RAbid Hamster
25-Sep-2007, 05:15 PM
Over the weekend (sat 22nd/sun 23rd sept) the Dawn Duellist Society, the foremost and oldest (I think) WMA group in scotland, held its annual AGM activities.
Myself (both days) and Louie (sunday) were there to represent the Glasgow Company of Duellists as well as for me to defend my tourney champion status from last years AGM.
Saturday was when all the sensible classes/demonstrations were with enough kit available to equip virtually the entire class of 30 willing volunteers. Trust me thats a LOT of swords & shields - the place looked like Conan's weapons cabinet! :D
First up was sword and buckler researched from the sword treatise known as I.33 (http://freywild.ch/i33/i33en.html) by Matt and Greg. For someone like me whose sword is a weapon you can stand off and hit with from a distance (longsword), fighting with sword and buckler is like headbutting a tiger ... you REALLY put yourself in harms way to do some damage.
Next up from Greg and Katie was D'Grassi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_di_Grassi) 's early 'rapier' where Giacomo started the move towards the point only rapier from the point and edge 'sidesword'. For a man who thought that 1.5" of sword penetration was enough to disable your opponent, he seemed very keen in techniques that resulted in 3 FEET of steel being inserted in your opponent! :eek:
Finally using the simple walking stick, a class was taken by Ian to teach how to engage multiple opponents. This resulted in much falling over, quite a few bruises and a thanking to the manufacturers of our fencing masks after many many head blows :bang:
After all the serious stuff on the sat, Sunday was funday. Various martial (and silly) games had been organized including spacehopper jousting, blind fighting using a squeaky toy and a half brick in a sock ...... (ok, it was probably a tennis ball in a sock but I'm told it still hurt). One 'childish' game with toy axes had to be curtailed after a fear that the frequent high speed impacts between players were going to exceed the DDS's dental plan!.
An hour was put aside for freeplay so Louie got to fight for the first time with his longsword ... his worthy opponent .... me! :D I started out at about 75% my ability but after louie disarmed me one with an arm lock and gave me a fright with a huge left handed lunge, by the end of our second session I was up to 90% and pondering going to 100% just to keep some dignity and poise. Not too shabby for his first time.
Then it was tourney time. I was defending my crown won last year but this time it was not to be. I won both my duels but took too many hits to be at the top of the heap. That honour went to Richard with a totally clean sheet. <sigh!> Theres always next year I guess :rolleyes: as amazingly, we have been invited back!
Many thanks to DDS for having us over, to the organizers who pulled the event together and to the participants ... (even those involved in the combat basketball game!). See you guys next year ... or sooner if you come over to weegieland.
Myself (both days) and Louie (sunday) were there to represent the Glasgow Company of Duellists as well as for me to defend my tourney champion status from last years AGM.
Saturday was when all the sensible classes/demonstrations were with enough kit available to equip virtually the entire class of 30 willing volunteers. Trust me thats a LOT of swords & shields - the place looked like Conan's weapons cabinet! :D
First up was sword and buckler researched from the sword treatise known as I.33 (http://freywild.ch/i33/i33en.html) by Matt and Greg. For someone like me whose sword is a weapon you can stand off and hit with from a distance (longsword), fighting with sword and buckler is like headbutting a tiger ... you REALLY put yourself in harms way to do some damage.
Next up from Greg and Katie was D'Grassi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_di_Grassi) 's early 'rapier' where Giacomo started the move towards the point only rapier from the point and edge 'sidesword'. For a man who thought that 1.5" of sword penetration was enough to disable your opponent, he seemed very keen in techniques that resulted in 3 FEET of steel being inserted in your opponent! :eek:
Finally using the simple walking stick, a class was taken by Ian to teach how to engage multiple opponents. This resulted in much falling over, quite a few bruises and a thanking to the manufacturers of our fencing masks after many many head blows :bang:
After all the serious stuff on the sat, Sunday was funday. Various martial (and silly) games had been organized including spacehopper jousting, blind fighting using a squeaky toy and a half brick in a sock ...... (ok, it was probably a tennis ball in a sock but I'm told it still hurt). One 'childish' game with toy axes had to be curtailed after a fear that the frequent high speed impacts between players were going to exceed the DDS's dental plan!.
An hour was put aside for freeplay so Louie got to fight for the first time with his longsword ... his worthy opponent .... me! :D I started out at about 75% my ability but after louie disarmed me one with an arm lock and gave me a fright with a huge left handed lunge, by the end of our second session I was up to 90% and pondering going to 100% just to keep some dignity and poise. Not too shabby for his first time.
Then it was tourney time. I was defending my crown won last year but this time it was not to be. I won both my duels but took too many hits to be at the top of the heap. That honour went to Richard with a totally clean sheet. <sigh!> Theres always next year I guess :rolleyes: as amazingly, we have been invited back!
Many thanks to DDS for having us over, to the organizers who pulled the event together and to the participants ... (even those involved in the combat basketball game!). See you guys next year ... or sooner if you come over to weegieland.