This blog is a discussion of SCA fighting. I've been fighting in the SCA since 1979, I've won a crown and a coronet. The biggest knock on my fighting, according to one duke, is that I try to learn everything. This may be bad for my quest for strawberry leaves but it is good for the people who read my blog.
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Tuesday, May 10, 2022
I'm returning to this blog for this post. I don't know that I will post here often. I changed what I was doing and this blog no longer fit it's main purpose, as a journal of my fighting. I've gone back to a paper journal (though I'm not good at keeping that one either), so this was no longer necessary. But I can record a few things here.
I haven't written in this blog since the beginning of the pandemic, in 2020. A lot has happened. Ed, Horic, Liam, Olan, Stephan, Jimmy Lee, Targon, David Anderson, and a number of family members, have died. We endured a long pandemic of no fighting, or of surreptitious fighting in people's back yards, under vague threat of sanction if we were found out -- as if the SCA, or the Kingdom, can control what we do on our own time. I even snuck off to fight in a multi kingdom practice at the height of the pandemic. We were masked, and followed the recommended protocols of the time, but we didn't tell a lot of people about it. There were only about 15 fighters there, tops, and ten were in armor when I was (five of them were from Tribe Rot Mahne, from three different kingdoms).
During the Pandemic, I've been working with Duke Ronald to train me up for winning another crown. We don't have a target. We are just trying to improve my fighting so I can get better over time. Since we were doing so much by Zoom anyway, I've also been working with Sagan. Sagan is one of the most successful coaches in the SCA. We have zoom meetings about once a month, the three of us, to watch video of my fighting and discuss both what I'm doing and where my head's at. It's been helping a lot. I don't think I'm quite as good at triggering off my opponent now as I was in November, but I'm pretty good. I'm fighting almost as well as when I got knighted.
During the pandemic, we also fought in two crowns. For me they were (if my count is accurate) #101 and #102. The first one was delayed until July 2021. To keep numbers down, we had feeder tournaments: Two of them, each had two pools of fighters, the top four fighters from each pool would advance to the actual crown tournament a few weeks later. I advanced, and lost in a blistering heat to Cullyn and Mathias in the double elimination portion.
The next crown I made it to the semi finals. The only person to defeat me all day was Ryo, who won. He beat me in the second round, after a double kill, and then again in semis in our first and only bout of that round (I had to win twice, he only once). Along the way I killed Beatrix, Cullyn, and Vlad, which was a good day. I was really only two blows away from finals.
But I was frustrated. I'm not in crown to "do well" at this point. I want to win -- not so much that I will obsess about it, but I'm not going to pretend, as som many do, that the ultimate goal is not to be king.
This past Saturday was Crown 103. It was held in Trois Rivieres, Quebec. I had a great day. I advanced from my pool without a loss. In that pool I beat Sir Mohammed, the eventual winner of the day, with a beautiful slot shot. I also be Galbraith, a big unbelted fighter from Quebec. In the double elimination section, I lost to Sir Mathias Gurnwald, I beat Sir Angus Grove, I beat my squire Padraig, I beat Jan Janovich (normally my kryptonite), and I lost in a rematch with Galbraith.
I was trying to fight a reactionary fight. Instead of forcing the offense, I was trying to let my opponent tell me how to kill him. But I think that made me too cautious.
My current project is to improve my wrap, both the targeting of my leg wrap, and the power of all my wraps.
My next time in armor will probably be this Sunday, but I might take a day off.
The next event I plan to fight at is War of the Roses on Memorial Day Weekend.
I got into Armor on Saturday. It was the first time in months. I wasn't sure what it would be like. I mean, if we're ever invaded by an army of pells, I'm all set, but actual fighting is another thing. I had not fought in six months, since Aedult Swim. Before that, I'd had three health issues last fall, missed Crown, and took two months off. Really, since Pennsic 2019 until last Friday, I think I had been in armor six times. So Saturday makes seven. That's a far cry from when I used to practice four times a week. I miss those days. I miss being able to do that.
I was in a new to me helmet, a heavy, large bascinet that I was able to pad up with some of the anti-concussion foam Icefalcon sells, plus the skull cap that Dag manufacturers. So an inch of padding, three densities. That worked well.
I took the train out to Duke Ronald's. It was just me and Baron Jonathan in armor. Jonthan is one of my favorite training buddies. He has very fast hands, so it's a great sword and shield workout. He's also good at other forms. We did three sets -- a long sword and shield set, a sword and buckler set, and then a single sword set.
