I look forward to Saturday mornings. To be frank, Sword fighting days are my therapy, this morning was no different.

Sword fighting is a release valve for all the adrenaline, dopamine and cortisol that builds up in my system over the week. As a physician who sees 30-40 people per day, I mentally feel like I enter the woods and get chased by a bear, every single day.

Don’t get me wrong, it is the most rewarding work I’ve ever done, and I really love it. And yet, every day, 30-40 times per day I experience stress (often significant life threatening health situations) with each patient, stress over staying on time from room to room, stress over arguing with insurance companies 20 times a day about covering a medication the patient needs, getting cut off on the road to and from work, trying to ensure that refills are completed that day, dealing with the stressed out patient on the phone during and after office hours, and trying to get all the charting done before midnight so I can sleep, and then, do it all over again the next day. (Yes, I know that was a very long run on sentence – you grammar Nazi’s can point it out later.)

This is probably why I enjoy rapier and dagger fighting, as well as dual hand saber fighting, because it requires the use of every part of my body. Every limb is moving, blocking, cutting, thrusting, bending, twisting all the while you are intensely trying to kill your opponent while avoiding being killed at the same time. It’s mentally like playing chess (I’m talking Queens Gambit level chess), but with your whole body. It is the most intense five to forty-five seconds I’ve ever experienced – and I am horribly addicted.

At the end of 60 minutes of training multiple back-to-back rounds of sparing, I feel amazing. I told my wife this morning after training, that I feel like I killed the bear. . .

We start training at 8 am on Saturday mornings. Today it was 85 degrees at 8 am, and we are dressed out in full fighting gear, so needless to say, I was a bit toasty.

We had Kenny, Logan’s Kung Fu teacher, join us this morning. It was actually really enjoyable to spar against someone trained in a different martial art style.

I took video of a number of the highlights. I’m behind the camera in all these. I’m still waiting to get the video of my sparing sessions forwarded to me, but because I had about four minutes of video, I figured I’d post it so I can watch and learn.

Today’s focus was footwork, footwork, footwork. and being prepared with the reposte and after-blow that always comes when you’re not expecting it.

It really was a fun morning.

Enjoy.