Random post-Pennsic thinks, mentor/dependent edition

The first of a few different post-Pennsic posts! With thinks!

So I'm a particularly interesting case for people in terms of being a mentor in the Peer/Dependent sense - I have a kind of neat Venn diagram when it comes to areas of study.

So I'm a Master of Defense. I sword good. I happen to sword in some Very Period Ways - both because they're interesting to me, if we're a society that studies and recreates history then we should fight in a period fashion, and because (shockingly!) they *work*.

I'm a Master of the Laurel. I specifically study, recreate, and teach period combat and combat-related cultural miscellanea. This isn't focused on winning fights, but on knowing a system inside and out, the context for it, and being able to understand it as well as the cultural context surrounding it.

There's a good amount of crossover here. It's not 100% for sure, but it's there.

I could absolutely be approached by someone who wants to become my Provost (ie, dependent of a Master of Defense) and just Get Good At Swords. Sure, they'd absolutely have a very historical focus to the combat (see above, we're a historical studies group and also it works), but I wouldn't expect them to crack a book themselves. Rather, I'd be instructing them in a system because that's the best way (IMNSHO) towards the goal of Get Good At Swords.

I could also be approached by someone who wants to Get Good At Arts and Science and be an Apprentice. I could help with deep dives and an understanding of historical combat systems, the culture around them, and all of that - independent of "apply this system on the list field." I could also help with research in general, documenting your work, directions of study, heraldic-related studies, and a number of other non-combat things, I imagine.

I suspect that anyone who rolled up on me and asked to see if I'd be a mentor-human in the SCA though, would be sitting in the middle of the Venn diagram. I'm niche, and that's okay. But here's the thing that I'm kicking around in my brain - relationship symbols.

So in the East, provosts typically get a blue livery collar. Apprentices get a green belt. Now, on a couple levels it would amuse me to give a dependent a green collar or a blue belt as a token and sign of the relationship - I'm very much a proponent of "the relationship is defined by the two people in it, and they can use whatever symbols they like." On the other hand, I also think that a large part of wearing something like a provost collar, an apprentice belt, a cadet scarf, a squire belt, or whatever else is that it's a visible sign to people that you are dedicating yourself to that particular art. (Or "track" if that works better for you. Whichever.) It's an indication that they have a peer to whom they are responsible, and who is responsible for them. It's a sign to peers in that discipline that this person is trying to become ready to be a peer themselves. In the social landscape that is the SCA, that kind of identifiability can be really important.

So yeah. I could just do a collar and belt for someone and call it a day - though trying to make a green sword belt would be a fun project. But I dunno, there's a part of me which is just feeling like that's Too Much and a single thing would be preferable, despite the social flagging which is helpful.

Or maybe I'm just overthinking things now. That's certainly a thing that happens, especially after Pennsic.

Pennsic 48 Recap Post!

So Pennsic 48 happened! It had a number of things I wanted and needed, a few things I sure didn't want or need, and some pretty surprisingly good moments.

I did land grab. I didn't really want to do it, but I did it because I for sure did want a camp this year. It was an Experience, and one that I don't reeeeeeally need to do again. I could be convinced - pretty easily, honestly - to show up earlier during Peace Week, but I just don't need to be there without the full collection of My People, especially when my brain decides to be terrible.

Either way though, we had a camp! It happened! Many thanks to Llewellyn for making the trip down with me and being a Very Able Companion for the whole experience - it would have turned the corner into Ridiculously Bad without him. Also, I think that having some new people do the land grab thing highlighted things in the process (and things in the trailer!) which could be improved just because new folks doing the thing tends to make those things show up. So that was actually a pretty good upshot from it all.

My fencing wasn't as all encompassing as it usually is; my tennis elbow was bad enough that I fought in the heroic champs and then decided to marshal all the war point battles just to be sure that I could save it for the By the Book tournament, which is always a highlight. (I was hoping to be able to manage the Ansteorran tournament as well, but no such luck.) I always love the By the Book - there are always so many exemplars of period styles in there, and the sword-nerding as we all stand around and watch is top-notch. This year, I ended up winning both the tournament itself as well as best in style (Fabris, natch) with LOGOS coming in second in both of those. I was extremely stoked, I can tell you what. Absolutely worth taking the battles off to manage that! Getting in some pickups with LOGOS as well was super great; getting my once-yearly Fabris tuneup is always, always worth it.

I missed being out on the field with my friends and contributing to the rapier army, but if I'm not going to fight there's basically no reason not to marshal! That said, I found myself legitimately enjoying the marshaling. Being able to get a number of different vantage points was pretty neat, and being able to do something about it when someone - on either side - was skirting the rules? That was pretty neat.

