It Was the First, But Not the Best--or was it?

"You should hit people with sticks. I think you'd be good at it!"

That's what my friend Jess told me when she first got me into SCA Heavy list fighting. Now to a person who familiar with the SCA I explain it as 'Western' or 'Medieval' martial arts, that's the simplest and quickest way to explain this little hobby of mine. The other is to say that I strap on about fifty to sixty pounds of metal protective gear and attempt to beat the tar out of people with a retan staff. While the later certainly sounds more exciting, at least to me anyways, it usually gets me a weird look or two thus I keep to the former explanation. Now just like in more mainstream martial arts there are tournaments held in different styles: Single combat (Both heavy list and fencing), Melee, and something we call a Bear pit where a fighter enters the ring and keeps fighting different opponents till he loses about. I've participated in a few tournaments since I started fighting two years ago but I think my most memorable would be my first.

It was a relatively small tourney, I think maybe eight fighters. I was just getting used to the feel of my gear and I still had my tower shield which I had affectionately named 'The Door' .(It was almost as tall as I am. Totally impractical for a one on one bout). I was totally nervous and jacked up on adrenaline from my certification. (Basically a short match to make sure you know how to be safe. Kind of like going for a belt in karate) I was two spots deep in the line up and matched up against a guy who fought Florentine, a two sword style, while everyone else was sword and board. At the time I hadn't gone up against a fighter that used that style.

This really was not the guy I wanted to go up against in my first fight of the first tourney I had ever gone to.

As I waited I watched the two bouts ahead of me go by. To my then inexperienced eye they could be summed up as opponents circling for a minute or two before a quick crash and a flurry of blows followed by the shout of 'good!' and one combatant claimed victory. Granted as I look back this isn't too far from the truth but there is a lot to consider during that short period before coming to blows. At any rate my turn to enter the 'ring' came and I stepped under the ropes that separated the rest of the small crowd from the fighters.

Little did I know at the time that I had seriously sprained my ankle during my certification, I'd actually feel that later on in the day but at the time I didn't really notice. At least not until the initial exchange between my opponent and I. You see, I was new enough at this whole fighting thing that I just went with my instincts and my instincts told me to just step on in and start swinging! This is where the sprain came in and I nearly lost my footing on the second step, of course this little slip was accompanied by a quick flurry of blows by the opposition which I narrowly avoided. We broke then came at each other again, to this day I'm pretty sure it wasn't my flailing away at him that saved as in so much that 'the Door' was too big for him to get around and land a solid hit.

The end of the bout came on our fourth pass and in a rather dramatic fashion. As we closed for the final time, both of us swinging our retan like our lives depended on it, a thought clicked loud enough in my mind to overcome the lizard brained aggression I'd been fighting with : 'Wrap!' A wrap shot is when you attempt to swing your weapon around your opponent in such a way that it strikes them in the back, shoulder, or back of the helmet. Thus on quasi instinct I threw my best wrap shot, which really wasn't much of one at the time; this was especially true seeing as I had a bad habit of lowering my guard when I threw it. We struck each other at the same time, my wrap rang against the back of his helmet while his sword grazed the front of mine. We stood there frozen for a moment then he slowly took a knee to signal the end of the match.

In retrospect this wasn't my best fight, or even my best tournament. I won four out of seven fights and had absolutely no real form while doing it. I was just a brawler swinging a stick and trying not to embarrass myself overly much. But as I think of it I don't think I'll ever have quite that same rush, quite that same finish as the first round in that tournament.