Genevieve's Journeys

 Another highlights post, this time about the fighting - mostly because my sweetie was organising it.
The fighting schedule went very well this year, driven by Robert's passion for tourneys. (The fencing schedule went a bit wobbly, but that is someone else's story to tell.)

The Fat Guys Beer Pit hosted by Mssrs Paul and Floris was the opener on Friday - an easy starter, with a beer entry fee required, all challenges welcome, and the winner taking away all the resulting beer. This rolled on for a couple of hours, and picked up more participants as the afternoon went on and, unsurprisingly, resulted in a great deal of, well, beer and cheer, it being Master Paul driving it (Floris had only just arrived).

The torchlight tourney was brilliant for the fighters, but lacking the moonlight, was a bit lost on the viewers - the tiki torches kept blowing out. Robert set up four scenarios, where venans had to individually challenge a tenan at four locations - the fountain court, the entrance to the bridge, the bridge itself, defended by the 'black knight' (actually Thomas of Monmouth, in his fabulous new all-black lanceknicht steel kit - he looks like he's stepped out of a painting!), and then the prince of Insulae Draconis at the base of the tower. Lots and lots of fighting, lots of very happy fighters. The prince himself was walking on air he had so much fun.

The Oxford Roll tourney was a melee contest between the shires, with Thamesreach fielding seven fighters: Robert, Thomas of Monmouth, Gillette (orig. from Lochac, reg. at fight practice, at his first event), Mithrash (AEtenveldt, member of Clan Thunder ditto), Katherine of Great Chesterford, Ozbeg (reauthorised!), and Arnaut de Najac.

Note that there were seven fighters, even without the knights - at the whole event, there was just one knight, Sir Liam the prince.

Thomas outshone the lot of them in his new kit and wappenfrock, but between Robert, Arnaut and Katherine there wasn't much to chose from - raging authentic fighting mavins are us!

Pont Alarch also fielded seven fighters, most of them very new (but led by the skilled and crafty Alex of Darlington), and the shires of West Dragonshire and Mynydd Gwyn banded together to create a team of five, so it proved to be a 3-way contest of capture-the-flag (actually a static point, a domed buckler on the ground), a team contest, and grande melee, last man standing. I didn't witness it, but Robert says Thamesreach steamrolled crushed underf won firmly and decisively over the other shires, taking all three points.

Another tourney of the day was the Canterbury tourney, devised by ....can you guess? Where fighters order themselves by precedence, and issue challenges, and take turns taking on all challengers. The point is to do all *your* bouts at once, to push your own endurance (my sweetie is keen on things that improve stamina in fighting).

I think this works out that you end up fighting everyone twice - once to fight in another person's all-comers bouts, and once in your own.

Of course, there was storming the castle, which was run slightly differently this year. The castle battle now has five familiar scenarios: gateway, cobbbled courtyard, hall& servery (through narrow doorways servery openings), fountain courtyard, and finally the bridge to the tower. In previous years, folks chose sides and either attacked or defended through all five scenarios, rested, and then switched sides. But the second round was always shorter, and less enthusiastic, because everyone was wearing down.

This year, Robert tried out doing each scenario twice in a row (ie. Gate: attack, then defend; cobbled court: attack then defend, etc.) to see if folks couldn't better retain their wind and enthusiasm all the way through. I haven't yet asked him if this went better, but by all accounts it remains a firm favourite of everyone's Raglan fighting.

On Sunday Robert marshalled the first Prince's invitational tournament, where his Highness selected those he wished to see participate in a tournament, and Sir William sought out all those who were newest to fighting, or who had the least tourney experience in Drachenwald.

The tournament was a series of challenges, and was limited to one half-hour, to keep people from wearing out. This was a real pleasure to watch: about 10 fighters, with two women included, issued challenges to each other, from '3 good blows' to 'full out for a count of 20'.

It gave many folks who didn't have a lot of fighting background the chance to meet each other on the field. Most new fighters start individually, and everyone else in their practice will be more skilled, so it was wonderful to see novices finding opponents of similar skill level on the field, and having their own victories to be rightly proud of.

The winner was chosen by the contestants themselves, and His highness presented John of Bristol with a prize (a girdle book) and distributed small books with ID 'broidered on the covers, as fighting diaries for each contestant to work with in their training.

The last tourney of the weekend was Robert's birthday tourney, where he invited fighters to strike a good blow on him, to a total count of forty. He wasn't counting, and didn't set anyone to count, but is certain it took many more than 40 bouts to reach his count.

He was happy as a pig in mire: three full days of fighting, and no injuries or serious bruises, just slightly stiff. And the smug, he had it...

This is a sort of part 2 of my talk about tourney preparation - some more concrete examples of what can help you prepare to get the best performances - to reach 'The Zone' - when you want to.

Top performances in the Zone are a balance of being relaxed, focused and prepared.

Part 1
Think of your best performances. What were the circumstances that helped you reach that relaxed, focused and prepared state? Consider things like:

- venue? setting? travel?
- weather?
- armour condition?
- tourney format?
- other attendees?
- friends and family?
- food, drink, seating, comforts?
- noise level?
- distractions? annoyances?
- rest?
- personal condition?
- mental attitude?
- emotional state?

Describe those best performances in writing - physical, mental and emotional conditions.

Part 2
What can you do to create some of those conditions with your own preparations? Write down what you can do to prepare.

Part 3
That same list from part 1 can equally serve as a list of the stressors that make reaching the Zone difficult.
For each potential stressor, you develop a plan of response. Try out the planned responses, and see which ones help.

Example: weather - don't fight well in cold, wet conditions
Response:
pack a cloak
stand and rest between bouts out of the wet
change or waterproof footwear
make sure of 20 mins of warmup, from slow up to full speed, before tournament

Example: food - need a full stomach to fight
Response:
get up in time for breakfast :-)
bring extra food to snack on between bouts, in small amounts that are easy to handle even with gauntlets on

Example: tourney format - don't like waiting my turn in round robins, it takes too long
Responses:
ask a friend to keep you company between bouts to fight temptation to peek at results sheet
keep stretching and moving around between bouts

This preparation thing takes practice, but before long, it'll become routine, and you'll be glad of the familiarity of your own preparations on the day of the tournament.