I pulled a bunch of marshal in charge shifts on the field. A bunch during the first week - being able to just sit and relax and watch the world go by was a lot of what I needed. Being able to sit and watch a torrential thunderstorm come in while I was standing by myself was honestly also amazing. Generally though, I figured that if I was going to be sitting around up there anyway and there was an open shift, I'd just do something useful and hang out at the desk. (As an aside, the small marshal's tent off to the side of the main rapier tent? Amazing and I love it.)

I managed to not attend any classes - some that I wanted to attend were on top of things I couldn't miss, and other ones were just at odd times or I was feeling off so I just kept hanging out behind a desk. I did end up teaching a Fabris class though, which was pretty great!

Finally, the people. There are people who I only ever manage to see at Pennsic, which makes me want to go to far-away places and see them more. I met a couple excellent people from Drachenwald, and there's always Lochac to consider, too. Friends who are closer are still also fantastic to get to hang out with for days on end, and there were a lot of lazy afternoon and late night conversations which meant a lot to me.

So overall, a pretty okay Pennsic. Like usual, I'm coming out with a to-do list of good and helpful things to do - the first of which (aside from unpacking and doing laundry) is this very blog post so I'm going to hit publish now and get working on more good things! (Like using this blog more often.)

Journals, Letters, and Travelogues - Primary Source O'Clock, a post-Pennsic Post

This is the first of a series of post-Pennsic blog posts. Yay! This is mostly me working through an inspiration that Pennsic gave me, as well as collecting a bunch of resources that folks gave me elsewhere on the internet. So, onward!

One of the things I've been inspired to start doing is journaling as Donovan. I've seen this done before by a few people; notably Master Luke Knowlton's journals, but as recently as this Pennsic by Master Adam Comyn of the Middle Kingdom.

As a point of difference, Luke's journals are written as if by a purely historical Luke Knowlton - in and around historic real world events. (And they are amazing.) Adam's writings are written in a historical style, but by the SCA persona of Adam, Baron Comyn.

I'm planning on beginning this as an exercise in thinking more like Donovan would have or should have, and so to begin I'm going to be taking Adam's track on this - writing journals, letters, and so on as Donovan the persona, as opposed to Donovan in history. This basically means that I'll be referencing SCA occurrences, but tweaking them to get them to work better as though they were actually happening in a more period context. I mean, let's be clear - I don't have the masterful grasp of the time period and events as Master Luke does, so I don't want that to be a barrier to getting this project rolling - I can always start writing Donovan's Journals from the Low Countries later on! Beginning steps are just fine, and I think I'll still learn a good deal from this. Also, it's a good penmanship exercise, though I won't always be using a pen with a nib, just for practical reasons.

Master Adam has four rules that he uses, and I think they're pretty good:

1. Try to write about the day on that day.
1. If nothing else, this will let me keep things straight in my head.
2. No editing once words are on the page.
1. I'm going to be physically writing! I may cross out a thing and re-phrase it, but the crossed out section should still be legible. (If nothing else, this is some real opportunity for comedy.)
3. Allusion and allegory are always allowed.
1. Basically, I can always reference other bigger stories, but they may not be what they sound like.
4. Be the persona, more or less.
1. Donovan in this sense is a historic character, and I'll be trying to sort out some attitudes he may have had through this, as well as better fleshing out his actual historical persona. Also, it's about trying to write as though he would have circa 1600, and that means removing modern references and making it work.
2. This also means that I get to start playing with ideas as to how my more amusing associations and such in the SCA may or may not actually make historic sense in some ways, though for these writings I'll still be writing as a resident of my local Shire with these neighboring Baronies, in my Eastern Kingdom.

To help with this, I asked on Facebook if anyone had suggestions as to journals and letters that I could read, so as to get a better idea of the writing styles of the time, as well as daily life and the like. And oh man, did people deliver! Here's what I was given (and at least one of these is winging its way to me even now):

England, or England in the Low Countries

• Samuel Pepys' Diary
• "An Elizabethan in 1582, The Diary of Richard Maddox, Fellow of All Souls"
• "The Actions of the Low Countries", by Sir Roger Williams, ed. D.W. Davies.
• Monro, His Expedition with the Worthy Scots Regiment Called Mac-Keys
• Correspondence of Sir Henry Unton
• Thomas Conigsby's journal (The English side of the Seige de Rouen!)

France

• Agrippa D'Aubigné "Sa Vie à ses Enfants" (Available in English!)
• Blaise Monluc's "Commentaires," trans. by Charles Cotton
• Essays of Michel de Montaigne (Also available at Project Gutenberg.)
• Relation du Siege de Rouen by Guillaume Valdory (Mirrored in Conigsby's journal, above!)
• Memoirs of Robert, Segnieur de Florange
• Memoirs of Chevalier de Bayard 

Spain, or Spain in the New World, also Spain in Southeast Asia

• Catalina de Erauso, the "Lieutenant Nun" (Apologies for the dated title of this edition.)
• The Memoirs and Memorials of Jacques de Coutre: Security, Trade and Society in 16th- and 17th-century Southeast Asia

Italy

• Venice, Cità Excelentissima: Selections from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo  (Translated excerpts; if you read Italian you can get the whole thing.)

