Jamming with Steel for the second time...
This past weekend Orlando Taekwondo and Kung Fu Martial Arts School played host to the second Steel Jam tournament. The Steel Jam series is a collaborative effort amongst HEMA club leaders across Florida, initiated by John and Will of Crossroads Swords. This time around the quarterly tournament series had two unique events going on.
"Straight to the Point" Single Rapier kicked things off as the first event of the day. This ruleset was developed by Quoc Lieu from Bold City Longsword and John Knoch from Crossroads Swords. What made this ruleset unique was the exclusion of an off hand weapon (think shield, or parrying dagger) for the sake of focusing purely on skills with the rapier itself.
17 fighters competed from over 11 different schools with deep lunges, bent blades, and alot of cutting strikes to get the winning point. After some intense back and forth matches, Max Tuel (UWF Fencing Club) took 4th, Christopher Nguyen (Kraken Swords) took 3rd, Mike Roth (Heartland Hema) took 2nd, and Keith Hamm (Bold City Longsword) took 1st place.
The second event, starting after lunch, was "Head Hunter Fechtschule Longsword" a ruleset adapted by Derek Quintana (Meyers Combat Academy) and Victor Rodriguez (Medieval Sword Arts) from a historical ruleset. This particular longsword tournament was not only a continuous fencing format, but only allowed cuts, slices and flat strikes as valid ways to score a point. Only the head/the upper quadrant of the body (a little above the shoulders) were considered valid targets. Absolutely NO THRUSTING. To say this format shook things up for those who hadn't experienced it before, would be a vast understatement.
Power calls, (as in calls by the director to dial down the level of power per swing) unknown strike confirmations, and even random stopping on the part of the fighters not used to the continous ruleset, plagued the first couple fights of the pools until the rhythm was found. 16 fighters (myself included) from 10 different schools partook in the artful yet tiring ruleset until we got to our top 4. Quoc Lieu (Bold City Longsword) took 4th, Jakoah Amidon (Meyers Combat Academy) took 3rd, Will Landis (Crossroads Swords) took 2nd, and Benjamin Aycrigg (Atlanta Historical Fencing Academy) took 1st place.
Along with the typical competition prizes pictured on the table above, I wanted to highlight the raffle prizes for HemAmbulance which both fighters and audience members where encouraged to donate to. The buckler, two knives and more were up for grabs for anyone donating to the project aimed at assisting a HEMA practicioner and Chief Combat Medic in Ukraine named Ray. The HEMA community as a whole helped her purchase the vehicle she uses to save wounded soldiers and these donations help keep it running.
Steeljam is a welcome edition to the Florida HEMA landscape as the quarterly frequency of the event keeps fighters on their toes and actively training while awaiting annual tourneys, not only in the state but worldwide as well. (So Cal Swordfight, Combatcon, Swordfish, etc) The creators are also not afraid to branch out and try new formats, exposing fighters to rulesets they may not be used to but delivering a unique experience that is sure to stick in their minds until it's time to go jamming with steel once again.
Comments
Post a Comment