Well, complete in the sense that I now know all the moves, and can perform them in order without resorting to references (though sometimes there are big gaps where I have to pause until I can remember what to do next). Now, all I have to do is practice it three times a day every day for ten years, and then I will be pretty okay at it!
Some THOUGHTS to follow over at Ten Sword Style.
My AWARD-WINNING* series returns! As you all know, I like to talk about swords, and that is what I am going to do right now. If you DIDN’T know, then you might like to start over at the beginning of this series of articles. Otherwise, let’s just get right to it. I am going to start off with talking about the last fight from the new Conan the Barbarian movie and use it as a jumping-off point to address one of my swordfighting bêtes-noir:
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So, I have been doing my First Sword (32-Posture Tai Chi Jian) since about may, I guess. For Christmas, I received a number of new DVDs about Jian fencing, and around about January I started working on a new form: the Wudang Tai Yi Jian form, put together by this famous Daoist monk who now lives in Boston, I guess.
In these sections, I’m going to be writing a little bit about a fight that I’ve always had a bit of a problem with: the duel in the Firefly episode “Shindig.” Upon closer consideration, I actually think I’m not really as troubled by it as I let myself be when I first saw it — it’s easy, when you see things you like on the television, to let your enthusiasm get a head start on your more considerate faculties. However, there are a couple points that I think are interesting and worth mentioning — some things that are a bit of a problem some things that are just illustrative. So.
So, a couple folks found my last three posts on this subject interesting enough that I think it merits a continuation. Like I said, fencing is a subject that I’m fascinated with, and I can almost always talk about it. I want to leave off talking about Lady Sabre (which I still recommend that you read), and turn to one of my own personal bêtes noirs: the duel in the Firefly episode “Shindig.”
This is probably pretty boring for you guys, but it’s been super-fun for me so far, so I guess you can all suck it.
Anyway, last part on this fight from Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether. If the mood strikes me, maybe I’ll look at something else, later on. Maybe I’ll do a whole series of talk posts about obscure aspects of western swordplay that no one at all gives a crap about. Maybe I’ll write about why I hate that duel in the Firefly, “Shindig” so much.
Because I like swords, and I want everyone to like swords as much as I do, I am offering up some of my own thoughts on the subject of swordplay, for use perhaps by artists interested in drawing good duels, or stage combat persons interested in choreographing fights, or writers who want to write about it. I’m starting off with this fight on page 8 of Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether, but I will probably go wildly off the rails at some point.
Greg Rucka and Rick Burchett have launched a new Steampunk webcomic that looks pretty rad. I am pretty excited for it, but I don’t know if I have the patience to read just two pages a week; this was kind of the same problem that I suffered with Freakangels. If all goes well, probably what will happen is that I’ll just check in every couple of months or so and then read a whole bunch of pages at once. Which, just as well.
Anyway, something like 80% of the pages so far are swordfights, and I love the HELL out of swordfights. And there are some particulars about sword-fighting — especially this Western European-style fencing — that I am interested in and that I don’t think quite jive, and so I’m just going to write about them for a while.