More Travelogues

• Coryat, Thomas. Coryat's Crudities. 1611
• Volume One
• Volume Two
• Moryson, Fynes. An Itinerary: Containing His Ten Years Travel Through the Twelve Dominions of Germany, Bohemia, Switzerland, Netherland, Denmark, Poland, Italy, Turkey, France, England, Scotland and Ireland. 1617. 
• Volume One
• Volume Two
• Volume Three
• Volume Four

Other

• The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Imperial Ambassador at Constantinople, 1554-1562

Early Exploration of New England

• Gabriel Archer and John Brereton writing about Gosnold's 1602 expedition. 
• Pring 1603
• Waymouth, and others 
• David Quinn has edited some excellent books on the subject.

Thanks to Jehan, Luke, Niccolo, Elias, Aildreda, LOGOS, Rufinia, Aubri, Christian, and Tacit for supplying all these recommendations! I'll keep editing this post with links to where they can be found as I dig them up.

Post-Pennsic Post and Bonus Practice Report

It's a little late, but here's a quick and messy What I Remember About Pennsic summary, followed by a Monday night practice report.

As with all Pennsic summaries this year, I have to open by saying: So, how about that weather? It sure was awful; the loss of the woods was sad, and the field closures were also sad, but when the heat index is (I was told) 106* or so, yeah, I can see just closing things to prevent idiots from hurting themselves. (Though the folks in the By The Book tournament all were hydrating and doing so well!) Still and all, I think we avoided a number of heat injuries with that decision, so props to Fraiser for making the difficult call and putting up with people being cranky. (Which I admit I was one of, but he was super reasonable and great.)

Weather aside, there was some great fencing to be had. Champions was blessedly early in the week, a trend which I'm very fond of. We had some delays build up over the course of the day, but I actually rather liked Sunday being All The Sword Champions Stuff all one after the other - belted, unbelted, rattan heroics, rapier melee, rapier heroics... the whole bundle of it all.

I got to fight in two of my usual favorite tournaments this Pennsic - the Ansteorran tournament and the By The Book tournament - which given my otherwise bonkers schedule was both lucky and necessary. The Ansteorran tournament was run well, with tasty tasty food and excellent fencers. I lost to Tora Taka (again - but I've laid blade on him before and I will again. Next year! Neeeeext yeeeeeear!) and another gentleman that I can't recall. I felt fine about most of my bouts, but the second loss just bothered me; I felt like I fell out of my head and I suffered because of it.

The By The Book tournament was amazing - I always love the crowd that turns up for it, and the sideline conversations are helpful, enlightening, and insightful. We ended up with pools of like styles, which meant that I got a few good Capo Ferro and Fabris bouts in before it was called on account of heat. I left feeling like I was in a pretty good place with my Fabris. Not fantastic, but pretty good.

(For non-fencing things: Seeing friends get well-deserved awards is always amazing. Sorcha and Lupold are now members of the Order of the Golden Rapier, which is fantastic. Dio and Doroga are both Silver Rapiers now, Eon has his AoA, and Meggie has an Augmentation of Arms. I was lucky enough to get to read Ruslan's Tyger of the East scroll in English, which was a blast. I also got Court done on Wednesday in under two hours, and had a number of very able assistants for that, without which I would have lost my mind.)

Of note, I was able to get in some bouts and conversation with Master Miguel from Ansteorra as well as Trey from the Chicago Sword Guild, and unsurprisingly I walked away from all of that with some thoughts on what I should work on; combined with practice this past Sunday and Monday, I'll have a pretty good list of things to pay attention to for a while.

On to practice thoughts!

Sunday practice was in the good Doctor's backyard. Did some slightly (but only slightly!) slowed down fencing with Meggie, which was great. Also worked on some more upright postures with Rowan, and Moar Fabris with Anastasia.

Monday had me feeling a little off, though. I don't really have a good sense for why; I've been stressed about some unrelated things lately, and maybe I just had too much in my brain. Either way though, I at least walked away with some confirmation of Fabris thoughts that I've had, so it was still very useful time spent!

Here's where I'm at, then. Besides all my usual stuff - footwork, smooth movement, balance, voids:

• I'm being very deliberate in my guard transitions. Fine for drills, bad for fighting. Speed them up.
• Stay more relaxed, and snap tight at the end. (I think of this as similar to how I was taught kata.)
• More mobility. Play with measure like I used to.
• Practice moving from a lunge to a pass.
• Stop relying on binds (or opposition with blade contact) so much. Go reread some of Fabris' plays; there are lots that rely on tempo and not contact.
• Remember that when I'm using an extended guard, action is going to start from further out.