I felt good in the helmet. He tattooed my leg (I was using Ron's shield, which is narrower and about two inches shorter). I felt my targeting off. I had some trouble figuring out what to do. My shoulders ached afterward from the work. I was using my heavy sword, which I really don't like, but it allowed me to use all sorts of Bellatrix/Flieg heavy sword tricks -- momentum shots, slow moving shots, etc. I had some really good leg shots, but my targeting was way off on my snaps. I was throwing right into the middle of the shield. That was probably the weight of my armor and of the sword.
I did not work on any specific technique. I was not using my footwork at all (odd, since I've been practicing it).
I felt good and had a very good time.
I don't know when my next time in armor will be. I'm not sure we will ever hold another Crown.
Here it is, July. Covid has hit us hard. We lost one of our best friends, my sweetie's "Gay Best Friend" / Other (Gay) Husband in the first few weeks. Olan Montgomery, one of the most talented artists/photographers/stylists/actors/directors I'e ever worked with. He was also a drag queen and an 80s club kid, and he had great stories about Andy Warhol (and one biting story about Donald Trump). It was a devastating loss for us both personally and professionally. In addition to being our closest friend and one of our chosen family, he was also our wig maker, photographer, acting partner, and sometime director. As an actor he was just becoming successful, with a recurring roll on last season's Stranger Things, and a couple of big film rolls in the past year. He had just booked his first official guest star spot, on the Righteous Gem Stones. And he was attached to *every* film project I was working on. His loss makes it that much harder to get any of them financed. But we also lose the kindest soul I think I've ever met, someone who loved us dearly and whom we loved as well, someone who was so nice that nobody he met didn't love him (well, that probably doesn't include Donald Trump). He can't be replaced professionally, let alone the gaping hole his passing left in our hearts. We did inherit his marvelous old cat. He was one of the first New Yorker's to get the disease, and he died in April, unfortunately after being taken off the vent and moved out of the ICU. Two days before he died, Jimmy Lee, a local SCA person I'd known for all of the 20 years I've been in Ostgardr, passed away. He was somebody I always liked and enjoyed talking to, an archer in a Mongolian household, and a very talented stained glass artist. That hit the local SCA hard. Then, about a month later, we lost Liam St. Liam, a Tyger of the East and probably the most popular and well liked person in the whole SCA. Liam and I were great friends. We shared a lot. Like Olan, he was more like family than a friend. He was a great sports writer, a great philosopher, a quintessential Southie (though he was actually from Rhode Island). He supplied more than half the photographs in my book. I can't describe how important Liam was in my life. He'd been in a nursing home after having suffered a stroke a few years before, and when he caught the bug he went fairly quickly (at least much quicker than Olan had). I was heartbroken once again. In addition to that, the virus took two of my school colleagues, and Terrance McNally, whom I can't say I knew well, but at least I'd gotten to meet years ago. And, of course, while I didn't know Nick Cordero, I know two people who were close to him. I think I'd met Mark Blum once, and certainly we had a lot of folks in common, both via theatre and via CUNY. Somehow, I missed his passing, and just found out about it only day before yesterday.
And then there is the social distancing, the monotony, being unable to do ANY of the things I loved doing -- not just SCA, but theatre, movies, dining out, shopping in Manhattan, sporting events, all of it. And teaching, the thing that keeps the lights on and me sane. So it's been rough.
What is the point of mentioning that in this blog? Well, here's what it has to do with fighting. Never give up. Never stop training. Never.
I live to fight in Crown Tourney. I've never made any attempt to hide that fact. I fight in every crown I can, and I've fought in 100 of them so far. One year -- the year I was researching my dissertation, and was traveling back and forth between New York and California regularly -- I fought in five of them -- both of them in the East, all three in the West, and two of them (the fall crowns) I fought with a broken leg -- the leg I'd broken in the Belted Champions battle at Pennsic (I killed the guy who helped me break it and then walked off the field. Still my proudest "fight club" moment). But now, for the first time since I started fighting in crown almost 40 years ago, I have gone more than a year without fighting in one -- since May 2019, due first to the blood pressure spike I had last spring, and now to the fact that the actual SCA (because to me, E-SCA is not the real SCA) is shut down. But I'm still training. Every day.
I haven't fought since AEdult Swim V on February 15. That is also the last post in this blog. I haven't even had my armor since then. I left it with William McCrimmon after our ride home, and then we went into lock down, and then he caught the disease (he's recovered now).
