testing ground against unknown fencers. That does not exclude other formats of stress testing. In my mind people should try to do as many different stress tests as possible. The more comfortable they become at fighting with high stakes, the easier it will become for them to do the mental transition into a more martial mind-set. Competitions are, and always have been, a way of preparing yourself for the real deal. They are not a simulation of the real deal.

Let me also point out that comfort zones are personal. A competition may be stressful to some, but a walk in the park for others. If you already feel completely at home in the competitive environment, then maybe it’s time to raise the stakes. That doesn’t mean that competitions are bad for everyone. I believe that there are many valuable pursuits for people to train themselves in handling stress, but the important thing is that they do it and get out of their comfort zones. ”

       - Anders Linnard, excerpt from Creativity, stress, and a stiff upper lip

[glookie]

My Sweden Open 2017

What? You thought I wouldn’t report on it just because I couldn’t compete?

I did wonder whether it was a good idea to go all the way to Kristinehamn in Sweden last week-end to be surrounded by dozens of fencers doing what I love and can’t do at the moment because of injury. Turned out that, as I suspected, just being there with my teammates from WSG and all the NHFL habitués, breathing HEMA, coaching and spectating excellent fencing, kept me in good spirits and boosted my determination to do all it’s going to take to recover well and be back. Fine, I shed a few tears when the women’s longsword league medals were being given out since I headed to the Norway Open in May, where my knee gave up early in the pools, still leading the women’s longsword division so I had my moment of “I trained so hard to be there with them!” and instead I dropped from 1st place to 5th after all was said and done in Kristinehamn but then my teammates surprised me with a long warm group hug and instantly cheered me up. Aww you guys!

I love HEMA and I love sword fighting, even as a spectator I find it so exciting. It was important for me to know I could enjoy an event in this way since recovery won’t be fast so chances are I’ll attend other events in the same way. My post-recovery target tournament is Longpoint 2018, though I should be back on my feet and able to train earlier than that. We’ll see.

Back to the week-end, it was exactly the professionally run league’s Grand Finale that it was supposed to be. If you know the league events, you come to expect it but it doesn’t mean the organisational efforts go unappreciated. Led by league top man Carl Ryrberg  (A.K.A. The Carl), Örebro HEMA pulled off a fabulous event that let the fencing shine through without the slightest of shadows. I think we can’t honestly ask more of organisers than running events in such a way that all you actually take notice of, is the fencing.

UK bench cheering for Jonathan Middleton in the sabre tournament. From the left: Piermarco Terminiello, Mark Wilkie, James Wiggins and myself.

And what fencing! From the rapier & dagger to the sabre and the longsword tournaments, I was glued to my seat, and not just because walking in crutches is a pain. Granted, I could watch good fencing all day everyday and witnessing it live has its extra appeal so I’ve enjoyed the show a lot.

WSG had two world class fencers in the rapier & dagger competition, School Of The Sword instructors Piermarco “Pim” Terminiello and Alexander “Sasha” Makarov. London’s Waterloo Sparring Group and Guilford’s School Of The Sword are closely related so we’re all one team except in denomination, which we don’t mind as the points for the Team competition come only from the longswords tournament.

Pim looked unstoppable from the offset, winning gold in rapier & dagger on the day and in the league, producing the best fencing I’ve had the pleasure to see from him. Sasha followed closely winning bronze in the rapier & dagger tournament and silver overall in the league. In the sabre we had Jonathan Middleton and Pim. Both cleared their pools proceeding to eliminations and Pim made it all the way to winning the bronze final.

Above: Jonathan Middleton (red) fighting in his sabre pool.

I watched all the women’s longsword, very taken with having the chance to observe all the fencers without being involved in the comp, quite the unusual experience. I could see many things that under the pressure of competition, I don’t notice and I made a mental note about keeping up to date with the women’s longsword scene while I fix my injured knee, cause it’s a field that progresses fast.

In the men’s longsword WSG had three fencers, Alexander Makarov, James Wiggins and my current instructor Jonathan Middleton and they all did a great job making eliminations. I was coaching James, who started strong in his group then had to deal with an annoying mouth bleeding, after a powerful thrust to the mask, but he didn’t let that detract from his excellent bout with Kristian Ruokonen. It was the highlight of their pool, I daresay. Jon and Sasha both cleared their pools and Sasha made his way to quarter finals. Well done all! I’m pretty sure my cheering skills levelled up during this one event. ;)

In the evening, I watched the finals which for the first time included ringen (historical wrestling for the non-HEMA speakers reading this). I had signed up for the ringen tournament too and I was SO looking forward to do it, what a shame I had to drop out! But I’ve enjoyed watching it, that’s for sure.

The finals were all fantastic, you can watch most of them here and you can read the results of the day and of all the league here.

After the medals were all decided, the night was young and it was time to enjoy the gala dinner, the fun and the sauna. I must say the food was delicious at the event, thanks to Sophie Ryrberg, The Carl’s sister, who cooked it. I loved those Swedish meatballs for lunch, never had them before. Yum!

During dinner, it was announced that there won’t be a NHFL next year. I was sad to learn this, cause I consider the league my competitive home. There will still be various events in the Nordic countries of course, one of which, the new Battle Of The Bridge event organised by Carl and Örebro HEMA, was announced during the gala dinner. It promises an outrageous amount of bouts to all participants so what’s not to like?

My competitive year has come to a unexpected premature end but my love for and my involvement in HEMA certainly haven’t and from this year’s league I’m still bringing home a lot. Two events and two medals, gold and bronze (bling!) but more than that, the knowledge that my hard work in training paid off and now that injury will keep me out of tournament for a while, it’s important for me to know it. If I did it once, I can work my way up there again. I’m taking home my first experiences as a tournament coach and my first experience being consistently coached in tournament (mostly by James but by Jon too in Oslo and both did a great job, thank you!), something I’ve been really happy with because the coach’s role is becoming more and more relevant in tournaments. Of course, as I’ve been saying in all the league related posts so far, what made this 2017 edition so special has been having a team. I could’t be prouder of all of us in it. Unfortunately the lack of my points costed us to drop from 2nd place to 5th in Team comp after my injury so no top three for us, but we know we worked well together, we trained with focus, we coached and supported each other on and off the matt. And when I say “we”, I don’t even mean only the people that made the events but everybody that contributed to our training and organisation from home too. There won’t be a NHFL next year but I hope we’ll keep up the team work and make it even more our strength.

My best memory from the Sweden Open? After the medal ceremony, I went to congratulate Sara, Julia and Majken who medalled respectively first, second and third in this year’s league, then everybody went to their teams to celebrate. Being slow on crutches, suddenly I was alone by the mats with a tear in my eye. Sasha appeared from behind hugging me with the Waterloo Sparring Group flag and then all the other teammates came around us too and we had that long warm group hug that I mentioned.

Yes I’m sentimental, take it or leave it, but it really made my day.

Team WSG after the medal ceremony at the Sweden Open: Piermarco Terminiello, myself, James Wiggins, Alexander Makarov and Jonathan Middleton. Thank you guys for sharing the league experience with me and for all the support!

Home now and looking forward to start the long way to recovery. 

Can’t wait to be back with a vengeance!