Good Enough

There are, among the rapier community, several makers of beautiful RBGs. Guns with hammer-scrolled actions, guns with wonderfully engineered actions, I, myself, own a bronze-barreled RBG that easily turns heads. But for the most part, these are not the guns you see on the battlefield. What you see, for the most part, are Lutwiks. For those who don't recognize the name, the Lutwiks are the all-wood RBGs made and sold by, well, Lutwik. And even though they are patterned after historical firearms, they follow the 10-foot rule: i.e. they look relatively period from 10 feet away. And they sell for probably a quarter of what you'd pay for a good RBG.

Basically, they're the Kalashnikov of the RBG word: cheap, durable and reliable.

Now, he'll never get a Laurel for his RBGs. As I've said, they're not works of art. But that wasn't his goal when he designed them. He designed them to be good enough, and that's what they are: good enough. That may not sound like praise, but it is. In real combat, perfection is the enemy. I know that doesn't make sense at first glance but it's the truth. An example is the M16. The M16 is a beautiful piece of engineering, but its made too well. In the hands of an expert marksman, it can put bullet after bullet in the same hole, but if you don't relgiously maintain it, it will jam. Now, compare that to the Kalashnikov. The Kalashnikov isn't the nail-driver the M16 is, but it will consistantly hit a man-sized target, even if its coated in mud.

It holds true for tactics, too. Combat is too chaotic to predict every variable and if you can't predict all of the variables, it's impossible to design the perfect plan. That's why commanders set up their formations with a little built-in flexibility. As the saying goes, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

It even applies to your individual fencing style. As another old say goes: if it's stupid and works, it's not stupid. Now, yes, we should all be able to do a textbook-perfect passata sotto, but duck-and-thrust can work too. As I see it, the important part of learning fencing isn't neccessarily learning how to do a particular move, but to figure out how to achieve the same end result in a way that works for you. Of course, to learn how to get the same result, you still have to learn the original move, so you wind up working harder to get the same result. but let me tell you: there's no better way to learn something than to try and figure out how and why it works. And, by taking apart the movements, you add to your own bag of tricks (even if those tricks are only good enough).

So my advice is this: don't seek perfection, good enough will get the job done. After all, good enough to be a White Scarf is, well, good enough to be a White Scarf.

The Mystic Circle

Many of us old dinosaurs were taught that if your thighs don't burn, you're not crouching low enough. And for me, at least, having a lower stance does make it easier to achieve that ever-elusive flow we all strive to achieve. There is a drawback to a lower stance, at least for someone trying to achieve the apparent effortlessness of a courtier. And that drawback is that the idle observer can see when you're seriously fencing.

And then there's the Spanish or Mystic Circle. You stand upright and, taking short steps, dance and piroette through the fight. There is no apparent effort: you just fence. this was made apparent at Silverkeep's Birthday Bash this last weekend. The tournament was an Iron Cross that was supposed to last thirty minutes, but was probably closer to forty-five and there were four of us entered in it. Three of us were using the low stance common to fencers and then there was Albion and his Mystic Circle. Because of how few fencers there were, we were all pretty winded by the end of the tournament - I'd even worked up a sweat in spite of the sub-freezing weather - but not Albion. He was as fresh as could be, even after fencing well enough to earn second place in the tournament.

The Mystic Circle does require work to use it successfully, but if you have the time and the drive to learn it, there aren't many more effortless appearing styles of fence.

Whatever happened to?

I remember when I was first starting out fencing, there was a big push to get as many authorized marshals as possible. It went as far as to stress the point that you didn't have to be authorized to fight to be authorized as a marshal. Even still, the majority of marshals were fighters. Whenever we'd get a new fencer, they'd get trained in the basics of marshalling right along with their footwork and blade drills. They might not get authorized as marshals in the end, but more often than not, that was simply because they never got signed off on it, not because of any lack of skills. They could, at the very least, serve as field marshals and quite a few were good enough that they could do weapon and equipment inspections without any doubt about whether the people they inspected were legal or not.

But nowadays, as I look around Northern Artemisia, I don't see that any more. It seems to me that the only people getting regularly trained as marshals are those fencers lucky enough to volunteer to serve as their group's Rapier Marshal. Now, personally, I think that's backwards. I think a person should be authorized as a marshal before taking up the duties of a group's marshal. But that's besides the point.

Over the summer, I tought a few classes on marshalling and they seemed to be well-received, but I noticed a few areas where previous instruction had been lacking. The biggest one was probably in armor requirements (especially coverage for the back of the head). This is something that every fencer should know. After all, if you don't know the requirements, you can't be sure you're gear will pass and you can play. And saying, "Well, so-and-so said it's okay" just doesn't cut it. You have to be able to say, "Well, the rules say...." Now I will admit that you do occasionally run into a marshal who is a bit... shall we say overly enthusiastic when it comes to the rules, but that is rare (I've had legal gear bounced twice, I think, in the 15+ years I've been playing). And if you do run into such an individual, smile and nod and make the necessary adjustments in your kit and then go home and double-check the regs, because they may have been right.

But back on the subject at hand, we need to train up as many fencers as possible to be marshals, for a couple reasons. The first is that group marshals do, occasionally, get burnt out and need to step down. But without trained marshals to take their place, it seriously limits the possibility of finding a replacement. Another reason is that it allows fencers to take a more active part in their local groups. It allows them (under the guidance of their local warranted marshal) to run the fencing at events, or - at the very least - help whoever is running it by serving as field marshals. In short, it allows us fencers to help spread the load so that we all have a better experience fencing in the SCA.

So how do we get more people learning how to marshal? Well, we need the marshals we have to teach more. Maybe set aside part of your fighter's practices to cover marshaling. Now, the current rules do require that these classes need to have a warranted marshal sign off on them, but there's nothing saying he (or she) couldn't get someone else to teach the class under their supervision.

It can't all be on the marshals, though. All of us fencers need to search out our marshals and say, "teach me, please." And we all need to make it a point to learn the rules, whether we want to be marshals or not.

Feelin' Good

Duke Alan put a challenge out on the Aerie for everyone to try and improve one part of their kit before Uprising. Actually, he put out the challenge to everyone by one group: the rapier community. He told us to keep doing what we've been doing.

Way to go!

This shows that we have developed a reputation for having a consistent period appearance that goes above and beyond the norm. That, my friends is no small feat. Of course, it also shows the deviousness of Duke Alan. It means we have to keep up with our reputation. We have to stay above the curve, no matter which way that curve shifts. If the kingdom begins to drift away from a period appearance, we get to rest on our laurels a bit, but if a majority of people meet the good duke's challenge, then we have to work that much harder to keep our reputation untarnished.

In short, we're doing a great job with our appearance, so let's keep working at it so we don't lose our reputation as the best looking group in Artemisia.