World Invitational Joust 2008- Tournament of the Phoenix

Black Swan Designs · Post by **Black Swan Designs** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 9:01 pm

A Costume contest on the theme of

â€˜Knights and Ladiesâ€™

will be held on Saturday, November 1 at the World Invitational Joust.

The â€œLadiesâ€

Black Swan Designs · Post by **Black Swan Designs** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 9:06 pm

Forgot to mention that this will be a team event:

Tenans:
Jeffrey Hedgecock, Captain (USA)
Jeffrey Wasson (USA)
Frederic Piraux (Belgium)

Venans:
Luke Binks, Captain (Australia)
Petter Ellingsen (Norway)
Graham Nixon (New Zealand)

Points will be awarded in Skill at Arms, Foot Combat, Joust and Melee. The team having the highest total points wins the event.

Aidan of Kingswood · Post by **Aidan of Kingswood** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 1:23 pm

So cool! unfortunatly, I don't browse the AA too often so I've just now seen the info. Good luck with this. I hope it's a smashing hit.

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Mon Oct 13, 2008 11:49 pm

Well, the stars aligned, and I get to come to the Joust!

Gwen, the info you provided was excellent, and I've got the motel reserved.

This will be great!

Alan

Black Swan Designs · Post by **Black Swan Designs** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 10:09 am

Good for you Alan! You're in for a great time!

Everything is falling into place, and the event is shaping up nicely. Luke put together a fantastic training session on Sunday, and today Jeff and Luke are working on the weapons to be used at the event.

I can hardly believe that the first of our competitors will begin arriving in a mere 10 days!!! EEP!

Gwen

Jeffrey Hedgecock · Post by **Jeffrey Hedgecock** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 11:43 am

Only a week to go now!

This years event will be better than ever. Horses are up to snuff (we have a full 6 jousting horses, with one backup), equipment is set (the new baston clubs I've made look awesome, if I do say so myself), competitors begin arriving tomorrow evening. All cool.

We went down to the site last night for a quick skill at arms practice for the non-jousting horses and one of our mounted squires. The kids from our polo club ran the horses through their paces and had a great time. We may do that as a regular thing, they enjoyed it so much. 12 horses on the field at once. Very cool.

All going full steam ahead!!

LeeC · Post by **LeeC** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:04 pm

In spite of a LOT of bad news for me the past couple of weeks I'm very pumped about this event!

Got my hotel booked, unfortunately I'm too Po for the ones you guys have been working with so we'll be staying at the Escondido Econolodge for about 1/2 of what I could find in Poway. Work is nuts so I will have to be rolling in around 8-9 am Saturday.

lorenzo2 · Post by **lorenzo2** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:09 pm

I will be making it with my wife and two daughters!

David Teague · Post by **David Teague** » Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:15 pm

Hello Jeff & Gwen,

I wish you guys a safe & successful event!

Try to get some sleep now as I know you guys don't during the event.

Cheers!

David

ARMOURER ERIC · Post by **ARMOURER ERIC** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 7:26 pm

I will be there Saturday and all us archivers should definitely hook up.

Eric

Sasha_Khan · Post by **Sasha_Khan** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:07 pm

I'll be there both days - mostly at the Ã‡ok Gűzel jewelry booth. I'm really looking forward to this.

LeeC · Post by **LeeC** » Wed Oct 29, 2008 10:27 pm

I'll be doing pollaxe and longsword demos for Dr. Forgengs presentations both days.

Black Swan Designs · Post by **Black Swan Designs** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 12:00 am

Jeff, Luke and Petter did an interview with Radio KPRI's Madison this morning. It will air tomorrow between 7-8AM. Tune in if you're able, it was a fun interview!

More practice this afternoon, and the horses are doing really well. Tristan is a jousting train- I was trying to bridle him this afternoon and he saw one of the other horses in the tiltyard already, so he put his head down and took off. I was hanging from his head collar like a christmas tree ornament, albeit one snowplowing to save her life and not making much of a dent in his forward progress. Thankfully Stacy Wasson was already mounted up and rode Pete over in front of him, slowing him down enough for Luke to grab him. Luke just laughed at me and I felt a bit silly.

Tristan's taken to jousting like a duck to water and just loves it, the great knobby headed beggar.

Fred's on his way in from the airport, so our competitors are all here! Weather report is good, and we are in countdown mode for Saturday. Come on out if you can, this is going to be a great event!

Gwen

juan · Post by **juan** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 12:19 am

Wish I could make it, but I've got to fly to the East Coast the following weekend, which means that this weekend is taken up.

I wish you all well, and I am sorry that I won't be able to meet my fellow archivers there. I'm sure it's going to be a great event.

Alan · Post by **Alan** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:21 pm

ARMOURER ERIC wrote:I will be there Saturday and all us archivers should definitely hook up.

