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Main => The Courtyard => Topic started by: Sir Edward on 2015-03-12, 14:29:01
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FYI, WMAW 2015 registration is opening in a few days (and fills quickly, especially if you want on-site housing):
Hi everyone,
In a few days we will be opening registration for WMAW 2105. We're still updating our registration page, but in the meantime, you can take a look our instructor roster and the classes we'll be offering this year.
I'll be announcing open registration soon, so stay sharp -- the event fills up quickly!
Regards,
John O'Meara
Registrar
WMAW 2015
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Update:
Hi everyone,
It's not quite as early as we hoped, but we now have a definite date for opening registration: Monday, March 23rd.
You can start checking our website around mid-afternoon on that day (U.S. Central Time).
Thanks for your patience. We hope to see you in September!
John O'Meara
Registrar
WMAW 2015
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Registration is open, as of about an hour before this post. I just registered, and it said the feast is "full", but the payment and confirmation pages showed me as signed up for the feast, so I think it's just a glitch. Just say "yes" for the waiting list and I think it is signing you up for the feast.
We are pleased to announce that registration for the 2015 Western Martial Arts Workshop is now open.
Please visit our website (http://www.wmaw.us/) for info, class schedule and descriptions, and online registration. If you have any questions or problems with your registration, feel free to contact me at wmaw.registrar@gmail.com.
The even fills up quickly -- if you find registration closed, contact me to get on our waiting list. We usually have a number of cancellations before September, so your chances of getting in will be very good.
Hope to see you in September at WMAW!
John O'Meara
Registrar
WMAW 2015
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Just a reminder that this event fills up FAST. The registration form has been open for almost two days now.
Last time, I signed up after about 4 or 5 days and had to get on the waiting list.
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Looks like I've been invited to participate in the armored deed of arms this year. I'm looking forward to it!
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Looks like I've been invited to participate in the armored deed of arms this year. I'm looking forward to it!
Congrats!
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Looks like I've been invited to participate in the armored deed of arms this year. I'm looking forward to it!
Excellent! I know you'll have a blast! :)
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Due to some cancellations, they have re-opened registration:
http://www.wmaw.us/2015/ (http://www.wmaw.us/2015/)
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I got in about a month ago. Looking forward to it!
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The time is upon us. I'll report back next week, hopefully with some pictures!
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Good luck Ed. :) Have a great time.
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The time is upon us. I'll report back next week, hopefully with some pictures!
Come back with your shield, or on it!
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Good luck!
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Good luck Ed. :) Have a great time.
Good luck Ed *AND JAMES*
Sheesh :D
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Good luck Ed. :) Have a great time.
Good luck Ed *AND JAMES*
Sheesh :D
Good Luck Ed AND JAMES ;D
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Good luck Ed. :) Have a great time.
Good luck Ed *AND JAMES*
Sheesh :D
You're in the deed of arms too, Sir James? Well congratulations- and good luck! Break an opponent's leg! Not really, but that would seem more fortuitous than wishing you to break one of your own. ;)
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Good luck Ed. :) Have a great time.
Good luck Ed *AND JAMES*
Sheesh :D
I just thought you wouldn't need it, James. :)
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Good luck Ed. :) Have a great time.
Good luck Ed *AND JAMES*
Sheesh :D
You're in the deed of arms too, Sir James? Well congratulations- and good luck! Break an opponent's leg! Not really, but that would seem more fortuitous than wishing you to break one of your own. ;)
Nope, I wasn't in the deed of arms, just did some classes, some free fencing, and some watching. But I can always use more luck. :)
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The event was great, as always! It was slightly different this year, due to a lot of the usual familiar faces (and personalities) being absent. But there were many more familiar people who were there, and some great new attendees and friends as well.
One highlight was that I got to meet (and fight against) Scott Farrell of Chivalry Today (http://chivalrytoday.com/). I didn't realize his podcast was still going on, just in a less frequent format, so we binge-listened to it on the drive home yesterday.
But of course the primary highlight is that this year I was invited to the Deed of Arms, as we talked about previously in this thread. Amusingly, they're usually overrun with people wanting to participate, so they asked some people to sit aside this time to get some of the new faces in... and then more people dropped out due to injuries or other problems leading up to the event. And even so, they still managed to get 15 total fighters onto the field. This has sent a clear message to the event organizers that there is a lot of harness among the community who attends, and a lot of interest in putting it to use. So in the future, they may expand into some additional harness workshops and practice periods.
For the Deed, they altered the format a little this year. Points were scored based on "armor as worn" as usual, with the caveat that the Poleaxe is designed to defeat armor, so that could hit anywhere. Also, there would be no "pause and reset" after each point. The fighters would just keep fighting while the judges counted the blows. The fight would end after at least 5 total blows were struck (with occasional overruns due to the speed of the fight), or a "victory condition" was reached, such as throwing your opponent out of the lyst, or throwing your opponent to the ground while remaining standing yourself.
I got to pick my opponents, as the newcomers (the Venons) would challenge specific defenders (Tenons). I picked the ones I hadn't fought yet, disregarding the fact that they were probably some of the best fighters there.
My first fight in the deed was over way too quickly. We fought with longsword, and the dude got a shot to my hand, and then right after charged in and threw me. Fight over.
