Nope.

Tough question. I most enjoy the brief moments of what I call pure swordsmanship when two skilled fencers are in the moment exchanging blows with grace and skill.

Very little. If anything does, it’s probably not related to the fight. I don’t tend to think too much (or enough) during a fight.

I encourage people to be thinking on a strategic level during a bout, but I have a hard time doing it regularly myself. It also might be nice if I occasionally paid attention to what I was doing, if only so I could answer questions about what happened later.

For myself I wish I could get more into a competitive mindset. It’s something that’s always held me back from being more consistently successful. For the community, I think I’d try to improve our ability to teach consistently and well, particularly to teach advanced students.

I did most of my drilling at home during college days, and I can’t really recall my motivations. (I can’t even blame that on the alcohol since I’d stopped drinking much by then.) I have done pointwork drills at home and the motivation was pretty simple—all it took was some gleeful giggling at being able to shoot hands and anything else I wanted to once I was in practice to keep me motivated to stay at that point.

There are very few things that have held my attention for a long period of time. I tend to explore something for a while then move on. Fencing is one of only three I have done for most of my life. The fact that it is continually challenging is probably one of the biggest draws.

I’d name someone from college but I can’t remember their name. Certainly Dylan—together I think we became so much more than we might have individually. And lastly Marc Masters, a coach who worked with me and improved my game and my ability as a teacher.

There’s a big question. Between Dylan and I, we were in a leadership position for several years from East Kingdom level to Society level. There were three major challenges in that time.

First was the emergence of this new thing called a "schlaeger". There were a lot of questions around it, how would it be safe, who could use it. The challenge was to allow it to grow but avoid a disaster that would end with it being banned unfairly.

The second challenge was around armor standards. This spawned from the first issue, really picking up speed when some notable Ansteorrans did some experiments suggesting we needed an additional layer for schlaeger play. This was the genesis of our scientific experiments and the armor testing work that followed.

The third is more in the context of the Society-level marshallate. During this time there were many alternative blades and schlaeger-clones being offered up, and the challenge was to design a system to allow these smaller manufacturers to use their weapons but still be sure they were safe.

Many moons ago, it was virtually unheard of for the fencers to have an MOL for a tournament. Dylan and I on various car rides tried to come up with tourneys that the marshal could easily run. We were also on our kick about being more careful in fencing (see below), and a single-elimination, wounds-retained tourney seemed to be something that would be fun and also easy to run.

We called it a pine box tourney because the only way out was in a pine box. We called it that partly because it was fun, and partly because it made people more careful.

I’m not even sure how often "Dead is dead!" is attributed to us, but that was another one of our things. There were a lot of double-kills going on in tournaments and worse (from our perspective) people were happy when they got a double kill. Usually they were just re-fought and there were no consequences. If you got a double kill, you screwed up. You didn’t properly defend yourself, and you should be punished. At that point we came up with "Dead is dead!"—if you double-killed, it was a loss against both opponents.

Any tourney we ran (and that was quite a few) from that point used it. We used tourney formats that would work with it and not cause problems (ie., no double-elim on trees). It soon became a rallying cry. It hit Pennsic, and the known world after that. We were insanely pleased.

I think in this case it reflects a level of investment in the student. You can teach anyone at any time, from one practice where you worked with someone to a series of weeks where you teach a new arrival the basics. Mentoring goes a step beyond, and embodies a relationship with someone over time rather than being "when we both happen to be at practice and feel like working on it".

The answer to that is as varied as the people involved and what they’re seeking. Often I feel people are a little too quick to enter into those relationships without discussing the expectations on both sides. As long as they agree, then it can be for any reasons they want.

If I knew that, I’d win more tournaments. One difference is that in practice, I won’t usually try as hard against a less skilled opponent. That’s just punishing for them and they don’t learn anything.

Both have their place. We far too frequently ignore the former in favor of the latter. Bouting is fun and good for experimentation and application, but it is not a good place to learn technique or improve skills.

Singles. I hate melees. I almost never have fun in them.

I was never much of an X-men reader.

Da! I mean Nyet! I mean... um... No, who told you such lies?

I think I had more than my chance to change what I didn’t like. I’m generally for simplification but we must always remember that there are people in the far reaches of the kingdom that don’t have access to the group mind and it needs to be on paper if we expect them to know.

Hm. Looking back I feel very lucky to have had a few accomplishments that stuck and made something of a difference. I did not design the OGR badge but as kingdom herald I did make sure that the order finally got a badge registered, and then got pins made to show it off. I feel good about "dead is dead", and while the current armor test may not be great, it’s so much better than its predecessor and based on actual physics that I am very proud of that step forward.

Oh dear lord so easily. I can be bought pretty simply. Some foods (though generally I’m not food-motivated), booze, and properly applied female attention are the most frequent inducements.

Fight better than I do. It’s not that hard. Not letting me have the initiative is a good start.

The truth is I was getting a little bored with fencing. I always had a preference for single and I decided I would fight single for a summer to improve my primary swordsmanship. (Being a lefty, you can get away with that a little more.) And it meant I didn’t have to carry so much junk in my bag. That "summer" ended up going for years. I still generally don’t bother with a secondary weapon under most circumstances.

Only in the mind of your opponent. Like anything else, I have an advantage if they believe I do, and I don’t if they believe I don’t. I suggest people stop thinking it’s a big deal, especially in the SCA where secondary weapons mean an attack can come from either side anyway.

There are good days and bad days but one that sticks out is Orlando’s wedding. Nicodemus had brought Fulk to the fencing area. Generally he is a heavy fighter but he is also a skilled fencer outside the SCA and was working with Nicodemus and was interested in seeing what he was dealing with. We fought for a while, with Fulk in a mix of heavy armor and fencing gear.

What was great was that it didn’t matter who actually hit who. If one of us got the other into a position where we were vulnerable, we called it. It was the setup and tactical level that was important, not the physics of tip on person. It was fantastic and distilled down the best parts of fencing into those moments.

I admire Brita for her patience and incredible demeanor.

Alexandre d’Avigne as one of my favorite expressions of swordplay, Alain Longship because he always makes me work for it.

Usually they don’t let me talk to new fencers for safety reasons.

"Where is that Esteban guy? I want to kick his a**!"