While I cannot say I have truly "returned" to SCA combat because, as the armored combat marshal of the Crown Province of Ostgardr (Greater NYC area), I run a fighter practice and oversee most local tournaments and demo fighting. But I did put on my armor and fight in one battle at Pennsic, and I did spar at the Brooklyn fighter practice last week.
First, just a little background: About two years ago I hurt my arm throwing a football. The pain went away soon, and I didn't think much of it. I did not fight much after that because there were not many opportunities to fight (the fighter practice, having no indoor site that year, was closed for the winter). Even in the spring, with fighter practice and an event or two, I must not have gotten enough hard fighting in to notice the true nature of my arm, injury.
Then I went to the East Kingdom 50-year anniversary event.
I got as much fighting in as I could. I had not been working out much, so I was in pretty poor physical shape compared to some recent years, but I fought my heart out anyway. At the end of each day, though. I simply could not raise my right arm (my sword arm). I had to literally pick it up with my left arm to enable it to do anything (have you ever tried brushing your teeth with two hands?).
I had started training for the TV show "Knight Fight," to which I had been invited to participate, and wanted to push myself. My body, and my arm, paid the price. When I went to the doctor after getting back to the city, it was determined that I had a torn rotator cuff.
I didn't let this stop me from training. After a few days my arm would recover, and I would be swinging a sword again. I even went to Sword Class NYC where the Armored Combat League's NY Sentinels trained and got in some of the full-contact action that I expected in Knight Fight. I can't say that this did my arm any favors. I got a couple of cortisone shots, and that helped me move my arm without pain, but several people have told me that cortisone is actually bad for you. Unfortunately, the producers had a change of heard at the last minute and cut me from the show before I got to fight. But the damage to my arm remained.
Then I went to the Pennsic War.
I figured I would stay out of most of the battles and only get into the bridge battle, where I could stand at the edge of the bridge with my 7-foot polearm and spear people as they came,a and take a knee if it looked like I would hurt my arm any more. That plan lasted wright up until the first time the enemy hit our line. you can see in videos of that battle me rushing to the front line to stop every charge against us, and join every charge by us.
Even so, I only felt the pain in my arm twice, when I moved m my arm in exactly the way my torn rotator cuff wouldn't let me.
The worst pain at Pennsic actually came on two occasions:
1. I slipped in the mud
2. I slipped on some water at the pool in the hotel in which we stayed on the way back.
In both instances my body made a quick jerk in one direction while my arm kept going in another. This must have aggravated the tear in my rotator cuff, because it hurt o bad I could not sleep unless I put my arm over my head.
So I went back to the doctor and started some physical therapy. While it helped restore a lot of function, there were still things I just could not do, like swing a sword properly. So I decided to get the surgery to repair it. the trouble was, my insurance wouldn't cover it from the particular doctor I was seeing.
Fortunately, my lady works at a very highly regarded surgical hospital in NYC, and knows the best doctor for this kind of surgery. He agreed to see me, they took my insurance, and I look forward to having a surgery date set up soon.
In the meantime, however, I had been running the SCA fighter practice in Brooklyn. I have also been doing Insanity workouts 2-4 times a week (see my fitness blog for how that's going). I have included some conditioning training in the program at fighter practice, and have taken to wearing my armor, though I was not actually fighting in it (I needed to re-do the helmet padding, anyway). I was using my left arm to demonstrate the sword techniques. I was watching the mostly-brand-new fighters grown and improve every week. I was thrilled by their progress. One of them eve got authorized in July!
I decided to go back to the Armored Combat League practice at SCNYC. I got through the fitness and technique drills without any problems. Then came the time for free sparing with padded weapons and gear.
Now, it had been years since I fought in one-on-one matches in this sport. Not since my knee injury, back when most of the fighters in the game were mid-life crisis SCA duke-knights, had I truly banged it out by these rules. Now the NYC team was almost entirely younger, never-SCA types whose primary fight training was at SCNYC. I honestly wanted to test my mettle against them
I fought four one-minute rounds, each against a different person. I struck each of them with my sword in my left hand at least twice as often as they struck me, beating all of them on points except the last guy, who only beat me by hitting me on the head so hard I decided to stop before the round was over (no need to risk concussion or spine injury in a practice). And I did all this with my right arm holding a shield close to my chest and not moving it to defend myself.
Then came this year's Pennsic.
Again, I said I would only fight in the bridge battle. Unlike last year however, the bridge battle was not a 90-minuter resurrection battle where you could go back in after ever "death," it was just four rounds of battle with one death each. I managed to make each death count, and even killed a few in the process. No pain or discomfort in the arm at all.I never had to use it in a manner in which I was not able.
So when I got back home, I figured, "why don't I put my sword in my left hand, hold a shield against my body like I did at SCNYC, and see how I do?
So at the next fighter practice I did just that, fighting against all three of the fighters who showed up in succession.
And I kicked a little ass.
This is not to say that these fighters did poorly. I was actually quite proud of how they were able to stay out of my range and defend against a lot of my shots. They scored a good number of good blows on my head and body. But I was able to strike and make blows count. I was able to control my attack and maintain my own pace. There was a blow or two that a couple of them had been not executing to their greatest benefit, and I was able to use that blow against them by doing it as I meant it to be done.
One interesting thing I discovered was that it was not difficult at all to learn good technique with my left arm. I had been teaching folks how to strike with an SCA sword for some time now, so I knew the mechanics, and it all just transferred quite easily. Thus, when it came time to fight, all the technique in the arm was already there.
This is probably why I did so well against the ACL folks. The rules of the duels only scored points for weapon strikes, takedowns, and disarms, and I stayed away from hand-to-hand clinching as much as possible. Like MMA fighters, ACL fighters must learn punching, kicking, and grappling as well as weapon technique for the melees, so they can't focus as much time on the weapons as SCA fighters do. Meanwhile, folks in the SCA have spent the past 50 + years figuring out how to hit people in the head with a stick, so we literally have it down to a science.
This is sort of why MMA fighters and boxers tend to not do so well in each others' sport. The main reason I was doing so well was the particular ruleset for the sparring rewarded what I had just spent months training for (with my left arm). I am sure that, just as the extremely hard blow to the head put me out, I would not have done so well had the fight come to wrestling or more punching and kicking.
So I will continue to train this way until my surgery, take the necessary time off, then get back in the game with a vengeance!
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