Task: Question Answering
Input (English): Context: Lots of stuff seemed to work . My parrying is improving . Some free sparring was enjoyed . Took some of my metal swords along to play , to discover ( as suspected ) that one I picked up cheap is nt battle - ready quality . Sunday afternoon went from a quick lunch in the Nelson to a ( sober ) all dayer , moving onto talking crap in Pete 's house and driver - strength white russians ( aka , slightly muddy milk ) . 
Question: What may be the reason for their improvement with swords ?
Output (English): They had been practicing hard .