The Armour Archive

Here is the idea: At non-tournament events, war practices and mini weekend wars, have a time in the morning say 10am to 12pm where the Chivalry at the event muster on the fighting field and do pick ups with all of the unbelts. This will help to promote training, comradery, and the knowledge of all the fighters. Then have the battles after the pick ups.

I am not sure about other kingdoms, but here in the East we tend to only have two types of fighting events, Tourneys and War practices.

With tourneys the fighters tend not to want to fight before, maybe to warm up, but not real fighting. The tourneys tend to take a long time so by the time they are over people have retired off the field, Court is going to start, or they are to tired and hot and just want some food and a shower.

With war practices, people just tend to be to tired and retire after the battles.

Being in the SCA for over 20 years now I have seen the steady decline of pick up fighting at events. This is truly unfortunate, because events tend to pull the most talented fighters and teachers. They pull fighters that have different and varied fighting styles that you will not meet at your local fighting practice. Unless your one of the lucky few you will be fighting fighters who are better and more experienced than you could at your local fighting practice.

This will improve the abilities of all of your Kingdoms unbelts and improve the event experience for all the fighters. I for one would be very willing to participate and to help organize this for the up and coming summer events in my Kingdom. I am curious of what the Archive members think of this idea.

I remember this was tried years ago. I had a blast. I don't know why it was repeated.

Sounds like a good idea.

Mord.

We have an event here in the Middle called the Tournament of Chivalry.

Basically any of the Chiv come to help the unbelts with anything they want to learn. At this past one, the event started with an unbelt tourney, then we went to a few different lists - One where some of the Chiv fought Crown level bouts with the unbelts, there was another list where they fought to three blows followed by discussion, with the unbelts, then there was another where it was specific topic discussion with some one one one training.

The Lists were paused a couple different times for some classes to be taught as well.

It was a great event.

I've had an event rolling around in my head based on the same concept, but with a competitive element added. Run it like a pas d'armes with the chivalry as the tenans and unbelts as venans, with the chivalry awarding prizes to the unbelts who most impress them, including an overall winner voted on by all the chivalry present.

The Chivalry Pick Up....

(Best Joey voice)

"So Sir, how you doin'?"



.

They do something like this near me...I think they call it Knight School. Basically all available Knights are lined up and the unbelted folks move down the line fighting each different Knight. At the end of a specified time, the Knight gives the fighter some pointers, sometimes writing it in a notebook brought in for the purpose. I haven't made it to one yet, but following deployment I plan to try to make a few.


-Coenred

His Highness Logan is chamioning that for thier upcomign reign the tournies run through quickly and we immediately go into a "TOC" style pick up.

I 110% support this notion. We have already started this process at Ice Castles to aclaim from the Unbelts.

Every day at Gulf Wars (Tuesday-Saturday) I have asked my knights to stand the field with me for pic up fights. I believe its our duty to help train the unbelts. Barring injury I will be there, if I should fall my Prince will champion this cause for me.

Thorstenn.

To clarify my brother Bryce, in Atlantia, the Tournament of Chivalry style has evolved into a specific type of bear pit tourney.

Knights take the field in what ever number the eric and the number of knights make appropriate. Something like (armored up knights/3 or more) is good.

Unbelted fighters pick a list, and fight a knight. If they lose, the next unbelt comes in. If they win, the unbelt stays in and another knight comes out. Repeat.

This does two important things: Shows the unbelts the strength of the knights.
Shows the knights which unbelts are kicking their asses.

Quite so.

The Knight School Coenred mentioned was started in my barony, and I agree, it works quite well. It's been a good draw for many knights and unbelts we don't see at regular practices whether we run it on week nights or on Sundays of events. The feedback portion is particularly valuable. The class-like structure we've used lends itself well to a number of options, like having your local spear guru explain what it is they do.

The Crapaud tourney they do in the West has also been very successful. It's a once a month tournament held on a week night. There are a lot of pick ups done around it, but it's a regular tournament structure with the aim of getting folks through tourney choke and focus on forms and techniques that work in a tournament format. They've managed to build the prestige of the tournament to such a point that folks will drive several hours after work just to fight in it.

