@ARaven0137 Interesting development philosophy, I like it. What's interesting to me is that it becomes a perpetual feedback loop, at least when I think it out. Because as you develop each, it will then flow into the other and alter how that is done. For example, the physical will inform the mental. The mental will then inform the spiritual. The spiritual will then flow back into the other two, which will in turn change and develop from this and re flow back into each other, and on and on. Every time you develop one aspect, it changes how you think/perform the other aspects. So being conscious of this helps one be conscious of when they need to look at adjusting their other aspects when one has experienced a period of development.


In my own fighting style, I've seen a lot of changes over the past four years. I'm a southpaw, so that alone poses some different challenges (especially fighting sword and board), but when I first started my guard was that of my round center grip shield being directly in front of and held square to me, my sword above it held parallel so it could guard my face while I kept the shield just low enough to have good vision over it. This was the physical. This inherently produced certain strategies in the mental aspect, like making lateral movement undesirable as it produced openings for my opponents, and I was usually very defensive in my fighting (also a product of being new). Lots of reverse movement and "c" range strikes as this style of holding the shield has serious weaknesses the closer I am to my opponent. I developed a "sniper" spiritual approach because of this, always wanting to fight at my max range, being very methodical, and never wanting to commit too hard to engagements as prolonged engagements make egress more and more difficult. I would wait out my opponent, waiting for the shield to drop enough or seeing an opening I could exploit elsewhere. After a while, some glaring weaknesses started to pop up in this style, like having no "b" or "a" range competence so all anyone needed was to be more competent in those ranges and then close quick and hard enough that I couldn't effectively backpedal before they could throw a couple shots. Also, there's a lot of standing around and waiting in this style, and that got boring super quickly. People don't want to engage you if you're just going to keep breaking contact and refusing to stand and fight. Plus, snipers strike from concealment, and there is no concealment outside of hiding your sword behind your shield or below their sightline (strats I hadn't developed yet). They know where you are and you usually won't be catching them unawares, so a "sniper" spirit isn't well suited to fighting swordnboard.

So my style changed. I tried a different guard and found it much more effective with my personality and strengths. I adjusted my shield to being angled along my arm, being held at approximately 45 degrees with an edge angling out in front and slightly to my left. My sword ended up being held in a "shotgun" position, the blade angling back over my shoulder and behind my head. This gave me a lot more flexibility with ranges, I could use my shield edge to manipulate other shields and weapons, and my sword was still able to guard most shots to my head but was now in a better position to fire quick powerful shots to anywhere I wished to target (within physical ability). This in turn changed my mental strats from always fighting at c range to using the whole range, looking for opportunities to manipulate with my shield, and a desire for more lateral movement so that I could get better angles with a single step at b and a range. I ended up in more b and a range fights and my competency shot up from this. Spiritually, I was now a "brawler", looking to engage early and open them up by forcing them to be defensive with rapid shots from multiple angles, being a lot more aggressive with my shield, seeking to prolong engagements while I searched for that opening.

My style is now at a new evolution point, as new weaknesses have made themselves evident and I'm adapting to address them. Being a brawler is aggressive and fun, but my technical prowess has suffered and people who have good defense need but weather the storm and wait for me to tire before getting their opening. Also, my guard has some inherent weaknesses at the onset of a bout, as it leaves the rightside of my head open to someone with a wicked fast offside shot, and my leftside has been lit up on multiple occasions due to it being more open to right handers (ie. most people I fight). I can usually defend my left well, but anyone with a good wrap or good lateral movement will find an opening sooner or later.