Celtic Exchange - The Aftermath.

Well where do I begin. It was AWESOME!!!.
Saturday
We started the event with a backsword introduction from Maestro Paul MacDonald. It was a fantastic seminar. Everyone who took that seminar was thrilled. Paul explained the basic movements and principles clearly and pretty soon everyone was training away.

Next was the first freeplay session of the weekend. Lots of good information and my boys got their first chance to test themselves against those outside the duellists. I have to admit I had alot of pride after seeing my boys go out there are fight very well against all challengers. I got to have a freeplay with a young chap called Keith Farrell who is a member of the sword of Dalriada and the Chivalric Dreams Society. A canny instinctual fighter with lightning quick reflexes. With a bit of German Longsword or I.33 training he would be very good indeed. I finally met Kim Young from the Aberdeen Sword Group for freeplay and there is a lady you need to be careful approaching. She had a bone crunching under cut that is lightning quick and very hard to avoid. All I can say is thank goodness for constant practice of my footwork or I would have been out classed.

The second seminar was on Fiore dagger disarms by Kim Young of Aberdeen Sword Group. Another well thought out and delivered seminar. To be honest it's what you come to expect from the ASG. The techniques are all very good and correspond closely to techniques I have studied in Aikido and Tai Chi. A few modifications these would be a useful asset in any martial artists arsenal.

Later on was a second 2 hour freeplay. This time I got to have some fun with my instructor the Rabid Hamster's sparring partner Martin Page from the Dawn Duellist Society. It was as usual throughly enjoyable though very hot session. If you have to test yourself you want it against possibly one of the best Longsworders on this island. Alot of fun was had. Oh and apologies to me training partner Ian. I was a little rough on the lad but he took it well and only tried to kill me once.

Evening:
Well Drunken Bear stories, talk of swords, Warhammer 40k, Making Watership down into a computer game (seriously WTF), many many toasts, being so impressed by young Rostig that he managed to tell a Jagermeister/Aftershock mix even down to the colour of the aftershock. Scary Lad. Then home and hanging on to bed while the world spun around me. I think they call it carousing.

Later I will review Day 2 to and the greatest sword tourney I have ever witnessed.

The Bear.

 

It's great when everything falls into place and everyone has a good time. The Celtic Lands are obviously where it's happening

 

Sounds superbly excellent you make me wish I could have witnessed it.

 

On behalf of the Makotokai. Thanks for the invite,friendship and exchange of information.





koyo

 

Sunday:
Sunday started with the kind of hangover spoken of in legends. However, a good breakfast, 600mg Ibuprofen and some tiger balm later, I arrived only 15 minutes late .

The first seminar was on principles of fencing by Ian Macintyre of the Dawn Duellists society. Unfortunately I only caught the start of this where Ian said possibly the dumbest thing "eastern martial arts don't use the concept of measure,timing and rythmn". This was in front of the Koyo and the Makotokai. Who politely trained and then told him off for being an idiot. QUITE RIGHTLY SO. I had to organise the tourney so I was knee deep in scheduling bouts so didn't get to see the seminar and judge it. If anyone else has a review, feel free to add it into the thread.

Next up was my seminar on our research results of the last year. I won't review my own seminar but it seemed to go down reasonably well with the assistance of Mr. Blood. It was worth it to watch koyo doing Zwertchau with a steel longsword. I was glad to see all the GCoD boys pitching in and training with those who hadn't trained in German Longsword and Hazel from Makotokai so impressed Martin Page, I think he may have considered kidnapping her and taking her back to Edinburgh for a DDS member.

After Lunch was the tourney.
The rules were, 2 minutes continuous fighting with any steel sword, sword shield or sword dagger combination. The reality was we had longswords, backswords, rapiers, a broadsword and shield and a arming sword and heater taking part. Each fighter had two qualifying rounds which the four highest scoring fighters went into a semi-final.
Scoring was for unreturned hits only. 1pt for arm, 2 for body, 3 for head, 5 for disarm/takedown. -2 for hit to the back, -5 for injuring your opponent. I was the referee to ensure safety and the judges were Tedi-Kuma (my brother) and Phil Crawley of the Dawn Duellist Society. It was mayhem, I have seen a good many tournaments but this was amazing entertainment. Some of the fights were so intense they looked almost like real combat.
At the end of the qualifying rounds we had:
Martin Page (Dawn Duellist Society) - German Longsword
William Aldridge (Glasgow Company of Duellists) - German Longsword
Keith Farrell (Chivalric Dreams Society) - Arming Sword, Heater Shield
Peter Karis (MacDonald Academy) - Backsword

Martin and Keith were knocked out at this stage.
with the final between William and Peter.
To understand the picture of this final. Will is not much over 5 feet tall and very slim. Peter is a good bit over 6 feet and looks like he just steped out of a viking saga. The fight was everything a final should be and at the end Peter overwhelmed William with two very good take downs, though William managed a take down himself to riotous applause.

