Winter's Pass

You know, this is one of those days where I wish I didn't feel a good event for a few days afterwards. But, on the plus side, Harvest Court this last weekend was a good event. And in spite of the fact that there wasn't any fencing on the schedule, it didn't stop a half-dozen of us from suiting up for some pick-up fun. And it gave me an opportunity to do some recruiting. About a year ago, I wrote the post Life, the Universe and Everything. In it, I wrote about the need for a fencing guild to help promote fencing in Artemisia. Well, after about a year of hemming and hawing, I finally decided that I should get the ball rolling. So this past weekend, I recruited the first members into Winter's Pass, a guild for fencers in Northern Artemisia.

Notice how I said a guild, not the guild. Trying to start an official, definitive guild for fencers is way more work than I want to try and do right now.

And, of course, I got some questions about the guild, which is good. I don't think that people should just jump into something blindly. One question was why just Northern Artemisia? Part of that is the sheer size of Artemisia. It would be impossible for me to effectively run a guild that spans the entire kingdom. But that is only part of the reason. Southern Artemisia has enough White Scarves that it is easy for fencers there to learn what to do and what not to do to achieve their goals, whether they seek the White Scarf or a Laurel or just camaraderie. Northern Artemisia does not have this abundance.

Another question was why am I using a point system (x points for taking part in tournaments or melees) for the rankings in the guild? And again, this was chosen for a couple of reasons. The first is to avoid the appearance of favoritism in the ranking system. The second reason is to promote travel for the members. If a member wants to be promoted quickly, they need to go to more events, and since they are given extra points for going to events on the royal progress, it encourages them to go to events where they will be noticed.

But to me, the most surprising question was why a scarf instead of a tabard? I can understand the appeal of a tabard: it shows a person is part of something bigger than just themselves. But the way I see it is that tabards are a way of promoting the group while hiding the individual. In some instances, this is what you want. The Brotherhood comes to mind. There's nothing more intimidating than facing a line of fighters all dressed the same way on the battlefield. But the Brotherhood also has something we don't: shields. It's easy for an armored fighter to identify themselves by painting their device on their shield. Fencers, for the most part, don't go into battle with their device displayed prominently on their buckler. So they are usually recognized by their garb. And since my goal is to promote the fencers of Northern Artemisia, covering up their garb would be counter-productive. I want the members of Winter's Pass to be seen as themselves first, and only secondarily as guild members, rather than as "that Winter's Pass guy... what's his name?"

Which, of course, leads to the question nobody thought to ask: if I want people recognized for themselves, why do a guild at all? I'm trying to set up a support structure for fencers in Northern Artemisia to help them avoid the mistakes I've made over the years.

Fencing Laurel?

I was asked about how fencing fits as a "Laurel-able" skill set by a good lady in the West with far more awards than I will ever have. This is one of those wonderfully annoying questions that really makes you think. My first thought was that it doesn't really matter how I think fencing fits into the purview of the Order of the Laurel, what matters is how Laurel's think it does. But it didn't take much consideration to realize that if I can't explain how fencing fits into the Arts and Sciences, then I can't expect a Laurel to take it that way.

She pointed out that the Laurel is for the arts, which are creative, while fencing is martial and therefore destructive. My counter to this is that the making of siege weapons and swords are also martial in nature and yet they fall under the purview of the Laurel.

She was nice enough to offer me the out of comparing fencing to dance, which is valid. Both fencing and dance are, at their essence, the combination of movements to create something. Although she did question whether fencing can make the leap from something that is simply done properly to something that contains the beauty which is expected from art. That last part is actually misleading. After all, as the old saying goes, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Personally, I don't find Byzantine mosaics particularly attractive, but I can see the skill and the craftsmanship necessary to create such works of art. Likewise, a well done pass is the style of Thibault may not appeal to everyone, the correctness of the movements will be obvious. I think anyone who has ever watched a pass between two experienced fencers can attest to the dance-like quality that such a fight can take.

But, like dance, that's assuming that the fencer in question uses period techniques. Which is where my own style hits a snag or two. I don't fight in the style of Thibault, or DiGrassi or Agrippa or any single master. But I have studied Thibault, DiGrassi, Agrippa, Talhoffer, and Silver among others whose names either escape me or were never known. And I have mixed and matched from them to come up with what works for me. In period, this was called the Vulgar style, but it does lead to the problem that it makes it more difficult for those watching to say yes, that's period.

I think the biggest argument for the validity of a Laurel in fencing is that it was considered an art form in period times. The Hanko Döbringer fechtbuch from 1389 begins, "Here begins Master Liechtenauer’s art of fencing with the sword, on foot and on horseback, in armour and without." Likewise, there is Fillipo Vadi's Book on the Art of Fighting With Swords from 1487 and of course DiGrassi's True Arte of Defense.

So while it is easy to argue for fencing to fall under the purview of the Laurel, it still leaves the question of whether I have what it takes to become a Laurel on this road.

Blade Length

I think I raised a few eyebrows over on Artemisia Militaris by asking about the minimum length for rapiers in Artemisia. After clarifying that I was looking for the shortest blade I could use, not the longest, I got my answer, along with the comment that Thibault recommends a sword's quillons be at the level of your navel. Now, I'm not exactly a short person. Going by Thibault, that would mean about a 42" blade. That's a long sword.

