First sword practice of the year

[fbhjr]

For the second day in a row it was sunny and warm.


When we got to the practice ground, the snow from last week was still on the ground.


At last year’s Gulf Coast Ren Faire , the storm was so bad it destroyed our old tent.

So, my wife ordered a new tent that we picked up when we were back in Pensacola in November.

But, the poles needed to be stained and varnished and the connectors needed to be painted. So, we decided to work on that today.


It was complicated by the fact that when we turned the heat on in our practice space, the roof began leaking.


But, we still got in some sword fighting.


Today we were working on Joachim Meyer’s rapier. German’s weren’t known for their rapier, but there are some moves that might work well in a show.



I had to show folks the book so they saw I wasn’t making up the “sneering nose” move.


My wife has studied more rapier than I have but even she couldn’t always get across the moves to David and Devon.


But, she assures me that it was wood stain on her hands, not their blood.

Comments

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

That tent is awesome!!!

This is probably a really dumb question, but do you use real swords .. sharpened ... so it's actually quite dangerous if you don't practise?

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

My wife spent 6 months on the phone with the maker going over details on it, so we are all very happy that it came out as well as it did.

Don't worry, that isn't even close to a dumb question. The swords are steel, but not overly sharp. Even with blunt edges they can still be quite dangerous. Yesterday I accidently hit our newest member in the leg and put a sizable hole in his jeans. The good news is I hit his pocket and the car keys in them, so it was a hole in just the pants. I still felt quite bad about doing it.

So, not sharp, but we still practice almost every week we don't have shows to make sure it is as safe as possible.

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

From what I can see from the photo - the detail is amazing and it looks fantastic .. so all that planning was definitely worth it.

Thanks for explaining to me about the swords .. yes, I can imagine that even semi-sharp steel could do some serious damage if you didn't know what you were doing with them.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

The only real problem with the tent is transportation. We go up to 2000km for some jobs (not many) and when you're packing for that space counts.
The old tent all folded up into one bag. The new one has a bag for poles, the canvas and all the hardware pieces.
We're still figuring out how best to pack that. But, we've got 2 months until the first show we'll need it, so we have some time.

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

that's a lot of stuff! and that's just the tent ... you must tow a trailer or something.

It'll be worth it though because it looks fantastic!