So the Tourney champion of 2009 was Peter Karis of the MacDonald Academy. To be honest it was well deserved. There were so many good fights it's hard to pick my favourites but the Martin Page, Peter Karis and the William Aldridge, Barry Young will stay in my memory for some time.

We closed the event with a demonstration by the Koyo and the Makotokai, Myself and Tedi-Kuma. Koyo demonstrated kamae in Aikiken and I demonstrated that these were not japanese but infact german and had been stolen and taken to Japan. We showed that many many principles were used in both arts and took questions from the floor. At the end of the demo Kim approached and claimed that none of the principles in fact german or japanese but they were all Italian principles. Thus Koyo made an interesting observation the only difference between what I train and what he trains is that I wear a t-shirt and jogging bottoms and he wears a gi and hakama.

And so with that we ended the Celtic Exchange 2009. Eastern Martial Artists, Western Martial Artist all training together. Hopefully a sign of the future where there is no politics or personalities just good hard training.

The Bear.

 

Myself and the makotokai found the seminar to most informative and proof that hard spirited training can accompany mutual respect and exchange.

Regarding the comment about eastern swordsmanship having no use of timing distancing rythm etc...I found that to be strange coming from a swordsman since the PRINCIPLES are universal.I do not think that we called him an idiot. Ettiquette when visiting anothet club would forbid that. However I did say he was completely wrong in his assessment of japanese swordsmanship and I would address that at the demo. sadly he chose to leave just moments before. Perhaps next time.

Since it was the makotokai's introduction to western sword I was pleased to see how quickly they adapted to it. PROBABLY BECAUSE MOST OF THE PRINCIPLES WERE STOLEN FROM JAPANESE SWORDSMANSHIP.:evil:
The only aplause we got was for a head head butt from gerry (who else) and a knee in the groin from Hazel.

I would like to thank Paul for his patience and instruction.
Best wishes for your next seminar.

koyo

 

Yes, it's an environment where demonstrations of fighting spirit are applauded as much as good technique.

The Bear.

 

Have to agree. By the way hazel is now known as flail smasher.


koyo

 

Ha ha ha ha, yeah forgot about that.

Poor Ian, he really loved that flail as well.

The Bear.

 

A lesson on getting off line. never expect the weapon alone to defend you.Do not underestimate the power in a cut.

My own difficulty was in learning to use the backblade?? rather than "folding the sword."

And while adopting jodan kamae there was a danger of impaling ourselves with the crossguard.

Found the longsword easier to manipulate than I imagined.

As expected FAR more in common than any differences.

All in all a great day.Glad it was so successful.Chris would be kicking himself..if only his bionic leg was up to it.BUT he shall return.

koyo

 

Sounds like it was an awesome time. I mean, what more could one want? There was training, debauchery and violence... pretty much sounds like Heaven to me.

Best regards,

-Mark

 

Sounds like Glasgow to me.
Yep it was a great time.

koyo

 

Congratulation bear and GCoD of a successfull event. Sounds like it was a great event.

 

Finally managed to get here!

A belated thank you on behalf of ASG, to Bear and all at GCoD for an absolutely superb weekend! I don't think I've ever learned so much at a single event! Will definitely try to get down to train with you guys again soon!

 

Thanks Kim.
Glad you guys enjoyed it. Yeah looking forward to more meetups. I think you might get the GCoD venturing north one weekend also. Of course that assumes Aberdeen stocks Jaegermeisters.

The Bear.

 

It certainly does. You can even get decent beer if you want it. ;-)

I'll throw in the cooked breakfast too!

 

Oh you silvered tongued one. Marco and I will talk to the boys next week and see who are interested in a drive up at the end of summer.

The Bear.

 

Brilliant, I would definitely enjoy the chance to practise (okay, freeplay) with you guys more.

Really enjoyed the event, particularly the Tourney (2 variants on sword & shield) and a sneaky bit of longsword freeplay with Donald (?) during a break before the semis kicked off. I wish I could have been there for the Saturday and the Koyo demonstration at the end, but family meant I had to be back in Abz.

Congrats on a great event.

Alistair (ASG)

PS. I've been trying to fing the mythical 'eastern vs western sword' thread since I found this forum yesterday with about as much luck as a brick flying. Any chance someone could post a link? Ta lots.

 

I have opened the thread for you. If it is closed before you see it. Click search above and type in western eastern sword. The thread is on second page.

regards koyo

 

Hi Al,
Good to have you on. Yeah more freeplay will be really good.

Koyo has put it as the top of the weapons sub-forum Al.

The Bear.