Hilt and Helm Fights at the Ascalon Sword Festival
On March 12th, Hilt and Helm Fencing Club headed to the Ascalon Sword Festival in Columbus, Ohio hosted by Royal Arts Fencing Academy. This was the largest tournament Hilt and Helm has been to and we were proud to be involved.
In Open Longsword, there were 69 (giggity) competitors of which I managed to get in the top 16. My long time rival and close J.J. Conlan managed to defeat me to make it to the top 8. Every fight against him is a treat and a struggle. Sometimes I come out on top, and others he gets the best of me. But every time we both give it our all and I was happy to see him succeed in what was truly a glorious fight. My only regret is that no one managed to film it.
In Rapier and Dagger I managed to also get top 16, this time I was knocked out by the Legendary Joe Lily. The guy is as skilled as he is tall (about 6’6” I think). In our fights before in Longsword and Sword & Buckler, he was always a tough customer but I managed to come out on top. Not this time though. With my Kevetun Rapier I’m used to having a reach advantage of about 2.5 inches over most of my opponents, meaning I can lounge just outside of their range and thrust in when I get a chance. But not with this guy! Joe has the wingspan of a California Condor and the accuracy of a Peregrine Falcon. During our match he even managed to stab me in the big toe from across the ring! The judges weren’t sure if it hit or not, but my toe was sure of it. I gave up the points immediately for two reasons. One … that was damn impressive! Two: when someone hits you in an area that is not protected by thousands of dollars of protective equipment and you feel it enough to know you got hit but not enough that you fall to the ground screaming in pain … you give them the damn points. Because if you deny an opponent credit when they hit you but show restraint, next time they may not be nice enough to hold back.
But personal achievements aside, the real reason I keep coming to these things is the people and the community. Phil Swift and I became fast friends after he complimented me on my fighting style during the pools. He hadn’t seen many people successfully use bicorno in a match, and to be honest I don’t see its use in competitive play either. When time came for me to judge some of his fights I saw elements of my flashy style of fencing reflected in his fighting and a couple of successfully executed bicornos! At that moment I was sure we were two kindred fighting spirits. He was even cool enough to catch a couple of my fights in this highlight video! Unfortunately we didn’t get to fight each other, but hopefully that gets rectified in the next tournament we’re both in.
I’d also like to shout out to Tom Amoroso. After an intense back and forth during our fight in the Rapier Dagger pools we managed to tie which took us to sudden death. All I needed was one point to secure a win and I was eyeing that hand shot. But I knew he knew that, so my plan was to faint for the hand shot, disengage around his dagger, and go for the thrust to the chest. Apparently he knew … that I knew … that he knew that, and when I went for the hand he came straight in to secure the victory. Let it be known that he is damn good at what he does! Later that day he invited me back to CSA to chill and eat pizza. Even though I’d made the journey on my own, he and the folks at CSA made me feel at home. I even got a katana lesson from Jie Wu who did kendo for many years before jumping into HEMA. My cocky ass thought that since I knew 4 other weapons that I’d be able to just pick up a katana and be just fine. I was wrong! He tore my arms up and gave me an real appreciation for the weapon. One day I’d like to get a pair for the club and train with it a bit more. Before I left Tom was kind enough to give me an ORVL flag which has made a really nice privacy screen in our office.
Our storage room is starting to look pretty good! Had to make a couple cosmetic adjustments to our original banner for legal reasons.
Last but certainly not least I wanted to shout out to Frank Zamary for putting me up, and Dwain Crackle for designing the tournament software used at the Ascalon. If you need a beta tester, hit me up!
