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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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.
In the end, I was knocked out by the same two people who knocked me out of Mudthaw.
This was my 100th Crown Tournament. I have been victorious in 1% of the crowns I have fought in.
In truth, I am extremely frustrated with myself over this crown. I should have been tighter against Luis. I should have closed the deal with Jan after I took his leg. They were both awesome fights, but I could have and should have done better.
I knew going into this crown that Luis would be my toughest fight, that Jan, Randall and Arne were really tough to crack, that Sterling would be a dark horse, and that Ryo can mess up anybody's day. There were no push overs in this particular crown. I had trained specifically to fight Luis, Jan, and Arne. I never got matched up with Arne, but I failed in my prep for Jan and Luis.
It was actually a very small list. Although I made it to the final eight, That was only five rounds, and seven fights.
Randal and I were both a bit surprised when the shields went up for the first round, and we found out that we were paired against each other. Turns out it was a bye, and they'd just drawn our names out of a hat. I took a polearm, on the theory that win or lose (I lost) it would be over quickly and neither of us would get tired.
Next I fought Joseph von Ulm. I fight Joseph a lot at Iron Bog practice. He fought better this weekend than I have ever seen him fight. He was a tough out for me. Very strong offense and a solid defense.
Next I fought Luis. It was a hard fought bout, and I lost. He toasts me with a head shot and a body thrust in fairly quick succession. They were both good. This video comes from SCATally on Youtube, who has great videos of the finals and semi finals.
My fourth pairing was against Tomasso. I haven't fought him much, but he is one of Wulfsan's squires, and in the household, so I knew he was going to be rough, and he was.
Then they decided to change the format to best two out of three each round, and I got three truly savage fights with Jan. He won the first, I won the second, then we took each others legs before he got me with the slot shot which is his bread and butter. At about 10:19 below you can see most of our third fight. It was a fun one. Unfortunately, the sound is out of sync. Tanaka is in the way, so you can't see the shot that kills me. I know what it did, but I'm still trying to figure out why my shield was so far out of position. Thanks to Alexie Cruz for this one.
So I lost to the eventual winner and one of the semi-finalists. I was a contender. I was fighting really well. I love my footwork in both these fights. Now on to #101.
It is 79 days till Pennsic. My next time in armor will (hopefully) be Thursday Night at Rusted Woodlands.
Since last posting here, I've been training for crown, went to quarters in Mudthaw, and broke my training to travel to Oregon due to a family emergency. I even drank beer. While on the West Coast I ended up with time on my hands, and a need to get away, so I lit out for California and my West Coast home.
It so happened that Crapaud #277 was that week, and I would be there. I had my West Coast armor, so I decided to fight. I really really needed to hit something. When I was living in the West, Crapaud was in Cynagua and I was in the Mists, and I was only once (as I recall) invited. So fighting in Crapaud was kind of a bucket list for me. Plus, I wanted a tune up for Crown.
My participation in Crapaud was comically wrong. See, I did not want to fight with my bunny round. Crown is coming up, and I didn't want to get into any old bad bunny round habits since I would be using my heater. So I asked if anybody had heater I could borrow. Bad mistake.
First, I got Hanse's heater. This is about--I don't know--maybe 30" long, maybe 28". And it's narrow. I used that for two rounds. Then I borrowed a shield from an Atlantian, which was about the right size, but strapped all wrong for me and a bit heavy. I used this for two rounds. Then I borrowed a center-grip heater, which was probably 32" long, maybe more. At least I was relatively comfortable with that one, but I fell into some Branos technique because, you know, center grip, which is decidedly NOT my style. Anyway, trying to use these different shields, not being comfortable with them, trying to figure out my defense on the fly, was all patently stupid. I'd have been better off just using my bunny round. Win or lose, I'd have felt better in the moment.
Oh, yea. I was also using a log with no counterweight as my sword.
As it was I finaled against Hanse. Video is below. It picks up in round 2. See Valgard move like a slug. See him try desperately to figure out his shield. See his blows come in at half speed and odd angles.
It's seven days until Crown. My next time in armor will be Crown.
Sometimes you need to train, and sometimes you just need to fight.
I have been training, but not truly fighting. I’ve been doing my daily pell work, Push-ups, squats, lots of walking, occasional running, and tackling that hill, though nowhere near as much as I need to or would like. I have not been in armor very much at all. In large part, this has to do with logistics that I need to overcome. Translation, it is no longer as feasible as it once was, or frankly as simple, for me to haul my armor to work with me and then go to practice in New Jersey, and quite frankly, after 25 years, I’m just tired of hauling my arm on the subway. So I’m taking cabs or Zipcars, and due to the expense I don’t do that very often.