Kudos to HM Thorstenn for formally encouraging pickups!

Thorstenn wrote:Every day at Gulf Wars (Tuesday-Saturday) I have asked my knights to stand the field with me for pic up fights. I believe its our duty to help train the unbelts. Barring injury I will be there, if I should fall my Prince will champion this cause for me.

Thorstenn.

Hmm....

Mord

Gaston de Clermont wrote:The Knight School Coenred mentioned was started in my barony, and I agree, it works quite well. It's been a good draw for many knights and unbelts we don't see at regular practices whether we run it on week nights or on Sundays of events. The feedback portion is particularly valuable. The class-like structure we've used lends itself well to a number of options, like having your local spear guru explain what it is they do.

The Crapaud tourney they do in the West has also been very successful. It's a once a month tournament held on a week night. There are a lot of pick ups done around it, but it's a regular tournament structure with the aim of getting folks through tourney choke and focus on forms and techniques that work in a tournament format. They've managed to build the prestige of the tournament to such a point that folks will drive several hours after work just to fight in it.

Kudos to HM Thorstenn for formally encouraging pickups!

Thank you for expanding on that. I wasn't sure where it had started, but I knew Bryn Gwlad held it. Looking forward to getting some school in before I move kingdoms again.

Coenred

Your Excellency, with respect,

Why don't unbelts who want to get better summon the courage necessary to seek out members of the order of Chivalry on their own? I haven't gone an event or large practice where I didn't fight or study with a Knight or Master in at least 2 years. I have fought you on several occasions and learned much. And I say this not to brag, but to highlight how easy it is to get in stick time with the best fighters. If I can, being less than 4 years in harness, as a greatweapons fighter, then anyone can.

I think we should not be asking, "how do we teach unbelts SO they learn from Chiv?" but "how do we teach unbelts HOW to learn from Chiv?"

Saburou wrote:Your Excellency, with respect,

Why don't unbelts who want to get better summon the courage necessary to seek out members of the order of Chivalry on their own? I haven't gone an event or large practice where I didn't fight or study with a Knight or Master in at least 2 years. I have fought you on several occasions and learned much. And I say this not to brag, but to highlight how easy it is to get in stick time with the best fighters. If I can, being less than 4 years in harness, as a greatweapons fighter, then anyone can.

I think we should not be asking, "how do we teach unbelts SO they learn from Chiv?" but "how do we teach unbelts HOW to learn from Chiv?"

Ahh.. but neither of these was the question posed

Rather, it is a matter of how best to organize an Event to permit the unbelts to learn and the chivalry to teach.

There have been a number of formats and concepts put forward, all of which have their records of success.

I think, to pursue Count Gryffith's suggestion, that if we here in the East simply announced that the list fields will open at ten am for pickups, with the melee or tourney or whatever other the event is intended for scheduled to start at noon, we would readily see who was eager for their opportunity

Aethelmearc has a series of Gold Chain Tourneys. Basically the knights take the field and unbelts get the chance to challenge them. It's both a learning excercise and a way to get evaluated regarding your prowess.

Other times I just follow Mord's advice regarding Guys with those white belts on and swinging a stick at em.

A few thoughts from a cross-gamer:

At Dagorhir and Belegarth events, we fight until dark. At Amtgard events, the fighting goes 24 hours a day--though I have yet to experience it, midnight fighting is supposedly the most intense test of a fighter's mettle.

As far as I am concerned, if one wants to be taken seriously as a fighter, one must remain on the field until the dinner bell or some other obligation calls. Anything less is an indication of a faltering will.

Saburou wrote:Your Excellency, with respect,

Why don't unbelts who want to get better summon the courage necessary to seek out members of the order of Chivalry on their own?

