This past weekend, I was lucky enough to attend a day event held by my neighbors to the north, the Shire of Seamarch. Seamarch’s Yule event holds many fond memories for me over the years, as do all of their events. This one stands out in particular because the event is held entirely for charity. Through auctioning off fighters, ladies, and donations, the shire tries to raise enough money to give a $25 gift card to each of the young people benefiting from the Children’s Home Society’s programs. The Children’s Home Society has three different shelters to fill different needs: Transitions is a home dedicated to helping young mothers get on their feet. They do this through parenting classes and helping them find a job. Nelle Smith is a home for troubled teens, and Safe Harbour is a shelter for runaway and homeless children.
2013 marks a few firsts for me as far as this event goes. It was the first event my girls got to attend in their own garb, and the first time I got to participate in the fighter auction. The girls had an amazing time running amok throughout the site and generally being merry wherever they could. Everyone was amazingly gracious and kind in the way that the welcomed the girls into the fold, especially her Excellency, Countess Rosalinda De Santiago, and Victoria of Seamarch, Sgt Von Hessen’s daughter. As the girls ran around, they made sure the girls never got too far out of sight and into too much trouble. The extra eyes were a huge help.
The girls’ garb was a huge point of pride for me, three little apron dresses hand stitched in the Hedeby fashion. Each dress was planned out and made by my precious Braenna Faelan, and they were beautiful. The contrast between the main colour on each and the gores could not have come out better. Guenevere had a red dress with gray gores, Isabella a green dress with red gores, and little Victoria had a blue dress with yellow gores. I know my lady would like me to use words like buttercup and periwinkle, but I can’t remember the right ones. The most impressive part of the dressmaking was that she managed to make them out of our fabric extras from other garb that we have made, which has two great points: first it didn’t cost us any extra money, and second they match us.
At this event, the rapier fighters went before the heavys on the schedule, which means I was able to watch some of the matches. The field looked amazing since Haus der Kameraden showed up in force. They showed off their household pride in some beautiful tabards with their colours and badge displayed on them. In addition to Kameraden’s fighters, there was overall a good turnout for the rapier lyst, including a relocated Don Davius St. Jacques of the East Kingdom, a newly authorized Lady Jaquelle D’Artois, and my kinsman Augustine al Valencia. With this turnout, the competition was strong, but in the end Don Davius was victorious with Augustine taking second place.
Onto the heavy fighting, only 6 fighters competed in the heavy lyst this year. They were: Duke Mittion von Weald, Lord William of Kent, Lord Kenric Fitz Alan, Lord Roderick, myself, and Vikarr Bjornisson. The smal number made the Round Robin the most effective tourney style. In this format, each fighter will fight each of the other participants twice. Once when they go around the circle themselves, and then again when the other fighters go through the circle. Each win is worth one point, so in this lyst there were ten fights for a possible ten points. The participants were a good cross section of levels of experience from the highest level of achievement possible (a duke and knight), to someone who had only been fighting a few months. In the end, after 60 fights the fighters were ranked as follows: Duke Mittion von Weald, Lord Kenric Fitz Alan, Vikarr Bjornisson, Lord William of Kent, myself, and Lord Roderick. Overall, I am pleased with the day's fighting, I learned something from each of my opponents, and I am always happy for a day where I can get in armour.
The main lesson that I learned through the fights was highlighted in my matches against Lord Kenric and Lord Roderick: I am suffering from a lack of target recognition. I get locked in the idea of looking for a kill shot instead of trying to find a shot that will give me an advantage as the fight moves along. In my off-hand I carry an axe which lets me hook and control my opponent if used properly. This does me very little good if I don’t take advantage of it and take the right shot. In the matches against Lord Roderick (see video below), I was able to hook his sword arm, but instead of pulling it out and trying to take the arm, I kept trying to throw a wrap shot around his shield. He used his shield very well and kept my shot from landing. Finally, I was able to get his shield out of the way and land a blow to the top of his helm. This fight could have gone much more smoothly for me if I would have used the control on his arm to pull it from behind the shield and throw my strike there.
When fighting Vikarr, he managed in both fights to get a shot at my ribs underneath the protection of my axe. Sadly, I wasn’t able to get this fight on film, but looking over the other footage I was able to see what might have been the issue. As I am trying to hook or move with my opponent's sword, I am losing control of the haft of my axe, which is the only defense I have on my left side. I am going to try and address this first by removing the counter weight that I have on the bottom of my axe which causes it to swing around a little bit more than I would like, and second by working the pell and focusing on shield discipline (axe discipline?).