Eric

I get to be there all day Saturday and most of Sunday. I'll be wearing a 14th C. Mafia shirt....a century out, but it's pretty recognizable!

Be fun to meet other AA members at the Joust.

Leaving tomorrow, oh boy!

Alan

Sasha_Khan · Post by **Sasha_Khan** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 11:11 pm

Day One.

Effin' A W E S O M E

Now I'm really bummed that I missed the previous ones due to prior commitments.

David Teague · Post by **David Teague** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 11:21 pm

It's ok...

I'm sad to be missing this one.

but by your (and hopefully a few thousand others) attending this one, it will insure there will be more!

Enjoy day two as it should be Effin' A W E S O M E too!

Cheers from the land of zero degree nights (already

),

David

LeeC · Post by **LeeC** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:02 am

Day two, was even better IMHO.
Our WMA demos went exceptionally well with us having to oust kids from the area when the jousting started. The crowd seemed to enjoy the jousting very much and were more animated than past events.

Hanging out with Dr. Forgeng was beyond cool. Afterwards we are all totally knackered but at his request we made time to go grab dinner with him and talk shop before we dropped him off at the airport. Way too cool.

The jousting was exceptional with some truly awesome displays of chivalry.
As with each one before it my only real regret was not enough time to talk with everyone.

I was too busy this time to take pics or video, but we had two of the schools other students doing that so we should have some good stuff up soon.

You were missed David, more than one person askewd if you were going to be there.

David Teague · Post by **David Teague** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 4:07 pm

Hi Lee,

It's nice to hear I was missed.

I would have liked to help this time but frankly, it's much easier on Jeff & Gwen to use local people. One less trip to the airport .One less body to feed and house as a nonessential laborer. I only scored a spot on the ground team this spring because they had 2 unfilled spots and Gwen made a open offer on AA looking for help.

The event seems to be gaining momentum and now can supply locals and others from nearby to help. This is a good thing.

How was the crowds? Did they pack the park? How about pics?

I too enjoyed working with Dr. Forgeng last time and he and I pounded a bunch of those damn metal fence posts in the cement-like ground on Friday (then had the "honor" of pulling them out on Monday before flying out)

While I might be "a nonessential laborer" it was nice that a whole WMA academy was needed to fill my shoes as Dr. Forgeng assistant...

and I really would have liked to have been Jeffrey Wasson squire again. It was a honor serving him last time.

Post Pics soon.

Cheers,

David

Chris G. · Post by **Chris G.** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 5:54 pm

How was the turnout? I'm hoping it was a success so that they will continue to have them. Especially if they can have them at times when I can get away from work.

Josh W · Post by **Josh W** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 6:56 pm

I want to see pics of this so badly.

LeeC · Post by **LeeC** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 6:58 pm

Well it's hard to judge the turnout, with the ebb and flow. It certainly felt like more people than the past ones, but certainly not as many as I would like to have seen. I would say that Sunday was definetley stronger than Saturday.

Our day started with doing drills in the ground combat arena at 10 opening. We would get going doing longsword, halfsword, pollaxe, dagger, I.33 and grapelling both german and Italian. When a crowd gathere Dr. Forgeng would announce what we were doing then we would do some specific demos and then he would invite the crowd to come into the ring and grab a foam "boffer" sword. We'd devide them up by age (basically just kids/ adults) and the tech them four guards, one cut with counter cut, the concept of meeting strength with weakness, weakness with strength, strong and weak of the blade, and ending in teach a blade grab with a backlever throw.

Its amazing how well the little one picked up on it.

We would then clear the ring and each of us would let a kid in to spar with us with the foam. I think we will have some future WMA kids coming out of this batch!

We'd then break for the joust, and as soon as the joust was over we would hurry back to the ring and do it again.

The jousting and competiton in general was exceptional. The determination and sometimes ferocity of combat was higher than I had ever seen before. And the same could be said for the level of chivalry.

Sadly I was unable to take video or stills this time, but we had two others from our school there to do that so I am looking forward to some shots very soon.

Found a bunch of pics on flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/joust/

Sasha_Khan · Post by **Sasha_Khan** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 9:13 pm

I was helping my friend at her booth - which happened to be next to the arming tent that LeeC's group was using, and right in front of their arena. There are some kids that may have some very interesting and nasty surprises for schoolyard bullies this week...

The jousting was impressive, as was the mounted melee. Totally hooked.

Jeff and Gwen - what a great event, I don't think I'll be missing another (and neither should anyone else reading this - if at all possible).

LeeC · Post by **LeeC** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 4:50 pm

Finding out Sasha was next to our base was just one of many highlights.

