Medieval Combat

I guess I will get the ball rolling on this. I am not in favor one way or the other at this point, but I'll give a sum up of events that will hopefully help us decide if we would want to go to one as a realm of belegarth.

Hans, Casey, myself, and a few others had a conversation at the end of last weeks practice about possibly attending a BMCS event. This opportunity will not come up again for us until May 2008. There are a few events prior to that in the season, but they are much farther away. The one event I am talking about is Western Wars, which is typically held at either Milo McKiver State Park or Eagle Creek in the gorge, both about an hour drive from downtown p-town.

There would be three major differences from what we do now to what we would do at an event.

1. Names. Both people and groups have to have "fighting" names. People take on "non-mundane" names to use for themselves. You pick them, and they can be almost anything. Mine is Saxon, the latin word for "swordsman" (little ancient languages lesson for you all=p). Other names of people I know, for example, are Bishop, Dyse, Lloki, Par, and V'Hil. As you can see...basically anything works. Made up words, names stolen from books, games, religions...whatever. This also applies to the group names (realms). We cannot be PSU medieval combat club at an event. Some realm name examples are Gondor (seattle), Babylon (Bend), and The Southern Marches (somewhere in TN). Again, you can get creative.

2. Garb...you gotta dress like a dork. You don't have to get too fancy, but you can if you want. Plain colored pants that are not jeans and an oversized, plain colored T-shirt with a rope for a belt is just fine.

3. Weapons. Getting your gear to pass a weapons check is almost as hard as the SAT at an event. In realm practices, no one cares too much, but at events, they have to follow the rules to a T. This means no loose foam anywhere, no exposed duct tape almost anywhere (grips are ok, but not even on pommels, cloth tape is ok), no tape of any kind on striking surfaces. All weapons must pass a weight check (single blues must be over 21oz I think, for example), a flex check (can't bend too much), and a hit test (must be sufficiently padded).

Its not all as big of a pain as it sounds, but it would require a little work.

Like I said, I'm not really decided one way or the other yet, but I have been to 3 events (WW 1, 2, and 3), and they can be fun. If you go with an open mind, you can make a lot of friends and learn a LOT about fighting.

This thread will give us a place to talk about questions/comments. I have been to 3 of these and will answer questions to the best of my ability. Chris and Casey have also been to atleast one of the WW events, and could also give their viewpoints.

Let the fun commence=P

EDIT: Found my photo album from WW3, to give you an idea of the garb, amount of people, etc. There were about 30 fighters at this event, but I heard it was closer to 40 or 50 at WW4, which casey went to, but I did not. I can only imagine they will have that many if not more this coming year.

WW3 Pictures

Well im totally for it. Coming to psu combat club was kinda of a recruitment for summer events for me ,also to keep my skills from rusting in the winter. The garb is a very simple matter to fix. Plain white shirt and jeans or any pants with no logo is alowed. Transportaton i can hlp with. Western wars is comming soon only 45mins away usually.

I would be interested. We could always go over our weapons the week before an event to make sure they are good. What are the dates?

the date is still in the air at this point i got a hold of the local belegarth groups and theyll let me now right away.

Im in and Ill vouch for luke being there too! Any thoughts on names for the psu club?

western wars may 8th to 12th milo Mciver state park