There's no fighting right now in the East Kingdom. Some places have been allowed to hold non-contact socially distanced practices. I'm sure some people are getting together and fighting in their back yards. Not me. Right now there is a very good chance we won't hold a crown tournament this year, since Tindal has said that there will be no Royal events until the border with Canada is opened, and I don't see that happening any time soon. I suspect by the time we have a Crown again, I will be 57, and will have not fought in a Crown in two years.
And that's why I train every single day.
My daily training is what I've written about before. I hit the pell at least 100 times, do 50 push ups and 50 squats every day. I also do footwork drills a couple times a week, and mix in two handed drills and two stick drills. I work in my Indian Clubs sometimes, mostly to keep my shoulders loose. When it' rains outside, I do my pell work indoors. Currently, I run three days a week, at least a mile, sometimes more, with a mask or gaiter around my neck, that I can pull up when anybody approaches. A couple weeks ago, I ran a little over two miles with a surgical mask on pretty much the whole time. That was hard, but I look at it kind of like running at altitude. Most other days I get a walk in, about 10,000 steps. My next task is to get a mail shirt, I haven't owned one since the 80s, to train in a few times a week.
Because you should never stop training.
Someday we will get back into armor. Some day we will hold tournaments again. Some day we will hold crown again. I intend to be ready. And so should you. Train every single day.
For fun, here's a good picture of me from Aedult Swim. It's by Ursus. Go here and check his photos out.
It's been awhile since I posted here. I'm kind of losing the drive to keep posting. I also took some time off from fighting for a medical issue. That issue has been corrected.
TRAINING
Is limited to my normal workout of pushups, squats, and pell work daily. I've run a couple of times on the treadmill, and once outside, but walking and stairs is most of my cardio (12,000 steps yesterday=6 miles).
TECHNIQUE
I've not been working on anything specifically. I've been using Count Gemeni's wards, for the most part-- at extreme range fighting a strong high open form (bellatrix), at medium range a weak high closed form (Von Drachenklau), and at close range a strong high closed form (almost everybody else). I still mix in a few A-frame.
FIGHTING
My health issues were three fold. The first issue was the possibility of a blood clot having developed at Pennsic from wrapping my knee too tight after I was injured (see earlier post). My D-Demer test was positive, and my leg was swollen, but two ultrasounds revealed nothing.
The second issue was a concussion suffered at the Cloisters. I developed concussion issues after I hit myself in the head with a sword while doing pell work years ago (no, really), and suffered my first recognizable fighting concussion a year or so later, (i'd probably had at least one before, but this was the first one with classic symptoms), when Gui accidentally face punched me at Acheron, resulting in a concussion that I felt as a pain at the back of my head from my brain bouncing off the back of my skull. I took time off from fighting, told my doctor, and retired that helmet. I changed my helmet and padded it with anti-concussion padding from Windrose. It worked, but my new helmet did not allow for any padding beyond that. I stopped getting my bell wrung, but at Pennsic I did have a couple of headaches. Then, at Cloisters, I got hammered literally, with a big hammer-headed polearm. The next day I had a migraine that was pretty bad. It went away so I fought that Thursday at Hawethorne, and had another migraine the next day. I had concussion symptoms for a couple of weeks, and ended up taking a lot of time off for reason three.
The third issue was a spell of really high blood pressure. This was result of a lot of things -- pain from the concussion, fatigue, work stress, general politics stress, producing a show stress, and--especially--SCA stress brought on by the arrest of Louis Rondon/Lousi de Castillo, whom long-time readers of this blog will know from mention of our bouts over the last few years, particularly the drown that he won last May. At the same time, my doctor changed my medication. I'd been really dehydrated at Pennsic, and I asked her to take me off the hydrochlorothiazide, a diurettic. My blood pressure started going up, and so she switched me from Lisinopril to Nephedipine. It this time I was suffering from fatigue and headaches. The neephedipine had a lot of side effects, including chest pains and shortness of breath. The first or second day I was on it, I went to the ER with blood pressure of 198/154, which is very bad. Eventually, I was switched back to my old regimen of hydrochlorothiazide and lisinopril, which had worked before. I just need to hydrate a LOT (as I type this I had another bout of fatigue and headache, which is dehydration). I missed Crown Tourney for the first time in years as a result -- doctor's orders -- and ended up taking about three months off from fighting.
