Ongoing Self Calibration

[Dawn_Skully@notesgw.hns.com]

Poster: Dawn_Skully@notesgw.hns.com

Greetings to all here at the Merry Rose -

I have been following the calibration chat with interest. We have the bowling 
ball thingy to help calibrate how hard a blow is thrown but I haven't heard a 
way to calibrate receiving a blow.

I've often listened to grumpy fighters doing a post-mortem on a fight and I've 
wondered why they don't tell it to the guy they were fighting because he/she is 
the one that needs to hear it. My next thought is sometimes something along the 
lines of "Yeah, then we'd really see a fight". What we need is a regular, 
non-threatening process for feedback from one fighter to another.

What if it were custom to have a debriefing(??) Marshall? After each and every 
Atlantian tourney match, both fighters would walk off the field and over to the 
Marshall. The Marshall asks each in turn whatever the Marshallate decides 
should be asked at this time. For example the Marshall should ask if there were 
any untaken blows that a fighter would like explained. The other fighter 
explains why the blow wasn't good. Most fighters have a very good reason for 
not taking a blow. Those that don't have one will soon learn that they should.  
If there's discussion required, the Marshall is there to steer it towards 
constructive, instructional dialog, to point out that good armor is to keep you 
safe, not make the other guy hit you harder, and to explain SCA policy if 
needed. 

This kind of regular feedback would give Atlantia's fighters a tool for both 
continued self improvement in the lists (one wouldn't, after all, wish to 
continue throwing a particular blow that most likely won't be called) and for 
ongoing self calibration (if you are questioned about taking blows after each 
and every tourney, you might want to think that over). At the very least, if 
this were to become a common practice, I would expect it to heighten awareness 
in each of our fighters which would go a long way toward safer, non-grumpy, SCA 
fighting.

Aurora
dskully@hns.com 
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