(SCA- Society for Creative Anachronism)
For the first time in SCA history they are going to try real Steel Fighting at one of their events.
The following is a bulletin for the upcoming SCA/Pennsic event of steel fighting written by *Christian von Nurnberg, KSCA, MoD
*Note, ( Christian von Nurnberg is the stage name of the person not their real name. It refers to the person’s chosen character or persona in the SCA. The letters at the end of the name allude to awards and titles given/earned by that character.)
Since this seems to be coming up quite a bit we wanted to take a minute and talk about the scope and objective of this Experiment.
Our goal is to recreate the one-on-one armored fighting that would have been done between knights at tournament using rebated steel swords and period appropriate armor. In terms of scope, this is intended to be a standalone form of combat and is not tied to either the rattan or rapier disciplines.
Some particulars:
Targeting – We are only counting blows that strike above the knees/wrists. We exclude the hands and below the knees for safety reasons. However, we fully expect to be hit in the hands and shins from time to time so you will need to armor those areas. We do NOT allow for thrusts.
Armor Standards – generally the armor standards are following very closely with what we see in the European steel fighting community. We are also testing plastic body and leg armor as well and have not had any issues to date. Generally, we have found that having rigid coverage over a gambeson has been optimal in terms of reducing the amount of force that we feel. For helms we’re finding that 12 gauge seems to be the thinnest we’re comfortable with, though most of us have 12g or thicker spring steel (tempered) – You should expect to get dents in your gear after a day of fighting and realize that your gear will need replacement at some point. By not allowing thrusts we can open this activity up to more types of helms since we’re not as worried about keeping a point out of the grill. While we are still working through the exact wording we are headed towards being somewhat more restrictive than HMB/BoTN rules. While the SCA does not have direct experience with these fighting conventions, we are able to draw on the collective experience of European steel fighters and our armor standards will most likely be in line with what we see from them.
Weapons – right now we’re ONLY looking at arming swords and longswords for weapons. We allow for bucklers and small shields. BoTN style axes, maces, falchions, polearms etc are not in scope for our experiment.
Force/Callibration –We are NOT putting any sort of cap on force. (Ie, you cannot hit too hard) That being said, the armor works as intended and we’ve had no significant bruising outside of our first practice – and that was due to wearing hockey shoulders and elbows rather than proper armor. Simply put, we’re just not finding that hitting hard matters since we’re not leaving much that does not have rigid coverage. Shin, knee, thigh, hip, body, shoulder, upper and lower arm and elbow protection is needed along with a good set of gauntlets (because you WILL get hit in the hands)
Judged Fights – early in the experiment we realized that we were not able to accurately call blows that hit us due to the effectiveness of the armor worn. As a result, we are working on a way to train judges to be able to call the fight. This takes a bit of getting used to and we certainly have some challenges around ensuring accuracy and consistency of calling the fights. But we’re fairly certain this is the best way to go forward. As a general rule, we’re asking for a blow to engage three joints before we call it “good” – this is to avoid encouraging poor technique as a way to win. Ultimately, we all want to encourage and see good swordsmanship.
Attitude – since we’re looking at the medieval tournament as our inspiration. One of the tourney formats we’re working on is a “Gallery” style where the people in the gallery cheer for the fighter they think won. Also, since the way to “win” is to hit your opponent with good technique we feel this does a good job of encouraging skill with the weapon over brutish tactics that rely on strength alone. IE, this is NOT submission fighting, but rather points based.
Next Steps – We will have fighting at Pennsic. Please feel free to come and check it out. Also, if you have a steel fighting kit for the HMB/ACL come out and fight with us… We’d love to cross swords with you and hear more input. As the experiment progresses further we will be able to allow for other Kingdoms to join. This will be at the discretion of Duke Michael and the Society Marshal. However, if you’re interested please be sure to find us on the field at Pennsic and speak with His Grace about next steps. Between now and Pennsic we hope to have some more resources available on our FB page.
Regards, Christian von Nurnberg, KSCA, MoD
