life, the universe, and donna

So, for those of you playing at home, Nick is involved in a variety of medieval re-enactment fighting methods, or more accurately, western martial arts (as opposed to what most people consider martial arts, those being the eastern variety.)

These days, he does mostly heavy fighting, with a bit of rapier. He used to do olympic fencing, and tried out cut & thrust this weekend as well. It’s been commented that if it can do damage, Nick can probably pick it up and do some damage with it. I’m still waiting for him to challenge someone with a turkey leg.

We’ll be just fine when the zombies come.

Heavy fighting is armored combat with weapons made from rattan, with a variety of rulesets. The main “ruleset” is SCA (society for creative anachronism) fighting… but there’s a second, albeit less popular style called EMP (empire of medieval pursuits) that he’s done a bit of. For the most part, it’s just a different scoring system… but also allows a bit more contact — namely, grappling, kicking, punching, etc. In regular SCA fighting, that’s not allowed.

Anyway, on Friday there was a tournament that was a mix of SCA & EMP fights, alternating between the two. Nick (aka, Duncan) and Richard (aka, Magnus) both armored up and headed out to the field. I got my comfy chair, my basket of Things I Need, my camera, and a lot of bottled water and headed out to setup my spot; I take my role of field support rather seriously. My basket contains a variety of necessary items — some basic first aid items, tape, a pen, a knife, a cloth that can be wet down for both cleaning & cooling purposes, duct tape, etc etc. Hey, if he’s gonna fight for me, I may as well make it worth it, right? I’d like him to wear my favor for more than because I got a purty mouth.

Overall, our boys did fanTASTIC. Richard placed second, Nick placed third, and the guy who came in first was Duke Gaston, a three-times former king (a title won through a combat tournament, making him one of the better fighters in the world) from Florida. Not bad for a couple of untitled local boys, eh? Richard did amazingly well, remaining undefeated longer than anybody else on the field. For his trouble, he was given an excellent prize: A rope bed. Given how bloody uncomfortable air mattresses can be — especially when they deflate 4 nights in a row *sob* — I am extremely jealous of him & his lady. A ROPE BED.

I get ahead of myself.

Anyway, the tournament was awesome. While Nick & Richard have both fought EMP a few times before, it was at an event I haven’t been able to make it to. I’ve seen videos, but there’s nothing like watching it in person.

I have several observations:

First, Richard: Richard just looks good. It doesn’t hurt that he’s got a fantastic looking armor kit with flashy gold lamellar and a long horsetail coming out of his helm, but his fighting style was made for this. Being 6’5″ and 290lbs with armor on, with a rather forbidding presence to boot doesn’t hurt either. (You may recognize him as one of the scary looking bouncers at Sin City. It’s, uh, sort of difficult to reconcile this big scary guy with the goofball singing made up songs in the back seat of my car, though.) Honestly, this may be because I’m a weeny wee girl who’d probably be defeated by a paper bag, but if he were stalking ME down across the tournament field, I’d turn & run as fast as I could.

Second, Nick: Nick doesn’t have quite the same “scary” presence. Don’t get me wrong, the boy looks damn good and his armor kit is great, but he’s definitely got more of a “dirty fighter” look to him. It works — where Richard is a very pretty fighter, with a very pretty fighting style, Nick is a brawler. Being a bit smaller than most fighters, he’s got what I refer to as “Little Dog Syndrome”, when a little wee dog has to prove that he’s one of the big dogs and gets way more in your face than a bigger dog would. That’s Nick. There’s no slow, lazy, “Come to me” fighting… he’ll get his head down, shield up, rush in and pound the hell out of whoever is in his way. He might not be able to use size to his advantage, he can certainly use his speed and sheer ferocity. It works — he’s been told on several occasions that they underestimated him, and how the hell does he hit that hard anyway?

This is demonstrated pretty well in the following videos.

First, we have Richard. The talk of Clinton, Richard decided he was going to kick someone long before he was matched up with his opponents. And so he did. Twice. It was pretty awesome. I can’t count how many times over the next few days I walked past total strangers and overheard “Did you see Magnus kick that guy? That was awesome!” Nice job, Magnus.

Nick, on the other hand, had several encounters that I can only describe as “bar fights”. Nick is a brawler. A benefit to EMP — after losing his sword shield, he could still take him down and I believe the term is “beat the living hell out of his opponent”. One fight, Nick came back from absolutely CAKED in dirt. Clinton is a bit dusty… and this is where I discovered having a cloth in my basket is a good thing… at least he was able to wipe some of the dirt off his face. And out of his mouth. Ew.

It was pretty awesome. I absolutely loved watching it, hence my excited cheers you can hear in the videos. Note to self: when playing videographer Shut. Up. After the tournament, I raced back to our encampment and bragged about our most excellent fighting boys to anyone who would listen. While most of the fights were pretty good, it was Magnus & Duncan who had the most “crowd pleaser” fights. They both made an excellent showing, and I’m extremely proud of them both.

And I’m still jealous of that rope bed. ROPE. BED. God, the ability to sleep in comfort would be SO nice…