Fightswamp 09
For the past two days, we have been at Fightcamp 09, basically a weekend of classes and fighting in a field near Coventry. There is a third day today, but we are all beaten and bruised from the last two days, and there is only one thing we would have wanted to go to today, so. And typically, today is sunny and dry. It's been miserably wet the last couple of days.
I got to meet lots of HEMA knitters, which is hoopy! Many of the men were amused at the little knitting circles that sprang up every so often.
Lest they think I am a wuss, however, I apparently showed some mettle in the Tournament(s). There was a Rapier/smallsword tournament, at which I got my first go at fighting against rapiers, something I'd only known the theory of before. It was interesting. I won my first fight, and lost the other three, though not for want of trying. Hem. Apparently we have a school style, I don't quite know how it happened, but for some reason I ended up rushing in once I'd got past the rapier point. Coff, and that. I managed to do some excellent St. George parries in my first fight, but not so much in my second, where I did get cut quite heavily on the head.
I thought I'd done pretty badly, to be honest. I could have done a bit better on my second if I'd actually pommelled the chap once I'd stuck my blade in his gut. But hindsight is 20/20, non?
Embarassingly, I was told that I was the talk of the pub whilst the contest was still on, for showing "courage". It hadn't occurred to me, but I was a) the only girl in the contest, and b) the shortest person with the shortest weapon. Um. And also, my first opponent (who turned out to be Spanish who could only manage a few words of English), found an interpreter to tell me that he had very much enjoyed my fight, and his friend saw me, pointed and went "Valkyrie!!" My second opponent found me then, and proceeded to tell me that his fight with me was "great fun". *blink* I thought I had fought particularly badly, though unusually aggressively. It is strange, touch wood in all the tournaments I've done in the past few years, I have managed to be adequately aggressive, where I am not in the slightest in class.
Backsword tournament was disappointing. It was sudden death first clean hit to start, and I got knocked out by a thrust to the face. Annoyingly, I had previously cut him across the body, having first parried a cut to my side - but as the force of his cut meant the back of my sword smacked my arm, apparently that didn't count. I am a bit confused at that, to be perfectly honest - a back sword has a non-sharp back, so I would have been bruised, and he would have been disembowelled. Still, that's the way these things go.
We are now very, very sore. Both my arms are hurt, the left for that last backsword cut (typically, it collided just above the arm protection I'd put on), and my right from a heavy rapier blow to the shoulder. It was great fun, though. I don't usually get on well with these weekends, I'm usually sitting in the corner not being talked to/being shy, but this one was really convivial, and great fun. More! More!!
I got to meet lots of HEMA knitters, which is hoopy! Many of the men were amused at the little knitting circles that sprang up every so often.
Lest they think I am a wuss, however, I apparently showed some mettle in the Tournament(s). There was a Rapier/smallsword tournament, at which I got my first go at fighting against rapiers, something I'd only known the theory of before. It was interesting. I won my first fight, and lost the other three, though not for want of trying. Hem. Apparently we have a school style, I don't quite know how it happened, but for some reason I ended up rushing in once I'd got past the rapier point. Coff, and that. I managed to do some excellent St. George parries in my first fight, but not so much in my second, where I did get cut quite heavily on the head.
I thought I'd done pretty badly, to be honest. I could have done a bit better on my second if I'd actually pommelled the chap once I'd stuck my blade in his gut. But hindsight is 20/20, non?
Embarassingly, I was told that I was the talk of the pub whilst the contest was still on, for showing "courage". It hadn't occurred to me, but I was a) the only girl in the contest, and b) the shortest person with the shortest weapon. Um. And also, my first opponent (who turned out to be Spanish who could only manage a few words of English), found an interpreter to tell me that he had very much enjoyed my fight, and his friend saw me, pointed and went "Valkyrie!!" My second opponent found me then, and proceeded to tell me that his fight with me was "great fun". *blink* I thought I had fought particularly badly, though unusually aggressively. It is strange, touch wood in all the tournaments I've done in the past few years, I have managed to be adequately aggressive, where I am not in the slightest in class.
Backsword tournament was disappointing. It was sudden death first clean hit to start, and I got knocked out by a thrust to the face. Annoyingly, I had previously cut him across the body, having first parried a cut to my side - but as the force of his cut meant the back of my sword smacked my arm, apparently that didn't count. I am a bit confused at that, to be perfectly honest - a back sword has a non-sharp back, so I would have been bruised, and he would have been disembowelled. Still, that's the way these things go.
We are now very, very sore. Both my arms are hurt, the left for that last backsword cut (typically, it collided just above the arm protection I'd put on), and my right from a heavy rapier blow to the shoulder. It was great fun, though. I don't usually get on well with these weekends, I'm usually sitting in the corner not being talked to/being shy, but this one was really convivial, and great fun. More! More!!