Tell me a story; Whats your favorite fighting story?

[Thorsteinn]

Tell me a story. Tell me o your favorite time ever fighting for it is cold & snowy and I could use some cheer.

[Thorsteinn]

For Best Results, read this out loud, to an audience that has been drinking.

Once upon a time, there was a fighter (who's name has been changed to "Bob"). Bob was a martial artist who worked out religiously and was always looking for new ways to spice up his workouts. One day, during a particularly satisfying workout, Bob said to a fellow student "you know, I'd like to go full contact with weapons, just once."

And his friend replied "I know some folks who do that, sort of. We meet at Auduvon Park every Sunday. It's called fighter practice"

Bob was intrigued. He went out, and after some few words concerning the white belt he respectfully wore with his gi, Bob took to fighting like a fish takes to water. His footwork was excellent. He was quick. He hit fairly hard, but not too hard. He was Big, well over six feet, and he was a really nice guy. He quickly realized that he preferred fighting to Karate, but he knew that time in the Dojo equated to victory on the field.

He bought himself some used armor. He polished it twice, and then shined it up again. Then he painted it black, because black is cool. Then he polished it again.

He made himself a HUGE plywood shield, and painted it black. Because black is cool.

He spent a happy couple of months slugging it out on the practice field. It was high summer, and Bob spent it awash in gatorade and endorphins. The girls were wearing scanty, summer clothes, and they seemed to really like Bob. Then one day, his friend told him, "Most of the guys are going to an event next week, do you wanna come?"

Bob was fascinated, but wary. "What exactly is an event?" he asked.

"It's like a tournament, only this one is the big one, all the best fighters will be there."

"Where is it?" Bob asked.

"In Pennsylvania. I'll help you with the stuff you need, and I need somebody to split the gas with."

*****************

Bob was off at Pennsic War for war week. He was a good boy on Monday. He fought all day, and then he went back to camp, ate a bowl of rice, and then went to bed.

He was good boy on Tuesday. He was a good boy on Wednesday. He was a good boy on Thursday. But then on Friday, when bunch of Black Belts (I mean White Belts) who had been expecting to run into Bob at parties followed Bob back to camp.

Bob had a beer with Sir Gawain, and Sir Bedevere, and Sir Galahad, and the rest of the round table to boot. He ended up drinking Tequilla with a bunch of Knights who's names he never could remember.

He got back to his tent at about four thirty, and crashed hard.

Bob was camped in a spot that is called The Serengetti, which means he didn't need an alarm clock. He was up at eight, but he wished he had been dead instead. His stomache rebelled at being vertical, but didn't get any better when he laid back down. He didn't feel any better when he drank a beer for breakfast, so he decided to splurge on a Pennsic Breakfast.

Pennsic breakfasts are good, and plentiful, but they are a little greasy. It didn't help when he put two big cups of coffee on top of the whole thing. All those substances in his stomache were arguing, and it looked like there was going to be some serious violence on the abdominal front.

Bob got his armor together, and went down to the woods, to fight in the woods battle, about two miles from where he was camped. For those of you who are not fighters, the easiest way to carry your helmet, weapons and shield two miles on foot, is to wear it. Bob figured this out quickly. Bob also realized that he should have replaced the foam that padded his helmet. He also realized, that when walking in the sun, black is not cool. He was sure that he could smell both of the previous owners, and the heat gave the padding an extra bouquet that gave it real punch.

When Bob got to the muster point, he sat quietly in the shade and let his stomache calm down. He was sitting quietly in the shade when the king of the East Kingdom wandered by. He wasn't feeling so good himself, but he was better off than Bob was.

His Majesty was also about five foot three.

His Majesty thought "Look at that big guy. Boy that armor has been around, but he takes good care of it. He must have been fighting for a long time. And look at that look on his face! Boy, am I glad he's on my side!"

Bob was thinking, "I'm never gonna take another drink as long as I live."

