This blog contains 2.5 topics. It covers my recent struggle with burnout and my foam fighting journey. Additionally I talk about going to a Belegarth event, Battle of Pyke. That sounds like 3 topics, but I talk about Battle of Pyke through the lens of my fighting journey rather than a run down of the event itself.

Burnout Is a Thing

I took a two week break from content creation recently. I felt like I was on the edge of being burned out, which is a little scary. Burnout is no joke. I’ve experienced it before, with Amtgard. It affected my love of the game for years. In some ways I never really recovered from it.

People may not have noticed my burnout, I never actually stopped going to Amtgard, but things did change. I stopped trying to learn the version 8 Amtgard rules and stopped playing battle games, I stopped foam fighting. I also greatly reduced volunteering my time to running events, feasts and games. When it came to being in office, I completely stopped running for positions, which is a pretty big change for me.

Even now I’m just getting back into foam fighting. I still have no interest in playing battle games. Offices are still too long of a commitment for me to realistically consider, even if I have thought about it a few times. I am at the point I may be willing to take on some event volunteering, such as running an event or cooking a feast. I’m even planning on running some local games, given the chance.

But even now, years later, I’m living with the scars of that burnout.

Burnout in Content Creation

I do not want to experience burnout in content creation too. It’s bad enough that I already have to contend with my depression. There is still a lot I want to achieve and the thought of being burned out without achieving those goals is disheartening to say the least. So, when I realized I was showing signs of burnout, I took a short break, but recently I realized there have been signs for a while now.

A prime example of this is the podcast I do with my friend Radar, High Trek. We managed to publish our first season but when it came to the second season I just couldn’t work up the energy to edit it, despite having recorded several episodes. I had also started doing a lot less writing and for a while, none at all.

At the time I thought it was just the waxing and waning of my creativity rather than signs of burnout, but now that I’m really thinking about it, I’m not so sure. Writing as a hobby has always been cylindrical, but the podcast feels different. Just thinking about editing episodes seems to drain my energy, not to mention the few times I’ve actually sat down to try and edit.

What I’m Going To Do

I’m not yet sure what I’m going to do. I will have to spend some time contemplating it. In the meantime I’m going to take more frequent breaks. Over the last two years, this two week break is one of the very few breaks I’ve taken. I’ve been on that grind for a while and in return it’s been grinding me.

I’m thinking I will try to take a one week break once a month through Fall and reassess where I’m at when Winter comes around. While that’s a start, I’m honestly not sure what the best thing to do is, but I know I need to do something if I want to continue. I want to, at least, keep my YouTube content consistent, but not at the cost of my health. It’s something of a challenge.

I welcome comments and suggestions on this. I don’t promise I’ll follow your advice, but I’d like to hear it.

Foam Fighting Journey Continues

My foam fighting journey has been something of a struggle over the last two months. Between events, canceled fighter practices and at least once being to exhausted to go, I’ve only been to two fighter practices since the start of August.

The struggle I talked about in my last blog is still present, and honestly, will probably always be present to one degree or another, as depression has been a constant companion ever since high school. I don’t see that changing. All I can do is persevere and take advantage of the days when it is in recession.

Both times I did go to fighter practice I didn’t want to go, surprise, but I did go. It turned out both times I went, I ended up having a good time. For me, one of those days were of particular note.

That Time I Did Well

Not only did I ended up enjoying the first of those two practices, I did pretty well too. We opened up the night with a bearpit and I got a seven streak right at the start, I went through the line twice! (Granted, it was a short line, but it sounds impressive nonetheless.)

There were also two newer players, both who had fought in a local Salem area foam fighting league. I had a fun time trying to figure out their fighting. It was certainly different than the fighting styles I’m used to. Overall I did pretty well, I’m not exactly sure why I did as well as I did that day but it certainly felt nice. You can view that practice HERE if you want to watch the vod of the live stream.

The Battle of Pyke

The Battle of Pyke is a special day event held at the Portland Belegarth realm of Pyke. People from around Oregon and Washington travel to the park for a day full of fighting. I made a special point to go to this one. There was no special reason other than I wanted to go to more Belegarth practices.