I have made it to Nutley, and the Hawthorne, and to the local Brooklyn practice. Today was the first day at Brooklyn there was someone besides me in armor. But spring has sprung it, and practice is picking up.
At Nutley, and Hawthorne, all I want to do is fight. Last time I was at Nutley it was a fairly late night, but I got to fight four knights and an otc, and it was a great workout.
Tonight, was in someway is much better. There was only me and Travis in armor. He had already been doing some work by the time I got there an armored up, so he was not interested in slow work or warm-up drills. We did some free sparring for a while. Then we did situational drills. We did duke Paul’s offense/defense drill. Then we both did some work fighting from our knees. Then more free sparring. He is super fast and has a pretty tight defense, and he nailed me with an excellent body shot in our first fight, in which we double killed. In our last sparring session, I did a couple of things that I really enjoyed. And one of our fights, are used to technique that I’m playing with but had not done a lot of recently, essentially Duke Lucan’s footwork, but with the heater shield. The way I use it I fight in an A-frame and clock my shield over to guard my leading, stored side, foot. It worked perfectly as I passed to my left and hit him in his offside body.
This is the kind of work that everybody should do more often. You can improve your fighting more efficiently by drilling with one good fighter on a regular basis, then you can just by doing a bashing practice with five good fighters. This is the kind of work that everybody should do more often. You can improve your fighting more efficiently by drilling with one good fighter on a regular basis, then you can just by doing a bashing practice with five good fighters. But you definitely need both, and the bashing practice is a lot more fun!
I taught two classes at Aedult Swim this year, one was called "Footwork" and the other was called "Structured Drills for Sword and Shield." What they actually were, were classes on how to run classes--not the meet once at Pennsic then go home and practice what you've learned if you can remember it classes, but how to run a weekly fighter practice.
Now, we rarely get to do this. I tried to do it when I was the provincial Knight Marshal, but most people aren't interested. The want to fight. For the most part, we don't teach in the SCA and we don't train in the SCA. Those who do (Duke Paul, Duke Sean, Duke Lucan, Viscount Wulfsagan, Duke Branos, the Trimarans at Duke U) are, even now, fifty years into the SCA, way ahead of everybody else.
Most of the stuff in this blog comes from my teacher, Duke Paul of Bellatrix, and detailed discussion of these ideas can be found at the Bellatrix Fighting School web page.
For most of us, the SCA teaches the way it always has--by the school of (literal) hard knocks. You put on armor, and you practice. Individual trainers may spend some time working with you on this or that shot, but mostly we train ourselves, on the pell, then we jump into the pool and fight. At first, as new fighters, we are trying to survive. Next, as we gain experience, we try to win every fight. Then, one of three things happen. In the first scenario, we go to practice and fight five-ten fights with an opponent. We try hard to win the first two, then we get lazy. We start fighting silly. We start trying stuff we have never practiced before. Or we fight five to ten fights with an opponent and try a new technique we are working on over and over again, as though the person is a moving pell. In the third scenario, we fight five to ten fights with someone, trying a different technique in every fight. The first of these is terrible. It teaches you bad habits. The second of these is better, as you are working on technique, and you can perfect your body mechanics, but that's all. After the first two fights your opponent knows what is coming and always blocks it. This has the additional downside that it's a waste of your opponent's time. Such an approach is usually best left to structured drills. The third approach is better. Work on a variety of techniques in each set and mix them up. It's often a good idea to limit the number of fights you have with each fighter (I usually cap it at either five or three when I'm training for a tourney).
More structured training is available. The SCA Fighter's Handbooke has a long article on how to teach and train, with some good ideas in it. Paul's website is a good source. Even more useful, in some ways, is his article in the Known World Handbook, where he talks about how to organize classes. That's what I was working on, particularly in class number two.
In the footwork class, I taught foot work drills that can be done out of armor and should be part of any class you teach, armored or unarmored. We worked on incressare and decressare (fencing footwork), walked in straight lines with toes on the ground, walked with a pavane step, a grapevine step, and a cha-cha. We worked on direction using a compass star. Then we did distance drills in a straight line. Finally we did distance work in the round, where the agent tries to advance on the patient agent, who tries always to keep his opponent in front of him.
In the armored class, I set out to teach, not the drills themselves, but how to run the class. The class wold normally start with some footwork drills, but we'd done that in the previous class, so I skipped it. We started out with simple sword blocking drills (like the saber parry drill, which looks like Heidelberg fencing), then sword and shield drills. Next comes slow work. Then comes structured situational drills, where they were given a specific technique, like a blow and footwork combo, and they drilled it slowly with one another. Then I worked with each of them individually on target recognition. Finally we did some free fighting. Every practice should end in free fighting. We lined up, and everybody in line had to fight everybody else once. There are lots of drills you can incorporate into this training.
