Weekend metalfest. I mean, SCA event
I went down to White Hart this weekend, riding with Sir Alonzio (baron of BMDL) and one of his squires, Liam. We drove over to Ohio, gathered a group of people, which included another squire and a man-at-arms (a squire in training) of Alonzio's. The caravan then went down to crash at the house of yet another of Alonzio's squires, Bill (SCA name Willem I think) in WV. Liam works at Penn Brewery, so we brought along a few cases of beer for that night, and a keg for the next night.
I was not there 2 minutes when I discovered something I should have asked about - almost everyone there smokes cigarettes. I am very sensitive to cigarette smoke, and loathe it with a passion rivaled only by my loathing of the religious right's agenda and revulsion for tomatoes. I am not, however, rude enough to berate how people live when they are doing me a favor and letting me crash at their place. I had a few beers and discovered that Liam (among others) were big metal fans. So I happily spend half the remaining night listening to Pantera, Slayer, and a number of other bands, and ignored the smoke as much as I possibly could. Eventually, about 3:30am, I had to find a corner to curl up in, since the next morning - which was by then only 5 hrs away - I had to get up and prepare for a fencing tournament. I got pointed into a room, given a blanket, and was asleep in an instant.
I woke up at 8:30, the time my cats usually get me up. Nobody was moving yet (surprise! most people were up longer than me) so I waited around a little bit in the room I had been given. At some point, people woke up and started making breakfast for everyone. We took a long, long, long time to get going, and I thought I was going to miss the fencing tourney. We finally got going and then rode for 30-45 mins to the event site, arriving about noon. I jumped out we started unloading weapons and armor. The heavy weapons marshall saw Alonzio unloading stuff, and called out, "Your Excellency! How many fighters did you bring with you?" Alonzio replied, "For the tournament?" Marshall: "Yes!" Alonzio: *looks around* "None, I think!" (One of his squires who drove in separately actually entered.) Needless to say, the marshall didn't expect to hear that, especially since we are talking about six or seven people who came and did not entering the tournament. :)
I grabbed my wallet and went to troll, then headed over to the fencing field. The fencing was supposed to start about when I arrived, but wound up starting later, at 1pm. This gave me time to get warmed up, talk some, and eat a precious few bites of food. The tourney started a little after the heavy weapons tourney did, and was a round-robin honors tournament in which you fought everyone else once. You were awarded 2 pts for winning, 1 pt for losing, and up to 5 pts for your grace, courtesy, honor, and similar traits, judged by a gallery of ladies and men. In between some of my fights, I watched the heavy tourney, which seemed to just drag on and on. They fought the best of 3 bouts, against everyone, I believe. The heavy tourney also had a gallery awarding points for grace, courtesy, honor, etc. I mostly concentrated on the other fencers, though, so I cannot say exactly how they were evaluating the heavy weapons contest. During the fencing tourney I noticed one of the newer fencers, who has a background in modern strip fencing, kept hopping during his lunges. This is a legit move for modern fencing, but not for SCA fencing. Surprisingly, nobody said anything to him about it. Overall, the range of fencers in the tournament went from that guy and a girl who just authorized that day, to a fencing White Scarf and a Warder (Midrealm's equivalent to White Scarf.) It was a nice, broad range of skill levels.
So the tournament concludes, and they announce the winner.. is me. I think my response was, "What?" I was not specifically trying to win, I was only trying to act how I always do when fencing. In fact, in this tournament, I deliberately did not go out there with the intention of winning every fight. I went out with the intention of presenting a good challenge for my opponent, so they would come away smiling.