My health is good. I had a great stress test and echo. My BP is 110/70. Both my GP and my cardiologist have cleared me to fight.
I'm back to fighting, but in my Crusader helmet, which is big and heavy and has a lot more padding in it, but has lousy visibility. I've got a big heavy bascinet I'm going to pad up, but it's not the period I like to fight in, and it doesn't have an aventail yet, which is an aesthetic that I think is necessary for bascinets. But it it will do for the moment. Long term I am going to go to an open faced helmet with a suspension liner. I've considered for some time going to a late period rig with a shoulder mounted helm (Icefalcom makes one I really like) but I would not want to fight in crown in that helmet, for a lot of reasons.
Meanwhile, I have been fighting a bit lately. I had a great time at Aedult Swim this year. I was only there for one day, but I fought 18 opponents, which works out to right around 100 fights (I fought at least five fights with al of them, and more with some). I ended my day with fights with Duke Rangvaldr, in my book one of the top ten fighters in the SCA. I killed him twice (he killed me five times). Any time I lay stick on Rangvaldr I count as a great day. I also had a great set with Duke Christoph from Atlantia. The only Easterner I fought was Pelandreas, but he's from Quebec, so I never see him anyway. He will likely be a tough out at Crown. I did get him once with a good face thrust, and fought him pretty well over all. got to fight a couple of those Ansteoran two sword fighters too. At first I was totally dominated by that style, which I'd never fought, but after four or five bouts I started winning most of my fights. It mostly requires attacks down the middle. After that I fought a knight using a more standard two-sword style, and I did well.
Here is some video of one fight from SCA tally, starting a bit out of focus. I'm so slow! I also wonder why I didn't take that backhand. The rest of the video is cool too.
It is exactly 60 days until Crown. My next time in armor will be Nutley next week, and my tournament with be IceDragon in Aethelmarc on March 15.
I do. I train every day.I do my pell work, push ups, and squats every day. As Crown gets closer I start to run daily (although this time round I've been doing it gingerly, since I injured my knee at Pennsic and it hasn't fully recovered). My squats, at the moment, double as part of my PT. Also, Ibuprofen and ice.
But fighting, that's where training really has to be concentrated. I'm practicing at once a week now, but it's going up to two a week. I've made it either to Nutley or to the local Brooklyn practice, or to hopewell, every week so far.
This week Nutley was wonderfully intense. I didn't fight a lot of fighters, but I got good quality ass whuppins. A Duke told me at Pennsic that, when you're getting ready for crown, you should stick to fighting people who are better than you. That's nice. As I was getting into armor on Wednesday, so was Stephan Von Dresden. He yelled "hey, Val!" So I jumped into the shark-infested deep end of the pool. That was fun. I did not have a thrusting tip on my sword, which makes it all the harder against Stephan. I did not lay stick on him, but with Stephan, sometimes the benchmark is how long it takes him to kill me, but which I did quite well. Then I fought Horic and did extremely well. I won six out of seven bouts. After that I fought Duke Brenan. He said he was impressed. I won several of our bouts. He said that he thought I was doing much better when I got a flow going to my blows than when I fought staccato (interesting, since Staccato was how I'd planned to fight on Wednesday, but I started throwing combinations out of habit. There was a pole-arm fighter visiting from Meridies, an unbelted fighter with Japanese armor. I took my poleax out against him and won three out of four bouts. To finish off, I got a set of great-sword bouts in with Cullyn, probably the top great weapon fighter in the kingdom ATM. He actually had his body armor off, but when he heard I was looking for some great-sword practice he put it back on. We had some good sets. He definitely bested me, but I won three bouts out of (I think) seven). Great stuff.
This Sunday was the Cloisters demo. I was pretty sure I was going to be the only knight there and, since I wanted more pole-arm work, and since I also wanted to handicap myself, but mostly becuase it was a subway ride from south brooklyn to the far north tip of Manhattan, I left my sword and shield at home. Taking just a bastard sword, or just a poleax, is so much easier than hauling around a shield, which is sort of awkward. I fought in the noon session for about forty minutes. There were five other fighters in armor, including Gawaine, who is tough with anything, and Murdoch, who has good weapons depth. I had some great fights and some great wins, but Murdoch beat me twice with pole-arms and once with great-sword. I think I beat him once with my poleax vs. his glaive. He was a real test. He also won the provincial championship later that day.