The core to this idea is that fighter practice for newer fighters, and perhaps all unbelted fighters, should be run as a class, and that class should have the following components:
Footwork Drills
Weapon (and shield) drills
Slow Work
Situational drills
Free Sparing
These techniques should be done with partners. If preferable, they should be of the same height. If there is a left handed fighter, some of the drills are a bit different, but the structure is the same. If there are two left handed fighters, don't have them drill with each other often (one in three classes is probably good) since most of the time they won't be facing another left handed fighter.
A couple more points.
This article is about teaching not training. Training is a broader topic. It is more individual. It has a different purpose. It involves a lot of things that are a part, of but outside of, fighting -- strength, flexibility, aerobics, etc.
Advanced fighters need more training, less teaching. In armor, this is mostly done through fighting--in tourneys, free sparring, etc. Once of the reasons SCA fighter practice is usually just a bunch of free sparring is because this is what the advanced fighters need, so that's what they want to do, leaving few people to teach.
HOWEVER, advanced fighters need a trainer too. This is best done in small groups or individually. Now you are not learning techniques, you are perfecting them, which takes a lot of individual work. It was said back in the day that the best way to get really good was to learn from Paul for two or three years, then go train with Sagan. Paul would teach you what you needed to know, Sagan would make you good at it.
Paul's method of teaching new fighters involves a lot of training before getting into armor. Some of the best fighters I've run into were people that worked with Paul just doing slow work and pell work for a year or more before they got into armor for the first time. (I was the first person ever to fight Paul's son Duke Stephen. Me, Njal, and Stephen were on our way home from a West/CAID war and we took a detour to Santa Cruz. We went out to the beach next to the railroad trestle, where they filmed The Lost Boys, and put Stephen into Njal's armor. He was still in high school, and had never fought heavy before--but He'd learned from his dad. He was as good at that moment as I was--at the time fighting in the upper rounds of Coronet, one of the better unbelted fighters in the principality.
Dance is the best way to learn footwork. It's also good for aerobics.
Most of your work is done without armor on.
The classes at Aedult Swim went really well. While I hope the students got some practical drills out of them, what I really hope is that they got a new way to approach fighter practice.
I've never been a big fan of the new year. I don't like retrospectives, and I don't like resolutions. They remind me of the things that I haven't been doing lately, and also make me think I'm old. But, reflection is not a bad thing, nor is being resolute, from which we get resolutions. It's good to take stock, and it's good to make plans.
My squire posted on our household list that he had a lot of goals to accomplish this year, and he expected to get his ass beaten a lot in the process. He is looking forward to the ass beating, the rest of us should name the time and the place for him to show up and that he would come and take his stripes. This is good. He and I had his annual review a couple weeks ago, and we laid out what his goals in fighting were to be for the year. It's a good idea to do this, not just with our students but also with ourselves.
In review, I did well in both Crown tournaments that I fought in. I went to semi-finals in on, quarter finals in the other. I also went to semi finals in Mudthaw and won a couple of other tournaments. I killed a number of high quality fighters, but still lost to Matthew, Randal, Avaldr, and Wilhelm (whom I had been beating). As usual, my biggest asset was perseverance. I find that I'm fighting very well, I'm focusing well, but I'm pressing too much with the top level fighters.
I have not bee practicing as much as I'd like. I had the usual spate of injuries to deal with. I did not make it to Birka.
Since I will not be making Birka again this year, I am unable to kick start the season the way I prefer.
Physically, I put on about 5 pounds, which I'm not too happy about, though some of that is muscle. I did not miss a single day of my push ups, squats, or pell work this year.
Goals for the coming year.
Win Crown.
Champions battle at Pennsic.
I will go to more events, but I plan to focus on one event a month this coming season. The events I'm aiming for right now are AEdult Swim in February, Mudthaw in March, Balfar's Chalenge in April, Crown in May, Les Beltaines in June, Pennsic in July and August, Ducal Challenge in Septamber, Roses Tournament in October, and Crown in November. December I'll leave up in the air. There's a slight chance I will be at Double Wars in May and Great Western in October. Counting events, I want to be in armor at least six times a month between February and November (which is a low bar). Ideally, I'd be in armor, at least for light practice, three times a week. I'm going to California for three weeks in January, and will fight in both the West and CAID.
In terms of workouts, I will continue with my daily routine. Once the semester begins, I will start running more. I also need to start taking yoga again.
It's 46 Days until AEdult Swim. My next time in armor will be this weekend in the West.