I did some fencing pickup fights, and one was against the young guy I saw doing the hopping moves. I believe I mentioned to him that I noticed he was losing contact with the ground sometimes, and that I guessed he was a modern fencer. He realized it was not used in SCA fencing, but obviously was still trying to remove it from his fighting. We fought for a bit, and at some point he legged me. I sat down on the ground, and kept my blade low to the ground, something I sometimes do so that the other person cannot push it out of the way. The guy stepped forward and stomped on my blade, then pegged me. I exclaimed, "THAT is NOT LEGAL!" Then I checked my blade to be sure the asshat had not bent it. He looked at me confused when I explained he was definitely not allowed to step on my weapon, and then actually had to go ask someone else if I was right or not. I was pissed to say the least, though I doubt many people knew that. He came back and apologized, but I did not care. I never really gave him a chance to do more stupid things, because from then on I pretty much handed him his ass on the field. A few minutes later, I happily cut this part short in order to fence against Parion, who has been out of fencing for a couple years due to an auto accident. It was fun, and not only because he didn't do any blade stomping or other stupid shit. He is a good, thoughtful opponent. Afterwards, he talked a while about Blackstone Raid, which I doubt heike and I are going to.
I packed up my stuff and went to get my heavy armor on, so I could do pickup fights. BUT.. they were not done with the heavy tourney yet. So after watching them a while, I saw what looked like the last fight. Incredibly, it was not, because there was one more match to be done. The last 2 heavy fighters did the best of 5, with a different weapon for each form. The winner of the heavy tournament was none other than Rahfinn, the one squire of Alonzio's who entered. So in effect Alonzio came down, sent one person to win each tourney, and then left afterwards. I wonder if that pissed some people off. :)
We packed up and left the site, then had dinner back at Bill's place. This was followed by another night of drinking, death metal, and staying up until 3:30am. Much fun was had by most, although the arrival of a couple of other girls did cause some people there (read: girls) to get annoyed. Not my scene, not my women, not my house, not my problem. I watched Shaun of the Dead, Constantine, drank beer, listened to music, and had the kind of random conversations you have with people you don't know. The next day we headed back to Pittsburgh. It was just cold most of the way back, but on the approach to the Liberty Tunnel, it started snowing. After coming out the other side, we saw the bridge ended in a wall of white. Lovely. Welcome back! it seemed to say. Did you miss us? I got my car, drove home, showered, and then went to get heike from practice. Nobody was there, though, since they ended practice early that day. I correctly guessed the fencers had headed over to _subdivisions_'s house, so I went over there and had a relaxing evening eating, talking, and playing games.
Whew. Did you read all that? :)
I was not there 2 minutes when I discovered something I should have asked about - almost everyone there smokes cigarettes. I am very sensitive to cigarette smoke, and loathe it with a passion rivaled only by my loathing of the religious right's agenda and revulsion for tomatoes. I am not, however, rude enough to berate how people live when they are doing me a favor and letting me crash at their place. I had a few beers and discovered that Liam (among others) were big metal fans. So I happily spend half the remaining night listening to Pantera, Slayer, and a number of other bands, and ignored the smoke as much as I possibly could. Eventually, about 3:30am, I had to find a corner to curl up in, since the next morning - which was by then only 5 hrs away - I had to get up and prepare for a fencing tournament. I got pointed into a room, given a blanket, and was asleep in an instant.