His Majesty strolled up to Bob, and said, "You're that guy from the field battle, I want you to be in my personal Bodyguard!"

Bob, unaware of the honor he had just been offered, said "yeah, sure, tell me where to stand".

The king told him, and wandered off, apparently heartily impressed.

************

Bob was in the front rank of the Great Eastern Army as it wound like a great snake into the black opening in the woods. They hadn't proceeded a hundred yards when a little guy with diamonds on his helmet ran up, flushed and excited, and told the king,

"I found their Banner! It's just down the path about fifty yards, then left through the thornbushes, across the ditch, over the blackberry patch, then straight on throught the sticker bushes! They aren't ready! You can surprise them!!"

The king raised the royal sword and said loudy "Alright Men!"

Which to Bob meant "Charge!"

To everybody else this meant "hey ya'll, listen up, I'm gonna tell you something, so put your helmet on and shut up or you wont hear it!" Then they noticed that Bob was off, running down the path. It took them a couple of seconds to realize what was going on.

Bob ran down the path, through the thornbushes, across the ditch, through the blackberry patch, through the sticker bushes and out into the clearing that contained the Midrealm banner.

Bob was not noticing the fact the all the rest of the army seemed to have disappeared. He had more important things on his mind.

The things he had put in his stomache had gotten together, and had decided that maybe it was time for them to come up in the world.

The even dozen midrealm knights guarding their kingdom's fabled banner were indeed uprepared, they were smoking cigarettes, leaning on their polearms, and talking about how hungover they were. They saw Bob enter the clearing, and noticed that Bob was a single man. They counted him. Then they counted again. Bob was still an army of one. The Midrealm knights decided to form up anyway, because they needed the practice.

As Bob entered the clearing, he burped.

That was the sign.

Anybody who has ever made that burp knows what it means.

About five steps out from the enemy shieldwall, Bob knew it wasn't going to be his day.

About three steps out from the sheildwall, Bob knew it wasn't going to be the shieldwall's day. Bob knew that his stomache would inevitably reject everything in it.

The inevitable occurred. Quite a bit of the inevitable occurred, all over those Midrealm knights.

Cries of "up the middle" became "sh*t!" and "you *sshole, this is Brocade! My girlfriend's gonna kill me!"

There is a psuedo medical condition called "Sympathetic Vomiting."

Oddly enough, one of those Midrealm knights began to use his own God given breath weapon....and Another....and then there were more after that.

About that time the Great Eastern Army came into the little clearing. His Eastern Majesty found, to his surprise, a shieldwall that was rapidly trying to get away from itself.

He found Bob, humiliated, trying to become one with a rabbit hole. Bob, oddly enough, was spotlessly clean, unlike all the midrealm soldiers. Bob was sure he would have to find a new hobby.

He stood over Bob and said,

"Kid, I don't know what you did, or how you did it, and I don't want you to tell me what you did."

"Don't tell me!"

"I want you to do it again this afternoon in the mountain pass battle!"

True story.


(permission is given to share this story, tell it out loud, or publish it in your newsletter, but don't change anything, credit me, and don't ask me to fill out a form. I won't squeak, I promise)

From: http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=180588

[Lord Dane]

I think Thorsteinn started a thread he can answer all by himself.

[Sir William]

Freiman is a good storyteller; helps as he's a minstrel. 

[Henrik Granlid]

I wrote this up for a reddit thread about that One Moment when you knew you were absolutely fucked.


"Some setup: I do SCA Heavy Fighting, using rattan bats and steel armour. Within the SCA, the only way (in almost every kingdom) to earn the title King is by winning (or have your queen win) a Crown Tournament, competing against people who have been doing this for 10, 20, or even 30+ years and beating them.
I had been doing this for about 8 months.

