Yea...ya'll should do that.

I should know by Monday on my travelling status. So far, it looks like I'll be having to go to Tennesee, so Florida is out. Again, this may change.

Seth Paul offered to drive. If anyone else wants to pitch in on gas/hotel come on the road trip with us.

Looks like I might not be going after all. They just cut my hours at work, I just can;t justify the cost or missing work.

My travel plans are still up in the air, but it looks highly likely that I'll be in Tennessee next week.

The fab shop needs to give us the 'green light' on our equipment inspection, then I can get my tickets to go. They are dragging their feet as most vendors do. They figure that if they delay long enough, we will not go, and then they can send out their equipment to the plant without being approved by the engineering company.

Had a great day at Dixie Krieg today. We went over some Fiore longsword, messer, and ringen unarmed, with dagger and with sword. Also meeting a lot of great, enthusiastic guys.

Tomorrow will be pretty much devoted to longsword, a lot of it German, so I'll try to get some video to bring back to the group.

I wish you guys were here. This is an event we will definitely have to make a presence at from now on.

Awesome. If it's annual, I'm going to make a strong effort to be there next year.

Had another great, abusive day today

Jake started the day with binding at the longsword which was a fantastic topic. Binding/winding is apparently something that a lot of people don't practice much and subsequently have trouble with. It's also kind of difficult to do with anything other than steel swords, so it will be interesting to try to work it into our fighting style.

The rest of the day pretty much consisted of sparring in some form or another. I was surprised that so many of the guys there hadn't ever really sparred longsword, but everyone did pretty well. One very interesting thing I noticed was that many of the more experienced guys came to grips WAY more frequently than I'd have expected. It was cool to see them do that and be able to say, "Hey, we do that ALL THE TIME in Ordo!" The main difference was that instead of trying to punch and kick, these guys went for the throw more often than not. There were a couple of times when I was fighting Jay that we actually ended up on top of each other rolling around on the ground. That was cool as shit. It eliminates any worries that I had about historical technique eliminating H2H stuff in Ordo.

I got a chance to play with a couple of different sword types. It seems that plastic is the sparring weapon of choice for those who are too uncomfortable with steel (and I'm one of them!). The plastic wasters have a MUCH better feel and handling than paddeds, but man they sting like FUCK. I've got several huge welts from taking clean, medium power shots. Definitely makes you learn to cover yourself, even when you score the first strike. Really makes you want to avoid double kills.

Wooden wasters seem to be good for drills, but no one cares to spar with them, as they have absolutely no flex.

Steel swords seem to be good drilling tools when used with fencing masks. I saw guys spar full speed with them and, frankly, it scares the shit out of me. I'll leave that to the more experienced guys and stick with the plastic.

I did actually see Jake and Jeanry spar with uber shenai. It lasted about 10 seconds at which point one of the shenai splintered into four pieces which flew in as many directions across the room. So far they don't look very promising for sparring.

Anyways, it was an awesome event. I didn't manage to get any video, but someone there taped almost the whole thing, so hopefully we'll be able to get hold of that.

Awesome. Wish I was there.

It was a really good time for me. Eric fought more times than I think almost anyone else there. I saw him do really well in one fight, killing a big kind of goony guy with excellent form three times, and I also saw him get thrown by Jay once I think, and get nailed really hard on the back with a nylon one time that made me wince. But I was really proud to see Louisiana so well represented. I think Eric made an impression on the crowd.

I tend to agree with Eric that the Nylons are currently the ideal simulators for sparring, if only because they are so durable and therefore cost effective, are in a very good 'sweet spot' between realistic handling and safety, and are somewhat affordable. The biggest issue with them right now is that they are so hard to get hold of in the US, the only guys I knew who were making them here aren't any more as far as I can tell. I know early next year a new type of Plastic sword from England (designed by Dave Rawlings of Boars tooth) will be distriubted by MRL so should be widely available, we can try those and see how they are. I really would like to get some of those nylons though I wish I knew where to get one or knew someone good at woodworking who could make some.

I was one of the people sparring full contact with the steel, and I have to say it wasn't as scary as I expected (or as it looked) I did get one little ding on my bicep but not as bad as the knot I got on my forearm sparring with Jay with nylons. I'm actually kind of proud of it. It was the most fun I think I've ever had fencing, the feel ,the sound, the way they bind, really made it fantastic. But I think that was largely because we were sparring with $500 Albion Meyer federswords, which I personally can't afford even one of let alone a pair or two for our club. The cheaper Hanwei practicals are much more dangerous from our limited experience, I wouldn't feel safe sparring full speed with those. We are going to try some of their feders (the sparring ones) soon, we have some of the new generation on order but they seem to be delayed.

Regarding the shinai, to be fair the one we broke was already damaged, it was a cheap one we had broke the string on about a month ago. I think Shinai are a good cheap sparring weapon but I am ok if I'm alone (outside of Europe) in that belief Jake and I also badly damaged one of my paddeds about 20 seconds into a match as well, we were sparring very intense and hitting very hard.

Anyway, for those of y'all who couldn't make it, I can only say "Haa hah" (try to imagine the voice of that mean fat kid on the simpsons) and y'all owe Eric a beer for representing Ordo so well.

Oh and did he tell you how Meyer Federfechter stole your T-shirt idea?

Db

Thanks for all of the kind words!

I'm going to see if I can get in touch with the UCF guys that were at the event. They make their own plastic wasters, but I think they are ABS instead of nylon because ABS is cheaper. I just can't remember where they said they ordered it from. If I can get hold of the materials, I can make the wasters.

Thanks for letting us know that shenai was already busted. I think we're going to try to fit up some uber shenai and test them out.

Oh, and THIEVES!!!!