Cross Roads 2022
A brief foreword before I get into it …
For those of you dedicated few who tune into these blog entries may have noticed, there hasn’t been one in a couple of months. You may be wondering, is Hilt and Helm still around? Is Chris still alive? Well the great new is that yes, we are still around and I am still very much alive. The big difference has been work.
Between May and July of 2022, I was briefly without employment. I’d received a new job offer and when I went to let my old company know I’d be leaving they attempted to use my non-compete agreement to insist I couldn’t work for a potential customer. What resulted next were 2 months of the lawyers arguing amongst themselves while I sat around waiting to find out if I could start my new job or not. During those two months I poured myself into this club. I expanded the products offered in the store, did my first advertising campaign, planned events, brought on a new instructor, bought a bunch of new weapons, facilitated opening up the club another day, wrote a bunch of blog entries, attended ORVL (Ohio River Valley League) meetings, travelled to tournaments, and taught classes, and basically treated the club as a full time job. After all, the club is my baby and I was happy to do it!.
When I finally got my job situation sorted out, I tried keeping up that same pace with my club activities. I was doing all of my work for the club in the same room where I was working from home. And after 8 hours of stressfully working, the last thing I wanted to do was write a blog entry or put together plans for advertising and event planning. Suddenly those back to back weekends of HEMA events were starting to really wear on me. When Sheradon couldn’t teach class on Wednesdays and I had to fill in twice a week, I was quickly finding myself getting burnt out and over worked. Combine that with a drop in attendance during the summer and I was starting to become a little disillusioned with running the club.
But thankfully Sheradon and Pete stepped up and took over Saturdays. Jon and Kait took over handling ORVL meeting stuff. Word of mouth and networking at events eventually landed us with more students than my novice attempts at marketing could ever hope to generate. And so finally after months of frantically trying to run the club on my own, I have enough help and enough free time to finally write an update on how the club is doing, what events we’ve been to, and where we’re going from here.
Now… on with the show! Crossroads 2022!
Hilt and Helm upper management attending a conflict resolution conference, colloquially referred to as a HEMA TOURNAMENT!
On September 18th, Hilt and Helm travelled over to Delaware Ohio for Columbus Saber Academy’s (CSA) annual Longsword and Saber Tournament: Cross Roads. This would be my 2nd Cross Roads tournament. Last year I fought in Longsword and came in the top 16 and Saber where I came in 2nd! This year I was gunning for 1st in either of the weapons, but this time it wasn’t just me competing. Jon and Kait Heidenreich drove out on the 19th for Kait’s first longsword tournament!
This year, CSA did something different for open longsword. Instead of having fighters split into “A” Tier and “B” Tier from the get go, they decided to have all fighters in the same series of pools, then split them into A Tier and B Tier depending on how well they did in the pools. My long time friend and competitor Frank Zamary had some choice words for this method of dividing fighters. In many tournaments, the whole point of splitting fighters into A and B Tiers is to take the sharks out of the pools and put them in their own separate ecosystem. That way newer fencers won’t necessarily get stomped by the baddest mother f*$@ker’s in town and will at least have a chance at fighting people on their same skill level; where as the aforementioned baddest mother f*@#kers will have a real challenge on their hands. Ultimately with this new method, an A Tier fighter could end up in the B Tier elimination bracket by either getting unlucky or deliberately sandbagging their matches, then dominate the rest of the competition. To me, it made no difference. I was there to have fun.
One of my favorite matches was against a bearded individual from Nickel City Longsword Academy who I’m going to refer to as Gimley because he had a large frame, a bushy beard, looked very much like a Dwarf and I’m having a tough time recalling his actual name. We were in the same pool where I got to chat him up and meet his lovely wife who was expecting at the time. During our fight, I managed a super sweet parry in hanger followed by a wicked oberhau to the face … only he leaned more forward than I was expecting him to and I got him on top of the head closer to but no on the back. His head was ringing after that and I felt super guilty for not being able to throttle my force on that last strike. After he received an ice pack and a complimentary sticker, our fast friendship was back on track!
Ultimately I did wind up in the A Tier elimination bracket; though one of his club mates would soon enact their revenge (well … not really “revenge” but I’m trying to make things sound more dramatic). During our fight, we wound up tied 6 to 6 … sudden death. The moment the director said “fight!” I rushed forward and feighned a huge oberhau to the head. My plan was to get my opponent to guard his head so when I pulled the strike short I would be able to pull the strike short, avoid his parry, and thrust him in the face. Sadly, he saw this coming. When I pulled my oberhau short, he lunged forward and delivered a spectacular thrust to my chest! I leaned backwards, fell to my knees and shouted “NOOOOOOOO!!!!!” to the applause of the onlookers before getting back up and congratulating my opponent on a stunning victory. Hey … if you can’t win, its better to lose with style!