I woke up at 8:30, the time my cats usually get me up. Nobody was moving yet (surprise! most people were up longer than me) so I waited around a little bit in the room I had been given. At some point, people woke up and started making breakfast for everyone. We took a long, long, long time to get going, and I thought I was going to miss the fencing tourney. We finally got going and then rode for 30-45 mins to the event site, arriving about noon. I jumped out we started unloading weapons and armor. The heavy weapons marshall saw Alonzio unloading stuff, and called out, "Your Excellency! How many fighters did you bring with you?" Alonzio replied, "For the tournament?" Marshall: "Yes!" Alonzio: *looks around* "None, I think!" (One of his squires who drove in separately actually entered.) Needless to say, the marshall didn't expect to hear that, especially since we are talking about six or seven people who came and did not entering the tournament. :)
I grabbed my wallet and went to troll, then headed over to the fencing field. The fencing was supposed to start about when I arrived, but wound up starting later, at 1pm. This gave me time to get warmed up, talk some, and eat a precious few bites of food. The tourney started a little after the heavy weapons tourney did, and was a round-robin honors tournament in which you fought everyone else once. You were awarded 2 pts for winning, 1 pt for losing, and up to 5 pts for your grace, courtesy, honor, and similar traits, judged by a gallery of ladies and men. In between some of my fights, I watched the heavy tourney, which seemed to just drag on and on. They fought the best of 3 bouts, against everyone, I believe. The heavy tourney also had a gallery awarding points for grace, courtesy, honor, etc. I mostly concentrated on the other fencers, though, so I cannot say exactly how they were evaluating the heavy weapons contest. During the fencing tourney I noticed one of the newer fencers, who has a background in modern strip fencing, kept hopping during his lunges. This is a legit move for modern fencing, but not for SCA fencing. Surprisingly, nobody said anything to him about it. Overall, the range of fencers in the tournament went from that guy and a girl who just authorized that day, to a fencing White Scarf and a Warder (Midrealm's equivalent to White Scarf.) It was a nice, broad range of skill levels.
So the tournament concludes, and they announce the winner.. is me. I think my response was, "What?" I was not specifically trying to win, I was only trying to act how I always do when fencing. In fact, in this tournament, I deliberately did not go out there with the intention of winning every fight. I went out with the intention of presenting a good challenge for my opponent, so they would come away smiling.
I did some fencing pickup fights, and one was against the young guy I saw doing the hopping moves. I believe I mentioned to him that I noticed he was losing contact with the ground sometimes, and that I guessed he was a modern fencer. He realized it was not used in SCA fencing, but obviously was still trying to remove it from his fighting. We fought for a bit, and at some point he legged me. I sat down on the ground, and kept my blade low to the ground, something I sometimes do so that the other person cannot push it out of the way. The guy stepped forward and stomped on my blade, then pegged me. I exclaimed, "THAT is NOT LEGAL!" Then I checked my blade to be sure the asshat had not bent it. He looked at me confused when I explained he was definitely not allowed to step on my weapon, and then actually had to go ask someone else if I was right or not. I was pissed to say the least, though I doubt many people knew that. He came back and apologized, but I did not care. I never really gave him a chance to do more stupid things, because from then on I pretty much handed him his ass on the field. A few minutes later, I happily cut this part short in order to fence against Parion, who has been out of fencing for a couple years due to an auto accident. It was fun, and not only because he didn't do any blade stomping or other stupid shit. He is a good, thoughtful opponent. Afterwards, he talked a while about Blackstone Raid, which I doubt heike and I are going to.
I packed up my stuff and went to get my heavy armor on, so I could do pickup fights. BUT.. they were not done with the heavy tourney yet. So after watching them a while, I saw what looked like the last fight. Incredibly, it was not, because there was one more match to be done. The last 2 heavy fighters did the best of 5, with a different weapon for each form. The winner of the heavy tournament was none other than Rahfinn, the one squire of Alonzio's who entered. So in effect Alonzio came down, sent one person to win each tourney, and then left afterwards. I wonder if that pissed some people off. :)
We packed up and left the site, then had dinner back at Bill's place. This was followed by another night of drinking, death metal, and staying up until 3:30am. Much fun was had by most, although the arrival of a couple of other girls did cause some people there (read: girls) to get annoyed. Not my scene, not my women, not my house, not my problem. I watched Shaun of the Dead, Constantine, drank beer, listened to music, and had the kind of random conversations you have with people you don't know. The next day we headed back to Pittsburgh. It was just cold most of the way back, but on the approach to the Liberty Tunnel, it started snowing. After coming out the other side, we saw the bridge ended in a wall of white. Lovely. Welcome back! it seemed to say. Did you miss us? I got my car, drove home, showered, and then went to get heike from practice. Nobody was there, though, since they ended practice early that day. I correctly guessed the fencers had headed over to _subdivisions_'s house, so I went over there and had a relaxing evening eating, talking, and playing games.
Whew. Did you read all that? :)