The Prince of Nordmark (Leader-by-tournament of a principality within the larger kingdom of Drachenwald) had put my unit in the middle of the battle line. We were maybe... Ten or twelve people, most of us with only little to medium experience, with only one or two strong fighters.
He did not, however, put our unit in the middle so that we would hunker down and get supported by other units, our task was harsh and heavy, he put our unit down to disrupt and bog down the King's guard for as long as possible, using stronger fighters to take the flanks, sacrificing us.
To make matters worse, we had one man whom, the previous two bouts, had charged out of the unit much too early, breaking us up.

So, there we stood, one or two well trained fighters, me and a bunch of others, not even a year into our proper training and with very little experience of the battlefield.
Opposing us were seasoned fighters, several of which were Knights (the equivalent of veteran black-belts in most other martial arts), the squires of the knights (personally picked to be taught and trained by said knights), a handful of dukes (former Kings) and the Crown Prince and Princess (the successors, chosen earlier in the year through tourney).
And our job was not only to bind and disrupt them, but to try to kill as many of them as possible, before taking a rattan bat to the helmet or torso, keeling over.
The battledrums started, and the marshal's cried "Lay on!"
And this is not the moment, that comes later.

We start advancing, through the eyeslots of my helmet, I can see the battle-lines swell, not unlike waves that slowly roll and gather. The banner of the king flies tall beneath the trees and sun sifts through the leaves. I see my friend try to pull away as we get nearer, I call "Stay" and he waits, for now.

A few more steps and errant arrows bounce off our shields, again, my friend starts pushing forward harder, I can see our unit starting to shift, a peak forming. "Stay!" I call, louder than before, and the peak recedes.
I can see the weapons of the King's guard now, greatweapons and spears. There will be no hunkered formation, there will be no static battle lines, for their range and skill far outclasses ours.
But we have not been given the order by our commander to charge, only to advance. Step by moss-broken step.
We can see their faces now, through bar-grills and visors, but the order is not given to charge, and we're still barely out of range to be speared, a few more steps and we'll start a controlled, shield-wall advance. The line-formation of our unit starts to peak. A few more steps and ... It breaks.

My friend whom I'd been holding back through strong voice alone breaks off, and before we know it, four more fighters are behind him, scattered. "Charge!" our leader cries out, for we have to jump on it, we cannot deal with a long-distance battle against the King's guard when half of our unit is dead, so we have to help them.
And I charge in.
It may sound like the line breaking and the order being given happened in ten or twenty seconds, or maybe even longer, I assure you, we had less than a moment.
And I'm in the thick of it, my shield raised and I feel the force of a greatweapon push my shieldarm down and toward me, but before whomever struck the blow can capitalise, we fall over.

My friend had tumbled in with such force that he knocked nearly every fighter off their feet. I saw grass and dirt and moss and twigs through the eyeslits of my visor and my breath was hot air.

I had to get up.

I rolled slightly to the side, jammed the edge of my shield into the ground and pushed, I got a leg up. I shoved the basket of my sword into the forest floor as well, and I managed to raise my head and get a grip with a foot and then another.

As I rose from the moss and dirt however, something red swirled a little bit in front of me, I was still in battle, I was still alive. I had to strike.
And as I lunged forward, accelerating my sword through my arm and hip and forward motion, I saw a crest flash in the red linen.

A yellow circle, with a black dragon inside ...

The crest of the Crown Prince ... The bottom of his tunic was edged with them.

Now or never.

And he blocked the blow on the haft of his polearm.

There was a moment, no longer than half a blink, but in that moment, I knew I was utterly and absolutely fucked.

I threw another blow, but he blocked it with a counter, which I, in turn, took on my shield. Then he struck again, and I caught it on my sword and then a third time, and I felt my helmet lurch and my teeth shake.
And as is customary, I let my body fall to the forest floor again, this time, I would not rise until the Marshals cried "Hold!" or declared the battle over.

I could see the Crown Prince join up with most of the King's Guard and meet a flanking force head on.
If only we could've held them for a moment longer.
And then, like all people having a good time would, we held another battle.

This one, a capture the flag, with another great story about feeling completely and utterly fucked.
But that's a story for another comment."

[Sir Rodney]

Nice!