Preparing for Crown Tournament

 Some notes to a friend who is looking to enter Crown.

Things to prepare

1. Gear (fighting) – make sure your harness is in excellent repair. Make time a week or two out to do a serious maintenance session.
2. Gear (non fighting) – have your kit looking good, expect to be on the high table. Also have a plan for Coronation and the Reign – what will you need, who will help produce it?
3. Training – two armoured sessions a week. One session concentrate on form/technique and the other one focus on effectiveness. Think of this as training for a National Championship.
4. Training – body-Do strength and\or cardio training at least every other day. Make sure you are eating properly to maintain the additional training you are doing and to avoid fatigue and getting sick during your training.
5. Reign Plan- you and your consort get a plan for the reign. Who will be the key people on your household. How are you going to organise this? What events do you have to be at?

Training – Crown is nine weekends away. You have about 18 training sessions, so let’s say 20 hours…not a lot really…8-)

Have a think about how many bouts you get in any given training session. I suspect it is not as many as we think.

Now is not the time to learn new forms or attacks but rather to hone what you have to a tournament winning edge.

I would spend the rest of this month focusing on getting as much in armour time as possible. You do need to push your endurance a little here.

You need to be focusing on basic techniques. Makes sure you move on the balls of your feet, maintain good line and measure. Makes sure you make your cuts cleanly with good form and power. At this point it is not a matter of winning bouts but working on doing things right and crisply.

In October start switching the focus to the competitive side of things. Try to fight as many different opponents as you can (you may have to travel) with different styles and shield types. At one session each week make sure you organise to have some ‘final fights’. Get one of the knights and fight a best of three. Try to think of this as finals. Do this at the end of the session so you are tied.

You can reduce the amount of trainings sessions about three weeks out (tapering) but up the focused fighting.

The aim of all of this is to go to Crown secure that you have done the work and sufficient preparation. Remember also, luck is still a big part of this.