It isn't a matter of courage, it's a matter of protocol. For some of us, maybe many of us, our martial heritage makes such an action socially deviant. I trained for years in traditional Okinawan and Japanese dojos, where a mere student simply did not ask to spar/fight a senior in the ryu/style. You train hard, remain focused, and from time to time someone of a rank approximate to SCA Knight would approach you to give you help, if he decided that his help would be fully appreciated. You simply did not initiate that situation yourself. That circumstance was in itself a test of your determination, patience, and committment - to try to "jump the line" would assure some permanence in your present level of training. Also, you were not to instruct any other students unless specifically asked to do so. I suppose you could consider Japan to be the source of "don't ask, don't tell".

To this day I remain uneasy in the presence of those of much higher rank. You may laugh, but years of any particular structured environment will lead to habits that are hard to break.

Your Excellency I have no doubt all it would take would be more then just His Majesty and the few Chiv that seem to enjoy pickups to be out there to make it a more common thing at each event the way during the past reign of Konrad saw "speed tourneys" happening before the start of each practice/tourney etc.
Last year's mudthaw saw many of the Eastern Chiv, both Knights and Masters standing and testing a growing line of Unbelts for what felt like easily over an hour. I know you finalled/ won?(I don't know I was in the line) in that tournament so you were preoccupied, but it was almost like what you were describing. Whether it was Master Wulfgar, Sir Douglas Henry or Sir Balin and others, I had enough time to make it to each of the respective Chivalry a few times. It was awesome and I'd jump at the chance to have so many shots against Knights I don't see as often as the local Chiv that make it to our practice.

Part of my duties as a knight is to be available for pickups if anyone should ask. I have only declined when I had other duties or when I was falling over from exhaustion.

I do ask people to fight me when the promise an entertaining fight, but usually I don't have the opportunity to choose...

Bob H wrote:It isn't a matter of courage, it's a matter of protocol. For some of us, maybe many of us, our martial heritage makes such an action socially deviant. I trained for years in traditional Okinawan and Japanese dojos...(snip).

This is why I hate traditional style instruction. My time in such situations has been brief but vivid. I trained in an aikido dojo at ODU where the ranking instructor apparently consciously decided to take a "softer" attitude toward his aikido classes than to his karate. The effect was that his aikido program blossomed.

When I moved to Wisconsin and tried to find Aikido, I visited a dojo in Milwaukee in a storefront, run by a very formal old hawaiian gentleman. He was extremely old fashioned, barely speaking to me, asked a few questions, found one thing that my old dojo did not emphasize and his did (a type of breakfall) and told me to practice that. Without supervision. On my own. All night. No feedback.

I practiced it until I wore through the skin of my shoulder and bloodied my gi, and then some.

At the end of the night, no feedback. No "nice to see you." No "please come again." No "thank you for trying." No "clean the blood off my floor."

Fuck that. I didn't go back.

Strong kingdoms, strong units, strong groups, strong practices benefit from the free dissemination of proper technique. Contrast the old "closed shop" attitude of Trimaris with the "open shop" attitude of Atlantia. There, when you joined Sir X's house, Sir Z would no longer offer you advice. In Atlantia, all the knights feel free to offer instruction to all the squires all the time. We encourage our brothers to do so.
The difference was clear in their unbelts. They lacked experience with varying styles.

(Not trying to start a thread-derailing debate about whether this is still the case in Trimaris. I have NO idea. I'm talking about 15 years ago so let's not get our cups twisted in our shorts.)

Thank you all who responded. It was nice to see that similar ideas have been started and run in different Kingdoms with success.

I am particularly interested in the Knights school idea. Gaston can you give me more information on how this is run? Feel free to PM me if you don't want to post it all here. What I am looking for is sort of the mechanics, how you run it, how you advertise it, and such. Thanks.

You want to learn about how to run a Knight's School?

Amtgard runs a Sword Knight Boot Camp every year. They would be the ones to talk to--go to the Electric Samurai forum and create an account, then post in the SKBC forum or the Fighting forum.

