![]() ![]() My heart rate was up too often just watching. That was the best week of work ever! I had the live stream on my second monitor all week. All I know is that for the 3 or 4 days they were out there fighting, I was glued to my laptop and streaming video of our guys out there fighting with Europeans! I bet that was a blast! I may only get to do one of these but damnit I am doing it! I don't think I will be ready for 2013, but I want to help out how I can. I am signed up and getting my armour in place for 2014. Define your actions by how you think the game should be, not how the game is. ".change requires action, it doesn't just happen. Now, if it inspires some Future man at arms to seek noble deeds of arms, in whatever context, than THAT is an influence to be wished for. HMB/BoTN rulesets should not be allowed to affect rules of the martial sport of SCA rattan fencing. If it makes you stop and think, than it’s done its purpose. If all this sounds heavy handed, and melodramatic…… then good. If you are driven to do this by the Divine, by the rage in you, by your Chivalry, by whatever it is, than use that as fuel, and be tested. This has NO PLACE on an SCA battlefield… Period… I never want a requirement for SCA combat to be an up to date Last will and testament. One of us was a hair’s breadth from going to the hospital and having a hole cut in his skull to relieve the pressure. I woke up with a Russian looking at me, smiling, and embracing me as a brother would. It took much longer for me to wake up the second time. In the last fight, I was beaten unconscious into the dirt for the second time that day. He passed his test, and won the respect of every man at arms there at the cost of a broken shoulder blade, and the muscles literally torn from the bone.Įvery time I went out there, I put myself in the hands of the Divine, quite literally. My dear friend Rudy had his moment in “deep waters”, as three men tried to beat him to his knees. ![]() It became very commonplace for my companions to wash the insides of their helmets to get the blood out, so they could be ready for the next bout. At one point, I looked down on my buckler and it was smeared with blood from God know’s who or what. They set the bone, and sewed it up there in site. They did not want to take him in to the hospital for such a minor injury, as they needed it for the “actual” injuries. It was hanging on by a flap of skin and the tendon. One of the Belarusians, (I think) had his finger cut off. Later that day, The Dane proudly gave Felix the fingernail from his severed finger as a Martial souvenir, and promised to send him Video of the surgery. The fight ended when Felix cut the end of the Dane’s finger off. In Felix’s first one on one fight, He was fighting a Dane. They closed the ambulance doors on the unmoving man at arms, and it was our turn…. The reality of it slammed home to all of us. I will never forget the look that passed between Brad and Myself. You know those gladiator movies, where they plunge the hook into the dead guy to pull him off the arena? Yeah, that’s what it felt like. At all… They were rushing to shove him in the ambulance so they could get it out of the way for us to take the field. ![]() The fourth guy they pulled off wasn’t moving…. The fight just before ours finished, and they moved one of the ambulances to the entrances of the list. We had seen three guys get carried off on backboards already, and shuttled off into the three ambulances they had on rotation. We wound up being the sixth fight of the day. I had completely lost the ability to shed heat. My heart rate had been steady at round 150 bpm for at least one of those hours. Due to not being able to talk any of the languages, the whole USA team had been standing in armor, in the sun, for three hours. Perhaps a few stories will get across the accepted level of risk I am talking about. To be honest, if you are thinking you want to do this, just “cause it will be fun”, you really need to stop for a second, and think. Here's how one (SCA) attendee described this year's event (from Armour Archive): ![]()
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