Trained Movement Professional

Working twelve hour days for weeks on end is enough to stretch anyone’s limit. At this year’s National Stage Combat Workshop, there was plenty of opportunity to find my own. For safety’s sake one’s mind need be operating at peak efficiency at all times – if you tune out, you miss a bit of choreography and a sword gets thrust at the wrong bits. The physical demands are unique unless your day job requires slinging steel at your coworkers (if it does, please let me know if you’re hiring). As the brain fries and the muscles waver, it becomes more and more critical to put effort into making certain the choreography is solid, and you’d damn well better not grow too confident.

Test Day was the last day of the workshop. It involved four tests: Smallsword, Knife, Broadsword & Shield, and Quarterstaff. Each test is conducted by two partners performing a scene of no more than three minutes, containing a number of required moves on behalf of both students. A Basic Pass means having met the minimum standard of technical skill, and a Recommended Pass means having exceeded that standard in the eyes of the adjudicator.

In the eight years since I started learning stage combat I’ve never failed a Skills Proficiency Test or Renewal, nor have I seen it happen.

Safe to say I was most excited by the Sword & Shield test, as this was the only one of that day’s four weapons for which I have never been tested. Sometimes I really enjoy playing into my type. Also my partner and I picked the arena scene from Thor Ragnarok, so I got to be a big guy playing the Big Guy while doing Big Guy Things. Plus my Sword and Shield partner was a woman who’s actual name is Thor, named for the Marvel character, so the only way we could get nerdier is if we rolled a D20 before each strike.

The Sword & Shield test was the first one after lunch. I was battling the results of insomnia and overcoming the emotional aftermath of the Smallsword and Knife tests in the morning. Indigestion, coffee, and a nervous stomach had me bent over in the men’s room for a few minutes for the second time that day, and ibuprofen was keeping my injuries quiet for the moment.

Though the room was the same stage upon which we’d been practicing for weeks and the audience supportive and friendly, test day casts a layer of tension and formality which alters the tone. We may have spent 30 contact hours with this weapon, refining and perfecting our technique, but the only thing that matters is what happens within the next 3 minutes or less. It’s the kind of setup that seems fine when it works in your favor, but totally unfair should something go wrong for the first time during the test.

Working in my favor, Thor is an excellent combat partner. Chuck and Adam are phenomenal instructors. I’ve been at this discipline for years, been through the testing process several times, and had been working vigorously for months to prepare for this moment. In the end, something still went wrong.

Four moves into the fight, Thor punched me with her shield because that’s the choreography. I blocked with my own shield . . . ish. My arm was too close to my body and at the incorrect angle, so the edge of my own shield smacked me less than a finger’s width over my left eye. A two-inch gash started bleeding immediately, pumping harder from my adrenaline, freer for being thinned by caffeine and painkillers, but masked somewhat by the bandanna holding my hair out of the way.

I felt pain, and then numbed. My vision never blurred, I never blacked out or felt dizzy, so I didn’t stop the fight. Thor pressed the attack as designed, and I defended properly. I figured she would eventually call hold. Or maybe it would come from one of the Fight Masters judging the scene, or the instructors standing in the wings, or in the audience. No one did. We kept fighting.

I saw drops of crimson fall past my eye, the smell sharp and unfamiliar. I tried to let them fall onto my dark shirt so no one would notice. “If we don’t finish this now,” I thought, “we might not get another chance. Keep going until they force you to stop.” No one forced us to stop.

Less than a minute later the fight was over. By the time we took our bows and left the stage, the left side of my face was obviously marred. The staff EMT sat me down, cleaned me off, and patched me up with just enough time to pick up a quarterstaff and meet my partner, Michael, for our next test. We did a scene from Shrek (I was Shrek, and Michael was Donkey. Test day is awesome).

Then I got a ride to the emergency room, and was very excited to see an episode of Judge Judy while I waited for the nurse.

It wasn’t until a few days later that I got home and learned the test results online. Basic Pass for Smallsword and Knife. Recommended Pass for Quarterstaff. No mention of Sword & Shield, which I supposed to mean I had failed. It would be another day before it was updated with “Incomplete or Not Passed”.

Some of the proudest moments in my life have come from my work in this field. The praise is sweet, and the victories fulfilling. I always expected that failure, should it ever come, would devastate me. This one didn’t. Maybe because I saw it coming. Maybe because I have a long track record of successes to balance the scale. Maybe because it’s not like they kicked me out and stamped my ass with “DO NOT RETURN”.

In the end, I’m privileged to be able to live in a city so accessible to classes which will let me try again soon. This isn’t over for me, and my dream of rising through the ranks of the organization is still alive and well supported. Now, when I look in the mirror, I’ll always be able to see the scar to remind me that success is never a foregone conclusion.

A tattoo on my back reads, “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.” I guess I’m just living my truth.

In Spite Of

Week Two of Sword Fight Summer Camp has ended.

The lessons are insightful, the instructors are an excellent blend of patient and inspirational, and my fellow students meet every challenge with playful dedication. But it hurts.

My struggle with my weight has been a perpetual part of my story, and will probably continue for the rest of my days. My days spent in the Chicago burlesque scene have helped me to accept my body’s appearance; unlike public school, no one is making fun of me for being fat. Not to my face, anyway. Not that I can tell. I still don’t like the way I look in the mirror, but these days that’s all about me. I don’t carry that over into what other people probably think of me.

But it’s still having a negative effect. My legs can’t handle this kind of sustained strain and impact. My knees are giving out and my heels can’t handle flexing past ninety degrees. Stairs give me anxiety, and oddly, it’s worse going down than up. I have all the skills and knowledge for success, but I just cannot make my body go through some of these motions without crumpling in pain, like being jabbed by a one-inch diameter needle.

These are problems I developed many years and fifty pounds ago, and that’s all without even getting into my lower and upper back reuniting for a crippling reunion tour. The other night it took six hours to fall asleep because every time I rolled over I felt my shoulder blades clamp onto my spine like a vicious dog trying to snap a femur in half.

I’m not constantly despondent, but something always hurts. I’m tired of it. This isn’t pain born from fatigue and sore muscles, and it’s nothing to be solved with some Epsom salts and a bit of stretching. It’s just . . . part of who I am now. Like a scar.

The most fucked up part is that I don’t understand how I’m exercising 8 out of 12 hours and still getting fatter.

I am having fun in spite of the issues. I’m getting advice and personal connections to start aiming the trajectory of my career so that I can make this a permanent part of my life. Heh. Yeah, even with all of this complaining, it’s still worth going through it all so that I can keep pretending to slash, stab, whack and punch people.

At least it makes the pained reactions come from a place of truth.