Here's the site for SKBC: http://www.swordknight.com

And the eSam: http://www.electricsamurai.com/

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It seems so odd to me that knights wouldn't be willing to train anyone who asks. What's the risk--that the average level of fighting quality would go up? And then they'd have to fight better opponents? Perish the thought...

Though I can certainly appreciate an unbelted fighter's reluctance to approach a knight and ask for training. After all, he's got a shiny white belt.

When I was a karate instructor/student a few years ago (had to leave the dojo when I went to college, and there aren't any others of the same size nearby, alas) I would often find others, whether fellow black belts or not, with whom to train. Sometimes I would say, "Here's a kata that I am trying to interpret and I would like you to work on it with me," sometimes I would say "You are positioning your feet wrong when you do that, let me show you how to fix it," sometimes I would ask "Would you be willing to help me with this particular technique?" and sometimes I would just say "Let's do this fighting drill for ten minutes as fast as we can, I need to work on my form and I want a workout." All depending on the student or fellow instructor, of course. At the same time, however, it was not uncommon practice for younger or less experienced students to ask me, or other intermediate/advanced students, to help them with something. That was just what we did, because the experienced students and instructors can't just stand around watching the less experienced students--they have to train too.

While I am wary of drawing parallels between SCA knights and karate black belts (I think it is not a good comparison), one thing we should remember is that just because someone is a "knight," which is in many ways an arbitrary designation that really isn't appropriate for many of the knights out there and in any case is a pretend title just like everything else in SCA or other LARP organizations, that does not mean that he or she has finished learning how to fight. One can always get better, at least up to a certain point when physical capacity diminishes and one should maybe take up knitting. So I think that knights need not always be on the lookout for fighters to train, and also that fighters shouldn't wait for knights to ask them if they would like training.

If a knight is asked by a fighter he or she doesn't particularly like, or feels he or she can't teach (different weapon/body style, for example) then saying "no, I am busy doing xyz" or "no, I don't think I'd be able to teach you that" is perfectly acceptable. Right?

Sure Gryf. Our Knight School was started by Sir Giotto. It has a little of the flavor of an Altantian speed tourney, but with the sides being intentionally imbalanced and more instruction. Here's how we typically run them:

The knight line up on one side of our field with enough space between them for a fight. The first set of unbelts line up facing them, and any extras form a line behind them to wait their turn. The first batch fights for a few minutes, then they talk for a few minutes. The unbelts carry a little note book (we have heralds that help with that) and scribble down any notes they need. Sometimes the knights will write in the book for them. Then the line rotates through so there's a new knight/unbelt match up. We have a time keeper who helps us stay on track (the biggest problem is talking too long) and be sure we take beaks occasionally since the fighting tends to be pretty intense. So it's a lot of fighting, and a lot of chances to learn from a variety of teachers.

I ran a melee tutorial under the Knight School name several months ago. The format was very different- more like a football practice where the spearmen went through some drills with Duke Hoegaarden, shieldmen did drills and talked tactics with Duke Kein, and polemen worked with Sir Ysfael. Then we did some combined arms practices. The last part had scenarios like I remember from East kingdom war practices.

The schools are advertised on any email list that seems appropriate starting about a month in advance. Usually Giotto checks with a number of knights to be sure he'll have critical mass for it and determines the date that will have the best attendance.

David Stifler wrote:It seems so odd to me that knights wouldn't be willing to train anyone who asks. What's the risk--that the average level of fighting quality would go up? And then they'd have to fight better opponents? Perish the thought...

Though I can certainly appreciate an unbelted fighter's reluctance to approach a knight and ask for training. After all, he's got a shiny white belt.

Shiny white belt aside, I don't generally walk up to knights/squires/fighters I don't know and ask to be taught. Personal issue based on the way I was brought up. Knight School allows me a "no stress" environment to fight various knights I don't see on a regular basis (which in my town would be pretty much all of them since we have none). The stress is self-inflicted but the knowledge doesn't make it any easier for me to walk up to them and go "Hey, can you show me a few pointer?" Maybe it will get easier as I do this more...maybe not. Until then I hope my new area has something along these lines.

