Tourney training workshops at Order of the Boar

[JohnF]

The Dagger Workshop was a great opportunity to put faces to the names
of people from Gathering Darkness, and to renew friendships. Skillwise of
particular benefit to me were how best to break falls when in armour, the
explanation of how to tailor martial techniques so that they are safe for
tourneying, demonstration of how to deal with creeping opponents, how
certain targets are perceived as more valuable by a defender and how to
use that to control them, the technique of putting a second hand on the
rear guard of the rondel to assist in completing an attack from a defence.
I'm looking forward to practising at Red Ravens' training tomorrow.

Officially the event finished at 3pm but it was well after 4pm before I
drove back to Palmy. Picked up some useful tidbits from chats with Mike
Ronn about being relaxed whilst fighting, the merits of Rawling swords (or
lack of them), Colin spent a fair bit of time outside of class explaining
I.33, time of the hand, dominating the centre foreground, footwork, and
interpretation of historic artwork, Sam explaining how to feel which
direction an opponent wants to go, and Dan for patiently going through
simple techniques again and again until I could do them. Any event that
feels too short is a good one. This event was too short .

Thanks Callum. I'm looking forward to the next workshop in a couple of
months.

[Callum]

Thanks Mike and John for your comments. It was a fun day with a good group of people and I learnt a lot from it too.

Also big thanks to Colin and Mike for their help with running the workshop.

We will be running the workshops every 2 months in the lead-up to Harcourt Park 2013. I will finalise the details of the March workshop shortly. It will build on the skills we covered yesterday as well as introduce sword and buckler.

[pmel018]

Would be interested in perspectives, both good and bad, on the Rawlings/Knightshop nylon swords. They are pretty much the standard training tool for WMA here in the UK, and while not perfect, are a great advance on the modified and reweighted shinai of 5 years ago.
Phil

P.S. have just heard there that soon nylon messers will be available along with a poleax head and late style sabre guard
See here http://www.reddragonarmoury.com/newproducts.html

[mikronn]

Hi Phil

I bought a pair and have practised with them, with wood wasters (oak) and steel.

Of the three I prefer the Rawlings wasters the least. Why?
- the bind is nothing like steel: in any kind of hard bind they bounce.
- they flex really differently to steel
- when you are trying to assess pressure in a bind they are relatively 'dead'. With steel you can assess whether to power thru an opponent, yield and go around - you know the drill

They are well balanced but I can achieve the same with wood by using lead as a pommel. I do like their pommel: they match historical shapes and feel, but as I said I make equivalents in lead and add them to wasters so no real advantage. I'd honestly rather use a wood waster - I make them for our group so cost is minimal.

cheers

mike

[pmel018]

I think you nailed the major problem with the nylon wasters...they aren't steel, and I completely agree with you on those points plus I'm not a longswordsman.
As for the wood and counterweighting, well wood is cheap and can be made safe enough but I persoanally don't like "back balanced" swords, if you have to add weight then it's best added in the area of the cross, that said YMMV

An iteresting comparison emerged a few days ago, the organisers of "Swordfish", a Swedish run event, published their damage report complete with pictures and a brief analysis of each injury. Bearing in mind this was tournament combat with feder type swords, some of the injuries were very nasty, smashed fingers, broken bones, cracked ribs etc. At Fightcamp, where only the nylon wasters are used, no injuries requiring medical attention. And yes I realise protective equipment has a big part to play, but it is posible play very hard with the nylon wasters using not much more than mask, gloves and fencing jacket

When I get some time I'll do a spread on my own kit.
Phil

[mikronn]

Thanks for the response Phil

You raise a good point on the back-weighting and yes they certainly are. Makes me wonder about cutting a small dado in the cross on each side and pouring the lead there and reducing the pommel accordingly. I can feel an experiment coming on ....

I found your injury list intriguing but would want to follow up on a couple of points.

The finger damage I understand but other broken bones and cracked ribs - do you know how these were caused?

I managed to get a compressed knuckle fracture with a rolled up paper dagger (!) during drills by taking hit in an unusual/unlucky way. I can certainly imagine a strong blow with the nylon waster to a forearm breaking a bone if you were unlucky.

Other injuries using steel that I have been part of/nearby related more to falls/takedowns than strikes

Having said that, your enviable low injury rate I would imagine also owes itself in no small part to good practice/good control

cheers

mike

[pmel018]

Hi Mike
well I learned two new things about the Knightshop nylon wasters last night.
1 - they can break, we had the tips break off two single swords last night, the actual amount was about 5 mm and the break occured right at the blade tip. Cause seemed to be small air bubbles trapped in the plastic. It should be noted that some of use were using cosmetic seconds bought at various WMA events, not sur if this is related. Neverthe less even the broken tip presented a fairly smooth, safe profile.
2 - It is possible to cut down a longsword blade to a single sword of whatever length is required. one of our club members has done so to make a blade about 60mm longed than standard. He is pretty tall.
I wouldn't have thought it would both work and fit the basket hilts that we use.
Phil

[Callum]

I am looking at scheduling the next tournament training workshop for Saturday, March 17 from 11 AM to 3 PM.

I realise that there is a lot of stuff on over the next couple of months but this is the best time in March for us to run it - if it suits most of the people who attended the last one and if it suits others who want to attend as well.

We will be building on the material covered at the January workshop and we will also add in sword and buckler. Cost is $25 with $10 from this being donated to BoN Team NZ.

Participation in at least a couple of these workshops is required if people wish to take part in the foot combat tournament at next year's Harcourt Park which is scheduled for the weekend February 16th/17th.

[Colin]

[mikronn]

Hi all

Count me in.

I can do the shillelagh but struggle with the Guinness these days.

Think we should do as did for the dagger: start with a couple of appropriate unarmed drills that would help with I.33 and then go to sword and buckler

cheers

mike

[Callum]

The next Order of the Boar workshop will be held on Saturday 19th May from 12 pm to 4 pm in Upper Hutt.

A number of people wanted to attend our earlier workshops but where unable to so this workshop will just cover the material presented at the earlier workshops to allow these people to come up to speed as well as allowing the previous attendees to consolidate and build on the skills learned.

Cost $25 per head with $10 being donated to BoN Team NZ.

[Callum]

Hi everybody,

Just to let people know that our 4th Foot Combat tournament workshop for 2012 is being held at the Upper Hutt Martial Arts Academy on Saturday July 14th from 12 PM to 4 PM.

At this workshop we will introduce the 3rd weapons option for our tournament format - the long sword.

If you haven't attended one of our earlier workshops then don't worry as each workshop revises the material from the previous workshops.

Further details of the workshop can be found on FaceBook ( https://www.facebook.com/events/173095062812192/) or on the Order of the Boar website (http://www.jousting.co.nz).

I am also about to start organising the 2013 Harcourt Park Tournament although I won't know if we will have the funding in place until later in the year. However, I'm proceeding on the assumption that everything will fall into place. We are offering 3 foot combat tournaments - dagger, sword and buckler and long sword.

Attendence at one of our training workshops is a manadatory entry requirement. However, I am aware that it is difficult for everybody to get to Upper Hutt so I am happy to run workshops in Hamilton and Auckland if there is the interest.

[JohnF]

I'll be there. With my own masks even :).

I can give rides to people in Palmy, or pickup people on my way down to the Hutt.