There is some video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwA9endSuAo

And photos here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetsomedayphotos/

And here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/photosbyearl/

lorenzo2 · Post by **lorenzo2** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 8:54 pm

I only got to go saturday but had a great time. There were lots of things to do for my kids so I could talk to Messrs Wasson, Nixon and Binks about armour

Really, the combatants were very friendly and approchable when off the field. On the field they were all business of course.

One thing I am curious about; how did things go with Jeff Wasson's horse? It really had quite the little temper tantrum

LeeC · Post by **LeeC** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 11:14 am

He road Bills (Wilhelm to some) horse (whose name escapes me) Sunday. Bill was the marshall for the event.

Geoffrey the Younger · Wed Nov 05, 2008 2:14 pm

Yes, On saturday during the first joust, the horse was getting quite obstinate about going down one side of the list. I made quite an effort to get him going but in the end a decision was made to switch horses for the afternoon joust. So I ended up on Bill's horse; Two Socks. He had no problem going down the list but it took me a little while to get used to his gait.

The first horse, Magic, seemed to be afraid of the shadow that was cast by the list fence, although other theories were tossed around -- in the end the tournament must go on and switching horses proved to be the best solution.

This tournament was even better than last April and the level of competition was really high. Petter was making some incredible breaks -- breaking the H.E. Lances down where they are joined and not supposed to break!

The mounted mele was made even better with the new baton/ clubs that Jeff H. put together. The foot combat with poleaxes was very cool -- a mix of some interesting techniques -- disarming, Throws to the ground, and crashing through the fence resulting in a broken jug being held by a flabbergasted squire!

---Jeff Wasson

LeeC · Post by **LeeC** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 2:45 pm

Yeah, no matter how prepared you are and how much you've trained until the day of the event with all the people flags, whatever you never really can tell how a horse might react eh?

Ah yes two Socks, the narcoleptic jousting horse.

We were afraid that Petter wasn't going to leave us with enough unbroken lances there for a bit!

There should have been points for best "hang time" of lance shards, I swear on some of those I could have gone back to the tent, grabbed a bite, and come back to the arena in time to see them land.

Baton combat was awesome. I had to leave on Saturday of the previous tournament and missed it. You were all landing some very nice blows. It was a lot like watching WWII dogfighting with everyone jockying to get the inside angles and keep energy.

How many ash pollaxe hafts did you guys go through, 3? 4?

lorenzo2 · Post by **lorenzo2** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 3:42 pm

I'm glad things worked out. My daughter started calling the first horse the "devil horse" after it showed its teeth

Black Swan Designs · Post by **Black Swan Designs** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 4:21 pm

H all-

I'm still dead on my feet and have not posted anything, but wanted to stop in to say a quick thank you to everyone.

Our competitors were absolutely AWESOME people, and we owe them a huge debt for coming out to make this event so fantastic. Thanks to their partners, who worked to support them and the event. Thanks to the WMA crew who worked so hard all weekend, and added a huge and valuable dimension to the event. Even though they won't see these thanks, we would like to thank our ground crew and grooms who busted their rumps to keep 16+ horses moving on and off the field for the various events. We could not have done it without them!

We had Planet X TV and Showjumping Unplugged.com there filming, as well as an independent videographer, and at least one and maybe 3 documentaries/short movies are in the works about the event. We will be offering them for sale when they are done. In the interim, see this interview from Showjump Unplugged-

Showjumping Unplugged at the Tournament of the Phoenix

Personally, I'd like to thank my husband Jeff for getting involved in this crazy sport, and Luke, who has become a great friend, hard worker and invaluable asset to HE. I couldn't ask for better partners in crime.

More when I've had some sleep!

Gwen

LeeC · Post by **LeeC** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 4:36 pm

Nice article there Gwen!

Big thanks to you all for making it happen!

David Teague · Post by **David Teague** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 4:59 pm

Nice Vid!

It looks like you guys are building up steam!

Cheers,

DT

Thomas H · Post by **Thomas H** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 5:01 pm

Glad to hear the event went well and was so successful!!!

Wild William · Post by **Wild William** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 12:29 am

Two Sox, that's my boy. He is quite the trooper and has never failed me when the chips were down. He did all that with staples in his front right leg from a cut he received a couple of weeks ago. They were removed the Monday after the tournament. I did check with the vet before using him to joust. This weekend we're off to an ACW event as Union cavalry.

Jeff, I apologize for not cluing you in to some of his cues earlier, but I think we had it all worked out on Sunday. He even seemed to stay awake most of the time. It's just a mental game he plays (maybe if he sees I'm asleep I won't have to go to work.) He did come through for you though.

LeeC · Post by **LeeC** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 12:44 am

Wow, you didn't tell me that.

I love watching him work Bill, he's quite the character isn't he? He definitely came through on Sunday eh?!