Lord William is a very solid fighter whose stance is focused on defense. This meant that while sitting at B range there was no way for me to hook his sword arm. Many times throughout the fight, I was throwing the axe out to try and get a hold of something and falling short. If you watch the video, these ineffectual axe thrusts leave me open for his counter-attacks. He keeps his discipline and doesn’t strike until after I have left myself open. Later on in the evening, I spoke with Sgt Daniel von Hessen to see if he had any advice for me, and he reiterated this lesson. I need to come into A range and stay on top of my opponent, throw strikes, keep their sword busy in defense or in my axe, and once I'm done throwing, I need to pull out beyond the range of the opponent's sword quickly. Any time I'm soft-shoeing in B range, I am not at my most effective, but my opponent is. My plan to address this is to train up my endurance to give me more time throwing and fighting in A range, and practice my foot work so that I can get in and out more efficiently.
My final opponent was his Grace, Duke Mittion. The fight was over so quickly that it wasn’t until later on in the evening speaking with Sgt. von Hessen and watching the videos that I realized the mistake that I made. My left side parry of the wrap shot was ineffective and leaving my whole left side open and vulnerable to a strike from that side. This may be an issue that I am having with many experienced fighters who can see the hole in my defense. The best way I can think to correct this is to change the way I approach that parry. Currently I am trying to punch out the axe to where the opponent’s sword is at the start of their strike. Sgt. Von Hessen suggested using a roll wrist block, this will put my axe in the way of where their sword is going. This, combined with moving my torso into a sword strike, will mean that even if they break their wrist around my axe, I should be out of the way. Just as important, I will also be throwing a strike myself which will force them to move to defense or risk getting hit.
A note on ranges: The style of combat that we use in the SCA has been taught to me using a four letter system for range, A-D. A and D are the fixed ranges of point blank and outside of spear range. B and C are a little more fluid. B range is the ideal range for your typical heavy fighter, where they can strike with the forte of their sword with little forward motion, but not so close that their shields are becoming an obstruction. C range is just out of sword range, but is the sweet spot for glaive wielders. These ranges both talk about sweet spots, which are highly variable depending on length of weapons, and reach of the fighter.
Now, to move on to another Seamarch Yule tradition that I think is jolly good fun: the Ladies' Games. These are set up so that our fair inspirations can get involved in the fun of trying to earn money for the charities. Before the games begin, the ladies are bid on so that each one has a sponsor at the highest price, and then a series of challenges are presented to them. This year they competed in a Plague Rat Toss, a race to save baby safari animals from poachers, and an egg walk. When the dust had settled, and all the ladies had regained their composure, a young lady named Tamlyn had won the whole thing.
Finally, the part we all know is the most important: FEAST! The feast stewards outdid themselves, the whole of it was delicious. It consisted of 5 removes starting with a mushroom pesto flatbread, and olive oil dipping sauce. The dipping spices were done up just the right way, and there was almost none left by the time we ran out of bread. The second course was even better, a potato, bacon and leek soup. My lady and I split a huge bowl of this tastiness, it was a great follow up and the warmth was nice even if it wasn’t as cold as December should be. This was followed by a Moroccan Tangine that kept with the event's Silk Road theme very nicely. The last remove before dessert was to me the best of all of them, a nice medallion of steak. Not very much was done to it, because it wasn’t needed. The meat was grilled and lightly seasoned exactly how good meat should be. Last but not least was dessert: the stewards graced us with a lemon cheesecake, and it finished off the meal perfectly. It was just sweet enough that my lady didn’t wrinkle her nose at the sour, and had enough lemon that I wasn’t overwhelmed by the sweetness. We were then lucky enough that her Ladyship, Honourable Lady Petra Malusclava shared some sort of chocolate cake pastry that I am told is called a Yule Log. It was so good, I can’t believe I’d never heard of it before.
By the time feast was done, not only were we full to the point of food coma, but the girls had been running around for so long that poor little Victoria couldn’t take it anymore. She had an epic meltdown: the whole of the attendants could hear her wailing "I don't want to go hooooome!!" and so it was time to bid farewell to all our friends and a great event. I would like to thank the Shire of Seamarch for being such great hosts. I would also like to thank Their Royal Majesties Yoan Moon Yang and Jung Mie for making such an effort to make the Southern Shires feel like we are part of everything by driving so far to visit with us. I can’t wait to come back. Seamarch always puts on a good show, and this event was no different.
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