Event Reports

Who knew Rosin and I are the same height?

Actually, she looks a little taller.

Thanks for the pics Ursus!

Several pages of Pennsic pics for your enjoyment. And awe.

This was a great exchange between Baron Ansel and me in the melees after the tourneys. I'm so glad Ursus caught some of it. Many other great pictures there too.

It was hot at Novice, but fun, even with the nosy wandering around of unsupervised children. Discussion of this after the fact had me coming up with the idea of temporary tattoos featuring a cartoon kid taking a lollipop from a cartoon vulture in a trench coat, with the text "I WAS LEFT UNSUPERVISED BY MY PARENTS" inscribed around it in flowery script. Those would be fun to hand out to kids. Deserving ones.

Congrats to Ru and Amos, winners of the Novice and Unbelted tournaments. And nice job Theron, who ran the tournaments quickly and on time. All marshals should aspire to such.

Also, it proved to be a warning about my conditioning and upcoming Pennsic. My back has kept me from much of the conditioning I intended to do this summer, and now I have two weeks to catch up since my back is better now. With such a fight-packed War planned, I need to improve my stamina! Must get to the gym, must aerobicize.

Right now though, I must burritocize.

Technorati Tags: Heavy Fighting, Heavy Weapons, SCA

We had an awesome, fun weekend getting many new war standards and poles underway. We got much much more than I expected done. Roland, Alan, Corby, Aedan, and I forget who else got well underway on standards and Helmut and Kymber made some smaller gonfalons or whatever they're called.
Seems reasonable to believe that we'll have seven or more 12x4 foot war standards 28 feet above the Vair and Ermine camp this year. It should look spectacular. And cast some shade!
We also consumed vast quantities, I finished Helmut's half gauntlet, repaired some of my gear, planted the huge weglia and some lemon balm Theo brought down for me and generally had a great time.
Thanks to all the helpers and guests who made the weekend fun and easy.
Oh, and on the web album I've put up, I'm experimentally enabling picture uploading if you have any pics from this weekend you want to add.

Edwin, Orlando, Adam and Gianetta were all at practice! Many more pictures at this link.

Axel cuts quite a figure, doesn't he?

Lewis and Eleanor took a bunch of great pics at Tournament of Chivalry.

Check the rest out here.

A lovely weekend trip to Tournament of Chivalry. After much tooth gnashing last week, the number of knights in attendance proved to be more than adequate.

Friday night Roland was gracious enough to help me finish off Girard's squire belt, whose buckle end I was perhaps a bit overambitious in designing. But it came out fine, with help of several of Roland's fancy hammers.

Girard didn't have any last minute change of heart, so just before the fighting began he gave his fealty to me as my squire. Welcome to him and his lady! And special thanks to Evja, who came just for the ceremony on what turned out to be the last weekend before her husband Tom ships out to Iraq for another six months.

Girard's Pics here.
And my few pics here.

Thoughts on the tourney

If I recall from Genvieve, the Mistress of the Lists correctly, there were 86 fighters in the list. About 15 knights. My impression of the unbelts as a whole is that the top end was relatively well represented, the bottom end was there in force, and the mid range was oddly absent. Clearly, gas prices affected attendance, as the number of people who had traveled from below the Virginia state line could be counted on one hand.

Allowing the unbelts to choose between tourney fights, sparring passes and instructional time made for a more collegial atmosphere between the participants. I am undecided about whether this was a good thing. Certainly this was a less intense Tournament of Chivalry than any previous.
The "three passes" option also slowed down the line of those waiting to fight.

Great weapon skill is very lacking among our unbelted fighters.

Several people told me there were some good pics of me taken. I can't wait.

Later
After the tourney we had a lovely party at Jen & Alan's, which thankfully I didn't have to cook for.
Countess Alexis made a surprise appearance, everyone had a good time, and I decided I needed a nap around 9:30. That turned in to a solid twelve hours of sleep.

Then a yucky drive home in the rain, and an afternoon of enforced laziness on the sofa, since all our projects are outdoor ones just now.

Much to my surprise, I'm not particularly sore today, and I only have one bruise: perfectly off target on the inside of my right wrist.

Fourth Sunday came off nicely, with 20 or so people at the house. Though there was some confusion about who was going to cook, it all worked out. Thanks to Kailo for stepping in and managing the beef cooking.

And there was fighting.


Sean and Philip in the back yard. Also Aethelwolf and Philip fighting at this link.

Dwarf came down with Sean, and as you can see from the pictures, Jonathan from UVa also armored up. As you can't see from the pictures, I also got in gear. Hooray for not having any trouble with my ankle.

At the end of the day, since we had a lefty at practice, Philip, Sean and I worked on understanding and defeating the Oscar the Grouch offhand fighter defense. Too bad there are no pictures of that!

Those of you appearing in these pictures--I don't plan to leave these up forever, so if you want them, download them and save them yourself.