Double Wars

Drachenwald's premier fighting event is the ten-day long Double Wars, which takes place in the Principality of Nordmark (Sweden) every May during the week Ascension Day falls on. The main war concerns the lasting debate of which side a slice of crispbread (knackebrod) should be buttered on: the flat side or the hol(e)y side. Otherwise, the event includes plenty of tourneys and training opportunities, as well as other usual SCA activities. For me, it is the year's best opportunity to get training from the top fighters of the kingdom and to connect with fighters outside Insulae Draconis. It is also the base of the extended household I belong to: the lineage of Duke Matthew Blackleaf.

This year, work has been inconvenient, and I had not planned to go at all, but the aspects of fighting and family weighed on me so much that only a few weeks ago I made the decision to go for the first half of the event, as it would interfere with work less.

I had three full days available, so I wanted to get in as much fighting and training as possible. In practice, I was forced to conclude once more that especially in the case of training, when you are actively working with your head as well as your body, you can only keep going so long.

1. Rose Tourney

I wasn't sure to begin with whether to fight in the tourney or to just do pickups, but I'm glad I went. The tourney was great fun. You issued a challenge and queued up to the list field with your partner, and the loser would retrieve a rose from the Queen and bring it to the winner's consort, or whoever they wished. Towards the end of the tourney, the marshal set up a few last man standing scenarios, which awarded more than one rose to the winner or winners. I fought for my friend Jasper and brought him six roses, for which he was very proud for the rest of the time I spent at the event.

2. Tournament of Chivalry

This is more of a three-hour high-level fighter practice with members of the Order of Chivalry. You invite a Knight to fight you, and possibly another one to observe, and you can ask for guidance in a particular element or just get general feedback. I had a list of things to get out of this one, which were:
1) Get time with my Uncle Knight George
2) Get time with Duke Gerhardt
3) Find every belted two-stick fighter and make them train me how to fight against them until I couldn't train no more.
I proceeded to do exactly this. I got some very useful pointers on fighting against two-stickers from Sirs Morales, Gilliam, Rok, and King William, but I feel that I need to put in a lot of further work towards figuring that one out properly.

Afterwards, my Knight invited me to do some pickups with him, but soon enough he sent me off to get out of armour, observing that I was too tired to do anything useful. The intensity of learning from the Knights and fighting them had creeped up without me noticing, and I held off from attending the fun pirate melee in the afternoon I had greatly enjoyed in previous years.

3. Training

On my third full day, I had offered to help marshal a new fighters tournament, but there were only two participants, so I wasn't needed. I got into armour nonetheless around noon hoping for pickups and training (although the previous night had been very late and involved a great deal of gin with other squires). I ended up spending most of the afternoon with Duke Gerhardt, who's one of my favourite trainers, working on how to control the fight in various ways. It was intense, but we took breaks and talked about what we had worked on, then put our hats back on and trained some more. Other people came and went, but we must have been working for about three hours. Afterwards I did a few pickups with Sir Wlfric and my own Knight.

More analysis and thoughts forthcoming, now that I have introduced the event.