And now I know!

A few Pennsic thoughts.

Before I dive back into the Fabris (WITH SHOUTING, FOR IAN) I figured I'd drop a few notes on Pennsic here - or at least specifically fighting notes. In no particular order, even!

The melees were, well, melees. That said though, they were really, really smooth and had not nearly the number of issues that I'm used to. I blame the weather being so awesome and not hot and gross. The fact that it wasn't 95* with humidity to match really seemed to take the tempers off.

There was a meaningful force imbalance in play, though I admit that I'm not sure of the numbers. It was especially noticeable in the woods though, where the East was able to have a pretty much unbroken line across the entire woods and the Middle, well, couldn't. Partway through, the East was told by either HRM or HRH (I got differing reports on that) to stop using DFBsThe bridge battle (Gunning: The War Point) was wacky fun, but pretty unsatisfying as a war point. Again, I didn't notice any really upset fighters though, so I imagine we all had the same attitude going into it.

Another thing that I noticed for something like the second or third year running was the Freelance Academy Press sponsored track of WMA classes. This is excellent, and I want more of this. I realize this means that I need to put up or shut up, and despite my fear of a class full of people who will point and tell me how wrong I am, that I should do this damn thing, huh?

A few things did make me blink over the course of Pennsic, though.

Meat Shields - I come from a kingdom where disabled fencers are obliged to remove themselves from the field, so we tend to just not see them where I'm from. I get that it's not forbidden by Pennsic convention (and likely in other kingdoms as well), but man, I just think it's silly. That said, I saw (and at one point was involved in) what would have been a double kill situation in a tournament with one person dead and the other having lost both arms, but the latter being allowed to continue because hey, they aren't dead. (Which, for the record, I was totally okay with every time I saw it.) So maybe I'm just a hypocrite, or it's a melee thing that irks me because melee.

Spears - Oh, boy. So. A number of folks from a number of kingdoms brought a number of examples of experimental spear designs to show people, play around with, and get feedback on. Universally, I think, the reactions were, "Well, it's neat, but hell if I want to get hit with that." Personally, I have Strong Feelings about them, on both sides. In almost nothing resembling order:

• Rapier is, at heart, a civilian weapon. Our melees are at best random terrible militia and more likely Montague v. Capulet brawls. Why the hell would we have pikes?
• Without putting any force behind a shot I was able to hit Caine hard enough to make him, as he put it, "Throw up in his mouth a little." Granted, I put the point in the right place while he wasn't braced for it, but how often would that happen in a melee? Lots. And that was with no force behind the shot - I can't imagine what that would have done with the force that I'd end up throwing in a melee.
• Any head shot with a spear transferred all the force right to the neck. There's no extra mass in what we wear on our heads to soak up the force.
• The arms race. We're already seeing it to a small degree with twohanders, and a very large degree with shields. (As an aside, I would kill for a maximum shield size of 24". Pretty sure that's the biggest thing I've found in any manual or the like that was used with rapiers or rapierlike weapons. Am I wrong? I'm probably wrong.) I feel that if pikes showed up, then it would very rapidly become All Pikes and All Giant Shields All The Time and then we're basically fighting rattan without armor. I just don't want that in rapier.
• On the other hand, spears were taught in a number of period manuals, and also used in the London Masters of Defense prize fights. It would be pretty awesome if we could see a longsword v. spear match, assuming it could be done safely.

I'm not sure where that leaves me. I think that I might be okay with spears as a C&T only option (which also defaults to no melee), assuming a good and safe design could be created - and that's already a pretty high bar to set. They just have more mass, and thanks to F=MA, that means they'll just hit harder no matter what.

DFB - I'm still a little divided here. It's a tool, and I use it really well. It's realistic, in that if I can get behind someone on a melee field for long enough to plant my feet, they're guaranteed out of the fight. But it's not what I want to play. I want more people facing me when I kill them, and I want more of That Kind Of Honorable Engagement. Then again, I'm also the person who wants to give more people singles when they ask for them despite also rolling over people in melees in which we're supposed to be training for Pennsic. I should really just examine what I want out of my own game and make up my mind, huh? I suspect the answer will make me less popular in the East, and more Donovan "Funkiller" Shinnock, but whatev. I'll go read The Phoenix Guard again and remind myself of one of the big reasons I got into this whole organization, right? Right.

So that was my Pennsic. I fought a whole lot of people, saw some great people get recognized for being great, avoided the EMT cart, and had fun doing what I do. Which is pretty great.