But my favorite moment was against Alberecht, a tall lefty from Queens. Because he is left handed I used a left hand lead on my poleax, which I rarely do. I threw my best polearm shot--a feint thrust to the head, and a circle that looks at first like a leg shot, but then continues up into the face. It's my patented "best shot," and I've killed people with it using both glaive and bastard sword, but I don't think I'd even thrown that left handed before. As I saw that it had worked, and my point was getting in behind his shield, I stepped off line to give myself a better angle, and landed a face thrust.
It's 40 days until Crown Tourney. My next time in armor will be Wednesday at Nutley.
Boy, has it really been since June that I’ve written in this blog? I’ve gotten even worse at it.
A good practice tonight. I fought Beatrix, Jan, Arne, Gawaine, and a newer left-handed fighter who told me his name, but it completely escaped me. This guy, by the way, had an incredible kit. 14th century helm with a giant nasal and aventail, great coat of plates, but the best thing of all was that he had Kydex plastic arms that you could not tell where Kydex plastic arms, because he had built them on a freaking last! They had a Great coke bottle shaped to them, and he had riveted them so it looks like they had splints.
Nothing really special to say about my fighting tonight. I avoided the thrust most of the night and worked on the edge. I only managed to kill Arne once, but he told me afterwards that he did not like what I was doing. I had him back on his heels the whole time, which was the idea. I try to fight Arne by channeling Joe Frazier. Beatrix I did really well against, and I think Jan beat me three out of five. Not too bad.
I had a very decent day at Ducal Challenge couple weeks ago. Well, I kind of decent day. I barely made it out of my pool. I was in the pool of death, which also had brick jams, Ionis, Hassan, and Arne. I ended up in a three-way tie for fourth place, the last slot to advance, with Hassan and Brick, but I killed both of them. Then I went to quarterfinals and got knocked out by Cullen, who eventually won. So that wasn’t bad.
I didn’t report on Pennsic. Here is my report: every days fighting was more fun than the day before. I pulled a calf muscle, twisted my knee, and probably got a small blood clot in my calf, my doctor freaked out a bit, but the ultrasound showed nothing so I was cleared to fight again. If I did get a blood clot, I’m pretty sure it came from wrapping my knee too tightly on Friday. I could not fight for a month as a result. So Pennsic wrecked me.
It’s 52 days until Crown Tourney. My next time in armor will be Tuesday at McCareen Park.
THE GAME OF THRONES
In the SCA, we play the Game of Thrones. It's what we do. The SCA is literally a game of thrones. As I wrote in my book (see sidebar), the SCA is a more-or-less accidental recreation of the medieval "King Game," a peasant game in which a contest is held for a mock king to reign over a mock court (king of fools, boy bishop, mock mayor, and May king are all examples). So, what happens in GoT is an interesting reflection on what we do in, and how we might play, the SCA. As such, last week's finale has a bit of a message for us. I won't go into all the flaming details. I was not nearly as disappointed in the ending as so many others were. I agree that it was rushed, but I thought they got to the right place on nearly all the story lines. Dany was always going to turn into a tyrant, Jon was always a well-meaning idiot, and Bran was being groomed to be king in the first episode. No big surprise. But there are two ways in which the last episode intersects with the SCA.
First, with how to deal with a tyrant. Our tyrants don't burn cities to the ground. They are merely assholes, and they have a sunset clause. My personal philosophy has always been closely aligned with fighting: just as anybody I face has the right to decide none of my blows was good, every king has the right to be a tyrant. I put myself in danger, submit myself to another's control over me, in fighting and in serving the king. It is an act of trust. If I am let down there is no real harm. He's not going to take away my birthday, after all. I like our way. I am a big one for giving people the opportunity to easily be assholes, because only then do you actually give them the opportunity to shine and be heroes. But I know people who wish regicide were an option in our game.
The second thing is what to do with our kings when they are no longer king. Jon was crowned King in the North, and he is actually the rightful king of Westeros. In this case he is sent off to the Night's Watch (another way the show has come full circle), and then is (sort of) released to go off into the True North with the Wildlings (Ken Mondschein and I will be working on a paper on this topic later in the year). In the SCA, our ex kings get a county, or maybe a Dukedom. That's not too different from what happened to Jon. It is a good convention.
I think we do it right.
NUTLEY
Getting back into armor after Crown is always a bit difficult. What, exactly do I wok on. Staying with my plan? Power generation? Having no plan? Thrusts? What *didn't* I do at Crown that I need to do next time. The zen answer, of course, is "win."
