SCA @ UVa

Friday night Robear and Alicia and Jonathan stayed over so we could get an early start in the morning.
Jonathan and I polished helms after I cooked dinner. In the morning, we all had a plush drive in Robear's monster van to the site. I got a nap on the way.
The day was hot, but tolerable. About 50 armored combatants came out.
Things seemed to really take a long time to get started, and it really looked like the marshals needed to get moving faster once the authorizing fighters assembled. I put a bit of push onto that, but not as much as I should.
Jonathan authorized! He also fought all day long, almost. His loaned warshield broke just before the last portal battle, and he was done from the heat. We now have two fully authorized SCA fighters who are UVa students. That's almost a record. Considering the number of "nearly ready" fighters who will be back on campus in a month, I imagine by mid-fall, we'll be at 5! Picture by Skorri.
Yes, he's wearing my "Mod 2" aketon, which was new in 1994, when Thorbrandr was prince. And that's Colin's old helm.
For the first time in quite a while, I felt like I had a good day on the melee field with pole and spear. I found myself in the right place to do some real work in each of the three field battles, which I fought with polearm. In each of those, I tagged several people, usually at least one of the opposing knights. One count said a chest shot "was pretty hard."
Later, with spear in the bridge battles, I found myself hitting challenging shots onto the charging opponents, often from "over the top" of our defenders. Those are the kind of shots I don't usually get because in that press I'm constantly getting bumped, having someone step in front of me, or some other interference. In all the bridges, I think I only died to Kymber's bolts. There was lots of discussion about how I had suddenly found the fountain of youth--in other words, that Jonathan looks like me, twenty years ago. Colin says one of us needs to shave our beards. It will only get worse when I get a haircut this week! But it did generate a potential SCA name for Jonathan--someone else thought up "Aloisius" and I added "Cortez" for the fountain of youth. Somehow, I don't think he'll go for it.

Northerners should feel ashamed of their limited attendance. Compare the DC area 3 hour drive to one fine fellow who made the trip from Border Vale Keep, a 7+ hour drive. My applause to those (ten?) northerner armored combatants who made it, but where the the other 30 of you? Today I'm not too tired or too sore. I guess the Wii is helping my conditioning! Tomorrow is a big regional practice in Caer Mear, with people from Tir-y-don, Isenfir and Black Diamond all converging on the regular Tuesday Caer Mear practice. Come on out!

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