The thing is, I'm not a big fan of long blades. They tend to be slower and whippier than their shorter cousins. I prefer blades more along the lines of Silver's perfect length. His view was:

To know the perfect length of your sword, you shall stand with your sword and dagger drawn, as you see this picture, keeping out straight your dagger arm, drawing back your sword as far as conveniently you can, not opening the elbow joint of your sword arm, and look what you can draw within your dagger, that is the just length of your sword, to be made according to your own stature.

Going by this, the perfect length for my sword should be about 38". Which, considering all of my current swords are between 36" and 40", puts me right in the ballpark for what Silver considered proper.

But that doesn't answer the question of why I want a sword shorter than period masters recommended. While existing examples of period rapiers can blades from 32" to 50" in length, we have to remember that even if we call ourselves rapier fighters, rapiers weren't the only swords in use at the time. This past winter, I talked about Grosses Messers, Kreigmessers, and Swiss Sabers in The History of The Hockey Stick from Heck, but those aren't the only examples. There was the Dussack, which sported a blade between 25" and 38" or the Cutlass with a blade that averaged about 24" and Henry VIII had a hunting sword with a blade just under 26". Now while hunting swords were never intendend for combat, it wasn't uncommon to find either the Dussack or the Cutlass being used on the battlefield.

You see, that's the thing. My persona wasn't built around the idea of being a courtier, my persona is that of a soldier. Mounted infantry, to be precise. What, in 30 years, would be commonly known as a Dragoon, in fact. And I'm trying to style my blades around what my persona would have carried. I have my Swiss Saber, which my persona would have used from horseback, but my persona would have also carried a shorter Dussack or Cutlass for when the fighting got hot and heavy on foot.

That, and there's a little thing about a challenge I received at my first event after getting out of the Army. We were sitting around the encampment, talking about what our goals were in the SCA. So I mentioned that I wanted to be a T.A.N.K. (for those of you from out of kingdom, that stands for Totally Agressive, Nasty Killer). While this award has only been given to armored fighters so far, there's nothing in the requirements that say you have to be an armored fighter to get it. One of the guys I was talking to was a T.A.N.K., and he looked me up and down and said that if I went out with a 28" blade and buckler and started mopping the floor with everyone, he'd see what he could do about it.

Will I mop the floor with everyone? I don't know, but it's sure worth a try.

Right of way

There has been some discussion on Artemisia Millitaris about the idea of right of way and whether or not it plays a role in rapier fighting. Right of way is a common principle in modern fencing that says that if two people attack at about the same time, whoever started their attack first is given the touch unless their blade has been parried sufficiently to bring their point off-target. Fighting in the SCA does not use this principle. If two combatants throw their attacks at about the same time and both attacks land, both hits are good. Sometimes this means trading an arm for a kill and sometimes it means both fighters are dead.

Now while right of way isn't a rule in the SCA, the question remains of whether practicing right of way is a good idea? Short answer: yes. Long answer: usually. The way I see it, the goal of tournament fighting is to not lose. Okay, so how do you not lose? Don't get killed. Which means when they attack, you should parry. Then you can kill them. It ties straight back into those old drills: attack, parry, repost, parry, repost... and so on and so on. Yes, there are times when there's nothing more effective than a stop-thrust, but the stop-thrust should be just one part of your bag of tricks, not your main move.

Unfortunately, for many of us, our instinctual reaction to our opponent starting to move is to attack. Which leads to double-kills and train wrecks. How often have you heard someone say, "I was throwing my shot when you landed" to explain away a hard hit?

Another common problem is people trying to parry and attack at the same time. The problem with this is that it is very difficult to do both well at the same time. Think about it: when you parry, you are primarily moving your blade either left, right, up or down and when you are attacking, you are primarily moving your blade forward. Which means that when you parry, you are changing the distance, angle of attack and point of impact for you opponent. And if you're attacking while parrying, all those things are changing while you're throwing your shot. It's far easier to wait until your parry is finished and those variables have stopped changing before you throw your shot.

So do I think right of way should be part of the SCA's combat rules? No. After all, if two people were to attack at the same time in a real sword fight, odds are that they'd both be dead. Do I think we should practice right of way? Yes. Because it's hard to not lose if the other guy keeps stabbing you when you stab them.

Giving your all

My knight yelled at me at this last fighter's practice. I was fighting this one gentleman I hadn't fought in years. And while he's a nice enough fellow, he comes across as a bit arrogant and I was having fun tearing him to pieces. Afterwards, my knight came up and asked me what I was doing. I think I said something about winning. You'd think my knight would have been happy, right? Wrong.

Oh, he wasn't upset that I was winning. He was upset because I was letting my opponent control the fight. I'd been reacting to my opponent, rather than forcing him to react to me. And what was worse was that I was using the same style as my opponent. I did manage - in my own defense - to come up with two passes where I'd taken control. Two passes in a half hour of fighting.

According to my knight, I was resting on my Laurels. Especially when he compared it to my sparring against one of the more experienced fencers present. While I didn't have quite the kill ratio in that set of passes, I spent the time maneuvering my opponent to where I wanted him to be: forcing openings, baiting attacks, and just being a pain in the posterior in general.

Looking back, I can see what my knight was getting at. I'm lazy. So I tend to put forward the bare minimum to achieve my goals. What I need to start working on is giving everyone the same fight, from the newest fighter to the best. If I can do that, well it might suck for the new fencer, but it might just give me that extra edge against to more experienced ones.