The dangers of Nutley last week was getting lost, which, in a way, is what I did. It was the best Nutley practice in a long time. There were several out of towners, and 24 fighters in armor. I wanted to fight people I don't fight a lot, but in that crowd it wasn't easy. I only got five opponents, one of them was brand new, two were regulars. I worked with Dwight, who lives near me in Brooklyn. I fought great swords against Jonathan, and I warmed up with Galvin. I managed to get my set with Victor, which is the thing I wanted most. With the new, lighter sword, I was having trouble with power, but I was also firing too much into his shield which, with pell work every single day, should not be a problem. I'm very disappointed in that. But with so many to choose from, I did not get in as good (read rough) a night as I should have.
HOW TO RUN A PRACTICE
We had a practice last weekend, with me, three brand new fighters,and one fairly new fighter. Two were left handed, two were right handed. It gave me an opportunity to run an actual class, as opposed to bashing practice, again. The curriculum this time was as follows:
(unarmored)
Footwork drills
Structured slow work (I worked with each of them individually, critiquing their form)
(armored)
Slow work warm up.
Striking and moving: I drilled each one individually, having them strike and move, with the goal of keeping their shields in place as they did so. I'd occasionally lightly tap them if they let their shield drift too far.
Sparing with each other -- righty on righty/lefty on lefty, then switch, with me critiquing
Circle drill, (ie bear pit) in which one person holds the field against each of the others, in turn. I didn't hold the field but I did enter it to fight them. I used a small (22" round) shield for this, as a handicap, and I did get hit a couple of times. This last part is so people have fun and feel they've gotten enough fighting in, which is always important.
It was a good practice. My most satisfying part is seeing how, even though I didn't work with him much at all last year, Austin, the more experienced fighter, was employing the footwork I had taught him effectively.
HOW TO RUN A DEMO
I've harped on this before.
We all do demos a bit differently, and for different audiences. A lot of the early demos I was involved in were simply that--demonstrations of how our combat works for a lay audience. It would be mostly built around pairs. They'd fight. Someone would win. Emphasis was put on explaining to the audience our conventions of combat and the armor and weapons being used. Effort would be made to demonstrate lots of different weapons forms. It's not about medieval history, it's about SCA fighting.
The next step is often to emphasize the entertainment value of the violence. People take on "villain" rolls. There's lots of playing to the crowd. Some fighters do things (ignore blows, back stab) that are against the rules, but are entertaining to an audience not familiar with what we do.
Another variety is to purposely fight in a more medieval fashion. This also breaks our rules through the addition of grappling, punching with shields, etc. We used to do a fighting show at the Renaissance Faire in Black Point. It had started out, years before, as an "SCA Demo," with SCA rules. It evolved into a show that was not a demo really at all, because we never mentioned the SCA. It was a tournament in which we used, basically, the conventions currently employed by ACL and BOTN. We fought to submission or to three point contact with the ground. I suffered a couple of concussions in those fights.
I've always thought the best way to run a demo is to run a structured fighting event. Either a small SCA tournament, fought with SCA rules, or a challenge event of some kind. A pas d'armes with a barrier is great for this, because it requires less space, and because it does away with fighting from the knees. Another similar way is to do the event as a series of challenges.
So, last weekend we also had a demo for the Brooklyn's Viking Day festival. As usual, the SCA set up on one side of a concrete path, and the MSR SET up on the other. In years past, we've gone back and forth between each other's spaces. This year, however, we each only had one fighter. The SCA had me. MSR had Douglas Henry, who is both an SCA knight (one of the top four or five fighters in the kingdom) and the Crown Prince of Acre in the MSR. He and I decided to fight a passage of arms with SCA rules using 5 different weapon forms: arming sword, great sword, two weapon, dagger, abd sword and shield. It's more or less the finals of Crown Tourney. Here is how it looked (thanks to the Vicereign for the videos):
We split even, two each and a double kill, but actually I thrust him in the face in the two sword fight, which he acknowledged, and kept fighting, so I won three of the five. This doesn't mean I'd have won in a tourney, but it does mean that every blow I killed him with was to the face, three thrusts and a cut with the great sword. Doug needs to improve his face defense.
The real point is that this is a fun way to do a demo if you only have two fighters. A passage of arms like this one is described in Hutton's The Sword And The Centuries. It allows us to teach a bit about SCA fighting, a bit about 14th Century fighting, and put on a good show.
