Armored Combat

Who knew Rosin and I are the same height?

Actually, she looks a little taller.

Thanks for the pics Ursus!

Girard joined the household at Tournament of Chivalry in the spring of 2008, after discussing and training with Corby since Pennsic 2007. He resides in Windmaster's Hill and fights sword and shield and polearm primarily.

To calm Isabel and hopefully not annoy Thjora, I thought I'd mention that my Pennsic prep has gone pretty smoothly. Last night I painted the gold onto the Best Shield in the World, and also finished covering the cute little heavy T6 shield blank Alan gave me. (Don't be too shocked: First, it is the heaviest piece of T6 I've ever seen, and second, it is probably just going to be a loaner.) Philip was over this weekend and used his amazing helicopter repair skills to properly re-fiberglas the Best Shield. Here's a pic of it after repair and before recovering.

This shield is two years old. I'd thought it was three. But in any case, it has proven to be remarkably durable. Yes, I wish its shape was slightly different, and I wish it was slightly smaller. Those are my errors, not Reynard's! He does amazing work, and I hope I'll always be fighting with one of his shields. Rigid shields have spoiled me. When I had to use my old aluminum one this past spring, I hated it. So wobbly when it gets hit.

Tonight, hopefully Lewis is coming over to help with reapplication of the crows, and I'll get the green chief painted.

Perhaps we'll debate what to paint on the new little T6er too. Otherwise, things remaining undone that must be done before we leave:

1. Tie new loops for the tent. No biggie.
2. Paint war standard poles. An hour or so.
3. Old Camail attached to Phrygian Helm. Could wait 'til the war.
4. Reattach camail to demi-helm. Ditto.
5. Print out SCA biz cards for Thjora and me. Done shortly. Yay for a slack job.
6. Shopping, because Thjora has enough to do.
7. Put some plants in the ground.
8. Air in the cart tires.
9. Pack

It Will Be Done.

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

Todd Last/Uneg from somewhere up north was kind enough to capture all the Pennsic official battlefield schedule info onto Google Calendar.

This also makes it available to iCal. So you can add it to your iPhone or whatever.

He graciously gave me permission to post the links:

iCal import (opens in iCal if you have it, may work with other vCal compliant apps.)

HTML (For just looking, or adding to your Google Calendar)

XML (For the uber-geeks, or as an RSS feed.)

If you're subscribed to the household's SCA calendar then all this info is already added.

Please don't blame me that there is no rapier info listed.

As much as I love Passages at Arms, my back does not love the idea of my fighting this weekend.

I tried some fighting tonight at practice, and while I could do it, it was clear I should not do it. Not to mention that both Philip and Aethelwolf were kicking my butt, so clearly a functioning back is necessary for good fighting. Duh.

So, instead, I'll take it easy, do some gardening, maybe go to some crazy 50's band thing Saturday night, and generally save gas and have fun. Also, ice on my sacro-iliac.

This guy is lucky he picked the Church of Jedi to pick on.

Imagine if he had rushed into an SCA armored combat practice, shouting "DRAGON!!!!"

The video link in the story is currently broken, as the guy would have been after taking a swing.

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

Check the rest out here.

Ursus has updated his site with pictures from Tournament of Chivalry (not ToC, as Mistress Theo will tell you).

Anyway, they are located here.

YIS,
Girard