That's really good.

I ache all over after my first hard drilling with the Feder. An hour one on one with the instructor doing master strikes in the onset - specifically a diagonal cut that ends with the hands low and far in front of your original position, with an offline step away from the threat leaving the defender safe from all 4 cuts from his left (the most common initial attacks), and the point buried into the side of the opponent's mask in a single tempo...

The combination of heat (just under 30C and 94% humidity) and the much heavier weapon was really hard going...

The Feder is 1.45kg, compared to 0.81kg for the synthetic, though the balance is a bit more to the rear, so the point is slightly easier to move around (and it doesn't hit that much harder with the foible). Still, it does have more momentum, both to perform your actions and to take out of his.

Hopefully the really hot/humid evenings won't last all summer (as a rule we don't have any air-conditioning), and I should rapidly get used to the extra weight and needs of structure in the parry.

By the time the weather cools down I'll have a complete set of protection and can optionally free spar with steel as well as the synthetics we can use already.