Paksworld

I’ve often enjoyed a blog tittled “Scientist Sees Sq1irrels” by Stephen Heard, a Canadian scientist who has just retired from his university faculty position.  Always interesting essays, sometimes about science, sometimes about other things.  So I’m half-stealing his title for this post, because I, too, “see squirrels” in the sense that I’m easily distracted by new topics, new data, something I never heard of or thought about before.   My mother the engineer, who could multi-track like nobody’s business, did not like my doing that.   Obviously, giving the length of books & book groups I’ve written, I can stick to a project for years at a time.   But in the fine detail of those months and years, I will also spend time nosing out  things new to me, *some* of which may show up in the current project.

The saber continues to fascinate and challenge me.  Yes, I’m getting slowly (annoyingly slowly) stronger and better.  This week I started working with it twice a day, not just once a day.  Exercises that would be boring if I had some other exercise object in my hand, but with a saber…the mindset is different.   I want to have a name for it, but did people ever name their saber?  Oh.  Wait.  It just named itself.  Joyeux.   That fits perfectly.

A week of working with the saber and I’m definitely getting more of a feel, including the feeling of sore shoulders, forearms, and hands.   But right-handed, I can hold the saber out straight in front, arm straight, with much less quivering, and raise the tip and lower the tip to level again, over and over and over….twice as many up/downs as when I started.    Then rotating the wrist, thus the blade, so that sharp edge is to the outside/down, outside/down ten times, then inside/down, inside/down, inside/down ten times.   Elementary first steps to controlling the blade.  Switch to left hand, which is weaker.  More quivering in the straight front hold (even today)  then on the right.  Can’t do as many up/down or rotational turns as with the right…but more than I could do on the first day.

Whole-arm swings, to loosen up, in a figure-8 pattern, right handed first for a gradually increasing number of swings,  then left handed , passing hand to hand in the middle.  Then added another exercise on Thursday:  elbow “motionless” as much as possible at my side, wrist only moving blade in figure 8 swing without letting my right shoulder lean sideways or forward.  A work in progress, not there yet.   Several other exercises, also not yet mastered, but working on them.

I’m working on both sides, because I have a big strength difference between left and right that I want to reduce, not because it’s in any of the written or demonstrated exercises.   The one-sidedness goes back to the encephalitis I had as a child, which left my left side much weaker for quite a while and was exacerbated by playing tennis in HS–right-handed–which selectively strengthened the already strong side and left the weaker side to itself.   I’m thoroughly enjoying the saber and hope I end up “straighter” on top after another half year or so.

Meanwhile this week Horngard II is sitting at 32.8K words in spite of everything else that’s gone on.

Clearly I need a stronger core, stronger arm, a lot more practice, and above all something other than what I’m wearing, but the sun came out after all the clouds and rain, and I have a new blade.  And as the middle picture shows by the way the light hits it, one impressive edge.

Writing about sword-wearing, sword-using characters, and then handling some antiques owned by others, pushed me to indulge my own long-term interest in blades.   Some of mine are blades I used in fencing lessons (with SCA instructors) and those have been more or less permanently blunted.    I bought a bated (blunted from birth, so to speak) longsword when I needed to see what it felt like to carry, how hard it was to handle in indoor spaces and in the woods, etc.   It was very helpful to get that physical feel of it, especially walking around and through ordinary obstacles.  I have a few sharps, on which I practiced slicing things and poking things to see what it felt like (and also because it’s fun to slice the bottom lumps off  2 liter plastic bottle hanging from a tree limb when it’s full of water and the water squirts out and…yeah.  Juvenile fun with swords.)  But all of it (including the spear, the bill, and some other more period bits I have) have contributed a lot to scenes in which someone is doing something with a sword, spear, bill, etc. When I borrowed a scythe and scythed some tall grass, that was another experience that enhanced my writing about Gird.  Same with the crossbow.  No amount of just reading or watching movies or videos can provide the body-feel of handling things yourself, whether it’s kneading a loaf of bread, digging a ditch, riding a horse, knitting a sock, or…using a weapon.

I was gifted a gorgeous USMC Mameluke officer’s sword by friends who knew I hadn’t been able to get one at the time, but I don’t “play” with it…it needs sharpening (barely sharp now) by someone more expert than I am.  It has a curve, and it’s definitely a weapon, not just a display item.

But as the Paksworld books have progressed, and I’ve studied more about swords, I’ve wanted to add a lighter-armed cavalry type to the mix in some areas.  And I’ve long wanted a curved blade that I didn’t feel as protective of, as I do my dress sword.    I have a character now, in Horngard I and II, Nasimir Clart, owner/commander of Clart Cavalry, who is a quintessential cavalry man, familiar since Xenophon wrote about horse training and cavalry operations in ancient Greece, and described vividly (for the 19th century) in the excellent series of books by Allan Mallinson, about a young officer’s career through the Napoleonic wars  and beyond.   And I could not envisage Clart without seeing someone with lance and saber.

So when Matt Easton of Schola Gladiatoria, one of my online sources of info on antique weapons and fighting styles, had a review of a reproduction of the 1796 pattern British Light Cavalry saber that he thought got all the details right, right down to the distal taper of the blade…I was hooked.  It is a substantially “beefier” blade than the Mameluke,  much wider and heavier, with a deeper curve, trading grace, speed, and ease of maneuver for power.  So here it is, side by side with its scabbard.

I’m reasonably sure Nasimir Clart chose a different hilt…something he would find more stylish that also gave more hand protection than the simple knuckle-bow here.   But for me, this will do just fine.  It was getting dark by the time I got back from feeding the horses this evening…discovered it on the porch on the way out…so I didn’t have time after unboxing it to change into something more appropriate to take a picture of the first swings with it, but yes…I took it outside (it’s WAY too big to swing around inside) and found the balance strange in one way but quite nice once I started swinging it from the position to cover the back to various cuts in front.  This is a saber for serious cavalry combat in the lightly-or-no-armored style.   I will be doing things with it, for the same reason I used the others…it’s research.  That it’s also fun and good exercise is beside the point.  I absolutely did not buy a saber for the fun of it.   (Stop laughing, you there in the back.)