I had no intention of fighting, I didn’t even wear my fighting shoes, yet I still fought. A friend of mine, Burbarry, managed to convince me to pick up some sticks and join in on the fighting. I kept coming up with excuses and she kept managing to make them moot. I even pointed out I didn’t have my fighting shoes, I told her “I didn’t want to get my nice shoes scuffed.” She told me to just take off my shoes and fight barefoot. I wasn’t about to do that, but I still fought and BTW, my shoes did get scuffed. Worth it!

Despite not fighting much the last two months and still feeling my, apparently my now normal, apprehension to fight, I had fun. I didn’t push myself but I still managed to be drained by the time the day ended. I spent most of the time fighting with two swords. Overall my fighting was acceptable.

I started with a bearpit, which I only got to fight in a few times before they started up a ditch. My fighting in the ditch was rather lack luster. I got a few good shots in, and was even complimented on one or two of them, but overall I think I did poorly. It lasted longer than the bearpit but not all that long. They ended the ditch and moved into a single sword tournament, which I didn’t participate in.

I thought I was done fighting for the day, I wasn’t really feeling it, but Angus convinced me to do some sparing during the tournament. As other people joined in, our sparing turned into a bearpit. I fought for a good while and did better than I did in the ditch.

As it turned into a bearpit I found that I started watching the fights and analyzing them. It occurred to me at the time that the work I’d been putting into deconstructing people at fighter practice was paying off. Doing so even led me to going into a few fights with a game plan that worked. It was pretty cool to realize in real time that the class I took, Combat Computer With Dalos, and my time at fighter practice, was paying off.

The bearpit lasted a while and ended with a few people fighting with great swords and myself fighting with two short swords. It was a good way to end the bearpit. I got a few wins against them and they got a few against me, we fought and laughed. It was a good time.

After a break I ended the day in a small bearpit with Gustav, BurBarry, Slate, and another player who’s name eludes me. It was a great way to end the day, we were all playing with single short swords, my favorite style. It was casual, but I had a lot of fun and did pretty well too.

All in all, a good day. Sadly I didn’t get to go to afters with everyone. I had plans to run my Dungeons and Dragons game shortly after the end of the park day. Also, despite my original intent, I got zero content for the day, all I got was exercise, fun and some good memories. I think I needed that more than I needed the content.

Final Thoughts

You may have noticed that last two months have been something of a mixed bag. I could have wrote about my time at the Amtgard campout, Harbapalooza, too. It was just as mixed. I only stayed one night, going home the afternoon of Saturday. I was just too drained to stay, but I had a lot of fun on the first day and even supervised part of the cooking of the feast! It had been a little while since I’d run a kitchen. But if I added that to the blog it would be way too long and the event didn’t really fit the theme as I did no fighting.

I am glad I have noticed the signs of burnout before it has taken a strong hold of me. That way I can try to mitigate it. We’ll see how well that works going forward. I really don’t want to get to the point that I end up leaving the content creation game, especially after all the hard work I’ve done over the years.

Fighting wise I plan on continuing my journey and working on improving my skill and in the process my health. I hope to get back to regularly going to fighter practice. I say that, but I might not be going this Friday because I have to get up stupid early, 4:30, to go to the inaugural practice of a new Belegarth realm down in Ashland, OR.

Sir Par of Belegarth specifically reached out and invited me. This is the first time since I started creating content that I’ve been personally invited to something because of my content. It felt pretty good to be noticed and I’m happy to say that I was able to arrange a ride to go. It’s going to be a very long day but I’m looking forward to it. I don’t know if I’ll fight but I hope to get some one on one foam fights recorded.

Anyways, back to my foam fighting journey. I have a plan. Going forward I’m going to try and sit down after each fighter practice and write down my thoughts. This will be a way to help me reinforce lessons I’ve learned and I can do a better job at writing my experiences here on my blog. This might even lead to posting a little bit more constantly. We shall see!

Until next time, stay inspired, stay excited and keep fighting.

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