Day 91: Two steps forward, three steps back.

Two steps forward, three steps back.

It might be sword lesson step. It could be a dance step. But unfortunately it's been my life the last few weeks.

The changes and progress that I had made so far on my journey were great. Were because I've recently had a slight regression. I had made so much progress in such a quick amount of time that it was only a matter of time before I came back down to the realities of life. I'm getting back on track now, and I think things will start moving in the positive direction again, albeit a bit slower.

As humans we have the ability to ignore certain things in our lives at times. We can ignore doubts, denials, and unhappiness and convince ourselves otherwise. We can ignore or put off working on things that need our attention, and do what we want to for a period of time. But eventually the things we ignore will come back around to grab our attention, sometimes with dire consequences.

That seems to be what has happened with me over the last few weeks. Things I had pushed to the back burner, I had left there too long. I paid attention to the stuff that was important to me, and that made me a happy and a better person. But the stuff on the back burner started to burn, and so I had to attend to it. The results of which have cause me a good deal of stress. This is nothing that I cannot handle given time (and/or money of course) but these things have also taken a toll on me.

I have gained 7 pounds, and for a while I could not get my eating and work out habits under control. Things at work have been more stressful as I work to get caught back up, and back on track. I was traveling a lot too which added to the stress, bad eating, and work out habits.

I have only this week started to get back into the swing of things. Life is starting to get back to a normal rhythm. And hopefully my journey and updates will too.

So I'm sorry that I haven't posted lately, but now you know why. I will try to do better, though I already have to warn you I won't be posting next weekend as I am going out of town, and then traveling for work.

In the mean time, I would like to ask to hear your thoughts, concerns and feelings on why people think chivalry is dead, and what you think I (or you yourself) could do to help bring it back. Write a comment or send me an e-mail.

Until next time,

I am,

Jeffrey R. Daniel

Day 71: Blademaster Already?

As I said in my previous blog post, I was not able to post last weekend as I attended JordanCon in Atlanta. It was a great weekend of fun with wonderful people, and is something I look forward to attending every year.

For the second year in a row I attended the sword forms class, where they demonstrate the movements associated with the sword form names that Robert Jordan uses during his sword fights. Unlike last year however, they also had a Blademaster tournament on Sunday afternoon.

In the world of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, Blademasters are formally recognized as such when one of two things occurs: either they defeat a known blademaster in single combat with appropriate witnesses, or they are judged by a sufficient number of blademasters (5), via unanimous vote, to have demonstrated sufficient skill.

Using bamboo practice swords, this tournament would pit any person willing to take part against each other first. The first person to win two rounds by striking the other person (not in the head or on the hands, mind you!) won the round. In the cases where each person struck the other at the same time, each person gets a point. If it happens again on the second round then they continue on until one person landed a hit.

The people who made it through all of the rounds of combat undefeated would then get to challenge one of the three Blademasters. The first two people to defeat any of the Blademasters would then become a Blademaster, and receive their very own heron marked sword (the mark of a Blademaster) in foam version, of course.

I was late in arriving and missed out on the first round of fighting, so I just watched and learned what was going on. At the end of those rounds two people had the opprotunity to face a Blademaster. The first to win their challenge against Blademaster, Bao Pham was Brannon Cristholm. Sophie Decaudin then attempted to defeat Jimmy Liang, but was unsuccessful. Since they still had another Blademaster Sword to give away, they decided to have another round.

This is when I took part in the tournament. My sword training helped tremendously, and I was very focused as I defeated five opponents before being given the opportunity to choose which Blademaster I would fight. Being that I had seen Bao, Brannon, and Jimmy all fight previously, I decided to pick the only remaining Blademaster, Ben Gunderson. I did this because I wanted it to be the most challenging, and in some way felt that if I could defeat him then I would have earned my Blademaster title in truth. As soon as I picked Ben, I was told that I had just picked the only guy who hadn't been hit all day.

In the first round I got lucky and landed a strike on Ben's leg. In the second round we both hit each other's legs at the same time. So I won the bout 2 to 1.

It was a good battle, and I am glad I won, however after it was over and I watched a video of it I saw all of the things that I had done wrong. I was leaning forwards too much. My back should have been straight. My footwork is sloppy. But I won.

As Sensei Urso said yesterday during sword lessons, on any given day a novice can beat a master with a lucky strike at the right time. It was probably luck, but it still counts the same.

In the terms of JordanCon and the Wheel of Time, I am a Blademaster. In the reality of my learnings of the sword however, I am still very much a beginner, and I still have so much more to learn.

Click the image below to see a picture of all 5 Blademasters at the end of the tournament.

From Left to Right: James Liang, Jeffrey Daniel, Brannon Cristholm, Ben Gundersen, Bao Pham