Coenred

Gaston, thank you that is exactly the kind of thing I was interested in. Here in the East a couple times a year we do an unbelted Melee practice similar to what you describe focusing on melee skills and tactics with the unbelts in small groups of 5-6 and the Knights teaching a specific subject, but have not had from my memory a singles combat one. We have had tournaments of Chivalry and the like but nothing like what you describe.

Another question if you don't mind, do you have your Knights schools added onto events IE in conjuncture with a normal event, or is it an event/practice in of itself?

We've done both. The school has a strong enough draw to get folks to drive a couple hours to fight at them on a week night, so the regular practices have large numbers and high quality turn out. The school has been run on Sundays of some events too and done pretty well. Doing some more formal pick ups/class before melees start, maybe on a Saturday, could have even better turn out.

Coenred wrote:Shiny white belt aside, I don't generally walk up to knights/squires/fighters I don't know and ask to be taught. Personal issue based on the way I was brought up. Knight School allows me a "no stress" environment to fight various knights I don't see on a regular basis (which in my town would be pretty much all of them since we have none). The stress is self-inflicted but the knowledge doesn't make it any easier for me to walk up to them and go "Hey, can you show me a few pointer?" Maybe it will get easier as I do this more...maybe not. Until then I hope my new area has something along these lines.

Coenred

I don't exactly walk up 'asking to be taught', either. But I do walk up to people whose skill I respect and ask them for pick up fights. If they say no, that usually means they're busy with something else, I thank them for their time, and find someone else.

If they say yes, I give them everything I've got for a solid bout (or several, if they're in the mood). And after that, I usually find that they're more than willing to toss out a few pointers to help me improve.

I think the West Kingdom does a nice job of this.

At Crown and Coronet tournies, there is almost always a concurrent "tournament of roses". This starts when the fields "collapse" (we usually start with 4 simultaneous lists, then collapse to 2 around round 4 or 5, then 1 for semis or occasionally, quarters).

The other half of the field is then opened to a "tournament" which is very informal. Typically two fighters approach each other, and agree to fight (usually best 2 of 3) for a rose to be delivered to the winners choice (typically his lady). The roses are picked up from the Queen (or Princess in the case of a Coronet) or her handmaidens if she is occupied. The "losing" fighting often regales the court ladies with a tale of the fighting and names the victor and his chosen benificiary.

This is not quite pickups as there is a "victor" and a "vanquished" - but really it functions the same way with some added "courtesy and people skills" training along the way. It is also very laid back. There is often some raw training going on near by, or people can just fight without worrying about a rose. My lady and I still have 2 roses from when one fine afternoon I took 2/3 fights from Duke Uther and 1/2 from Duke Jade (we determined that both our ladies deserved a rose - a common occurrence for ties/double kills/etc.). (Not that if the above seems boastful... I am trying to illustrate that a Rose tourney is NOT a Crown Tourney!).

There are no heralds or list makers. It's just an agreement between two fighters.

It DOES require a large Crown tourney (ca. 32+ entrants) so that there is a window between the first couple rounds where everyone is still in and finals (when everyone stops to watch).

The other (very minor) disadvantage is that you will probably miss the "best" fighters of the day because they have progressed to semis or so. But on the flip side, it gives Dukes (and really EVERYONE) a good reason to pack their armor to crown even if they are not going to enter the list.

A few thoughts about teaching:

1. With very few exceptions, it has been my experience that a novice has to come to a few practices to just get used to wearing the gear. Teachers need to patient.

2. There comes a time when a student "needs to go out fighting" so he/she can begin to understand the problems and limitations of his/her work. Teachers need to be generous.

3. We do more than teach fighting, folks. We also teach courtesy and asthetics. Teachers need to think about how they see the Society.

4. Teachers, when teaching, often learn more than their students, when learning. Sounds strange, but experience has taught me this. Teachers need to listen.

5. Teachers aren't perfect. Students aren't perfect. Sometimes one way is better for a student than others. The good teacher gets out of the way for a better one.

Mord.