I hope they do post some or all of your bouts because I think upon review you will see that you didn’t do as badly as you think you did and will get the visual verification that you already know and expressed to me on Saturday in that you did a much better job of controlling the center than being preoccupied with scoring points.
I hope you're right. The more I try to play it back in my head, the fuzzier it gets, and the more I worry that it'll look like I was just aimlessly flailing the sword around.
I feel I did better last year. But who knows.
I’m pretty sure he was wearing lacrosse type of gloves which I know is fairly decent protection but then again there isn’t truly any sure fire protection unless you don’t let them hit you at all of course which I’m a proven failure at!
One down side of steel gauntlets in a tournament setting is the telltale “clang” of a hit, so a judge doesn’t even have to see the hit to know the blade landed on the hands as one particular bout proved out…funny thing was the week before one of the assistant instructors warned the guy of that potentially happening, (he was a MASHS member as well).
Is there another "division" or bracket where the combatants wear period armour?
Yeah, pretty much everyone was using some sort of lacrosse or hockey gloves, with a few exceptions. A handful of people did use steel gauntlets. Steel wasn't outlawed, but it was discouraged over a safety concern for the opponent. These bouts allowed for full grappling in the rules, so it was permitted to wrestle and throw each other over. That's just not as safe when plate armor components are involved.
Some of the HEMA/WMA groups do indeed have armored combat. But armor is more expensive and difficult to get, and also extremely unsafe if you're doing actual armored combat techniques (throws, thrusts into the joints of the armor, etc). The idea here was to do unarmored techniques with relatively easy to get sporting gear for safety.
BTW, some of the photos of the event are getting posted on facebook. I found a couple of good ones of me: