What a fun weekend!

So this was a fun weekend. Between our water heater nozzle breaking off and spewing 15 gallons all over our floor, which then had to vacuumed up (Thanks Chris and E!) and working at the mall during Christmas, it has been ridiculous. By the way, in case you've ever wondered, hand vacuuming a floor with a 15 gallon Shop-Vac is an awesome back workout!

What was awesome is that last night (Monday the 22nd) I got to teach an "Intro-to-Pollaxe" class at the Academy. It was the first time I've been able to teach pollaxe material by myself and I based the night on my interpretation of Le Jeu de la Hache. What is great about teaching WMA is that it allows you to see if your interpretations really hold up and whether they are easy for others to learn too. There were only three folks there last night, but two of them had never handled an axe before, so it was good to see if my "basic axe training" actually works! It also was one of the first times I had been able to play with the axe in my kit (breastplate, arms and helm). The only change I wanted to make because of the armour was the realization that I need a better gambeson/arming cotte. The debate is now to go historical (expensive) or psuedo-historical (potentially cheaper).

At the end of the night, I wanted to change a few specifics about the plays I chose, but I had learned a lot about axe-fighting as well. In my opinion, axe play isn't as subtle or "elegant" as sword-play (because of the limitations imposed by armour and polearms in general), but it's beauty is in it's very straight-forward system of play. After all, there is a reason Fiore describes the axe as "ponderous, cruel and mortal"