The next day Kaitlin competed in the women’s tournament. Back in March she’d had a very difficult back surgery that put her out of commission for months. She wasn’t allowed to lift anything heavier than a few pounds and practice was completely off the table while she was recovering. Once she got a little better she started meeting up with Sheradon privately for lessons. Then finally after months of rehab and private training she was finally able to compete in her first longsword tournament! We couldn’t be more proud of her!
Lastly I competed in the saber tournament. This part of the blog took me a while to be able to write because of a large number of emotions tied to the significance of this particular tournament. My old mentor had signed up for it and we did not part on good terms. When he departed from his previous club on bad terms and met up with the owner of said club at an earlier tournament, the meeting resulted in an unnecessary amount of “public interpersonal issues” that the event organizers were afraid would repeat if he and I met in the tournament. I assured them that I would be curt, but civil. Aside from a couple of baleful glares we didn’t interact with each other. The one moment where we were close enough to have a conversation I announced “Oh look, a plausible excuse to leave!” and politely excused myself from the group.
Yet it seemed inevitable that we would end up clashing blades. We managed to wind up in different pools, but when we reach the elimination round the event organizer asked me if I’d like to be placed on the other side of the bracket to avoid fighting him. I politely declined. I would not allow the fear of confrontation with him to force me out of this hobby, this tournament, or even side of the bracket.
Once the elimination bracket began, there was exactly one fight between me and my mentor and it was a good friend of mine Ryan Stumpf. Part of me considered throwing the fight to avoid the confrontation, but there’s something about a guy trying to stab me with a saber that sent my body into competition mode that prevented that thought from being enacted. Then the finale arrived. My fight with my mentor…
He is one of the best HEMA fighters in the country for a reason. Exceptionally strong, fast, wild, and aggressive, he overpowers most of his opponents with pure physicality. But he’s not all brute strength. The real key to his amazing win streak is his reactivity to his opponent and the masterful technicality of his defenses. He notices tells from his opponent’s attacks, aborts whatever action he was planning, and prepares a counter offensive to hit on his retreat. As much of a benefit that reactivity can be, it can also be fooled. By feigning an attack just as he’s coming in for an attack of his own, you can force him to abort his attacks so long as you know what to look for. And he has a tell tale booty shake that gives him away every time. For the first couple of bouts I waited for that shake and launched wild attacks of my own to put him on the defensive. Once I saw he’d committed to a defense, I would disengage from the attack he was expecting and attack where he was vulnerable. It was a dance he and I had performed many times before and he clearly hadn’t forgotten my tactics. As soon as I disengaged for the counter, he would attack and parry the opening he’d created. This went on for a few exchanges, sometimes I’d get him and others he’d anticipate my strategy and get me instead.
With 30 seconds on the clock, he was up 6 to 3. He wanted to end this exchange as quickly as possible. I knew he’d be coming in hard and fast. So instead of taking the attack to him, I waited. If his opponent doesn’t initiate an attack, he bulldozes in with an attack so quick, wild, and powerful that only the most observant and practiced opponents can defend against it. I was banking on the fact that since I’d deliberately left my center open that he’d be coming for it; anticipating that he’d be quicker to hit me than I would be to react. Thankfully for me, this wasn’t the case. The moment he sprinted across the field and struck at my head I performed a high “C” parry; deflecting his blade to my left, and came down on his head. 2 points red! Now the score was 6 to 5. On his second pass, I waited for him to come in and he didn’t disappoint. This time he came in for a thrust to torso, but once again I performed the same parry, struck on the head, and compass stepped to my left and sheathed my sword as the director called out those magical 5 words, “2 points red. Match red!”
It was like something out of a Hallmark movie! With a “WHOO!!” from the onlookers I humbly accepted my victory and offered him a customary post fight hug. He declined of course but did offer a fist bump which I gladly took. I would later go on to take 4th in the competition losing out John Paulino, who absolutely whooped my ass, and a young upstart from Columbus who’d never won a medal before but most certainly beat me fair and square in our sudden death encounter. As nice as it would have been to collect another cross roads medal, I’ll take defeating my mentor in a dual and seeing our Master of Pens fight in her first tournament as a very satisfying consolation prize.