On the second fight, I went up against Scott Wilson (of Darkwood Armory), using poleaxes. I chose the poleaxe knowing that I'd probably get my ass handed to me with it. But that was partly the point. ;) My new Darkwood gauntlets were great. One of my parries caught his poleaxe such that the head clipped the edge of my pinky... and it was like "whatever"... (when is it "whatever" when a poleaxe is involved!?!?). I'm sure he won, but I never heard the score. I know I got at least one point when I counter-struck his leg. I was also setting up to pull his axe head to the ground (and had just gotten it there) when they called a halt, so I don't know if I would have landed a blow from that or not. But it wasn't the pure devastation upon me that I expected, and I didn't find out until later why that was. I was wearing a white belt, and Scott, being an old SCAdian, started re-evaluating and overthinking his approach to me, thinking I was an SCA knight. He decided to play a long-range game, thinking it would throw me off... but instead, that's what I wanted. So I still lost, just not as badly as I could have.
My third fight was supposed to be against Bob Charette, using the longsword. But he had been thrown out of the lyst on his previous fight, landed fairly hard, and badly bent one of his MacPherson greaves. He was pretty put out, and had to stop. So I was asked to pick a new opponent out of a very short list (so no one would fight twice in rapid succession), so I chose Jessica Finley, because I knew she and I wouldn't go crazy on each other and would just have a fun fight. Our fight was a bit of a stab-fest, but it was fun, and rounded out at a score of 4 to 4, and then I landed a final blow on her in sudden death (unless it was a double counted for her instead, all I know is I got one in and then they called a halt).
So after all three "rounds" of the Deed were done, it ended nearly an hour early due to the new "keep fighting" format without the resets. So they had people line up to do some pickup fights for another 30 minutes. I challenged Scott Farrell with spears. I quickly got the score up to 4-0 in my favor. Knowing that one more point from either of us would end the match with a loss for him, he went in for the throw. Neither of us had a particularly good position on each other. I nearly escaped the throw, and then nearly took him down with me, but he managed to stay on his feet when I landed, so it turned into a quick victory for him. This is also what earned him the award for "First among Equals" afterward... Taking a severe losing position and turning it around at the last second, and staying in the game.
I also found out afterward that this year had the largest number of banners and heraldic display in the Deed to date. It was considered a huge success...
Thankfully the rain held off during the Deed. However, it struck while we were repacking the truck afterward. Oh well. Wet armor after all.
I didn't take as many pictures this year, but I do have a bunch. I still need to go through and do basic cropping/etc and get them posted.
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Awesome account Edward! I truly wish I could have seen it in person! Alas maybe next time! :)
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I posted pictures to Facebook, but for those not on there, here's a gallery on my website:
http://ed.toton.org/cgi-bin/gallery.pl?g=2015.wmaw (http://ed.toton.org/cgi-bin/gallery.pl?g=2015.wmaw)
During my first fight in the Deed, my helm popped off again. I was pretty fed up with that... and as it turns out, John van Hassel (Windrose Armory) was there in the vendor tent the next day, and I had him install a chin strap. For $20, the problem is solved.
These are the new Wisby-like gaunts I picked up from Darkwood Armory. I need to add some glue and stitches to keep things in place a little better, but I think the protection will be fantastic.
(http://ed.toton.org/photos/2015/wmaw/b7137.jpg) (http://ed.toton.org/photos/2015/wmaw/b7137b.jpg)
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Looks like a fun time!
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I'll throw my 2 cents in here too.
This year was my first time at WMAW. Having only 1 year of WMA classes under my belt, I still had a great time. It's a 4 day event, but it still had enough for beginners to do and isn't just for the intermediate / advanced practitioners. And although there were some missing big names in the industry, since I've never seen them at this event, I didn't even notice the difference.
So for anybody wondering about attending in 2017, I recommend it!
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It looks like everyone had a blast! :)
Though not historically accurate, those Darkwood gauntlets are dead sexy and awesome for SCA combat as well. :D
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It looks like everyone had a blast! :)
Though not historically accurate, those Darkwood gauntlets are dead sexy and awesome for SCA combat as well. :D
Agreed. :)
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For those not following on the Book of Faces, here is some video.
I had some nice friendly messer practice one evening (I'm in bright blue with white belt, of course):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPNIBQ2OHAA
In the deed of arms, I fought four fights, but only three of them are in this one continuous video. Time indices below. The missing fight is in a separate video below, from someone's phone:
Procession video: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccasmithcruz/videos/10206455967829778/?pnref=story (https://www.facebook.com/rebeccasmithcruz/videos/10206455967829778/?pnref=story)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2K62LTT6O0
Fight #1, My first fight was over way too quickly, and starts at around 10:40. The next day I had a chin strap installed so the helmet malfunction doesn't happen again.
Fight #2, Versus Scott Wilson (Darkwood Armory) w/ poleaxe, starts around 44:40. I lost, but it looked pretty decent.
Fight #3, versus Jessica Finley with the longsword: https://www.facebook.com/michael.sigman/videos/10205630956041434/?pnref=story (https://www.facebook.com/michael.sigman/videos/10205630956041434/?pnref=story)
Fight #4, versus Scott Farrell (Chivalry Today), with spear, starts around 1:12:50. I almost won, had a score of 4-0, then he threw me over.