The Shire of Rusted Woodlands Thursday Night Practice

What up with The Shire of Rusted Woodlands Thursday Night Practice? Well there's the name change from "The shire of Rusted Woodlands Thursday Night Heavy Weapons Practice" to its current iteration. Why? The Shire saw the need for and acted upon hosting a Fencing practice at the Hawthorne Site. Sir Arne Ulrickson has taken the helm as the Armored Combat MIC (Marshal in Charge), while Sir Tanaka Raiko leads the Period Fencing activities, having recently attained his Fencing Marshallate at this most recent Birka. Happening on Thursday Nights starting at 8PM til 11:00 PM it's a great practice for new and seasoned fighter alike. https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Shire+of+Rusted+Woodlands+Fight+Practice/@40.9541255,-74.1577535,17z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x89c2fdebeb516f7d:0xe5facda73805884f!8m2!3d40.9535968!4d-74.1556066?hl=en If you have questions or would like more details please reach out to 845-545-5274

Medieval Fashion Show Friday, a 14th Century Corizina with case legs and Great Helm

In the Society for Creative Anachronisms (SCA) one of the activities we do is sword fighting, well armored combat with a variety of weapons actually. We fabricate, wear, and brandish the arms and armor of many of the Dark Ages, Medieval, and beyond. Toward that end I present to you Lady Caterina Maddalena de' Gabrielli in her 14th century Corazina (coat of plates), Great Helm, and plate arms and legs although the sword is not a SCA legal weapon, this is her actual fighting kit. Lady Caterina Sword fights at a Northern NJ SCA fight practice in the Shire of Rusted Woodlands.

Sword fighting in Northern NJ - Pell Design I find useful

To the serious sword fighter a "Pell" is a useful and tool for training. Historically pells were usually conveniently dead trees, or trees that became dead after repeated strikes with swords real or practice ones. A pell is literally something that you will practice your strikes on. Modern pells are logs, posts, lumber or (my personal favorite) rail road ties. Pells can be fixed (anchored to one spot) or moveable/portable for you fighters who require such things. My pell is moveable. It's construction is simple. A Six by Six Railroad tie bored out to accept the shaft of a base which is affixed to a weighted moveable/portable base. The base is the rear half axle of a truck bolted to a wheel with tire attached. The shaft of the Pell is a Six by Six railroad tie, which besides being bored out to accept the axle shaft is padded to reduce the damage to rattan swords we use in the SCA. I padded my pell with 3/4" polypropelene rope. I've marked striking areas with different colored (comes in handy for calling out colors when training other fighters). When wrapping the rope for padding I affixed a handle made of 2 inch nylon strapping, which collapses when hit. It breaks down into the two major components (shaft and base) for ease of movement.

Come to "Thursday Night Fights" aka Sword Fighting in New Jersey

In Northern NJ you can discover if you have what it takes to become a medieval swordsman or a Renaissance Fencer.

Find your "Martial expression" at RW's "Thursday Night Fights" also known as The Shire of Rusted Woodlands, Thursday Fencing and Fighting practice, aka the Bruise Factory.

Whether you're a SCAdian looking to improve your game, or a new fighter looking to find the warrior within come to Hawthorne and find out.

The answers you seek are there for the discovery.

Where: The United Methodist Church, 452 Lafayette Ave, Hawthorne, NJ 07506

When: 8:00pm til

What: SCA Period Fencing, and Heavy Weapons combat

Suggeste contribution: $2.00

Q&A with Mr. T #7 "How do I make the team?"

Adam asked: Q: "Sir Tanaka how do I make the East Kingdom Unbelted Team?" A: Great Question! The answer is both simple and complex. It's simply a matter of going to the unbelted practices and fighting well enough to make the team. It's a bit more complex based on the nature that our Warlord changes with the War reigns so each warlord may have a differing agenda, or format for selection. My suggestion is to fight well, fight ALOT, and Fight at all the unbelted practices.... Cheers,T

Sword fighting in Northern NJ - Thoughts on making rattan swords...by diagnosing problems with them

Galfrid showed me his broadsword and asked me to diagnose the how and the why his swords were brooming so fast.

Now Galfrid fights 2-3 times a week at a couple high level practices...so the brooming of his swords could easily be diagnosed as heavy use, but the main fractures in his rattan ran 90 degrees off of his striking surfaces!?.

Now Galfrid is primarily a right handed Weapon and Shield fighter, and we're looking at his broadsword. it's a 32-34 inch weapon with a Stainless Steel Wire baskethilt that he fabricated (really nice work btw). He keeps his handles thick to offset breakage by the wire baskethilt (common problem) and only shapes them a little bit. The blank stock for the sword was probably just shy of 1.5 inches in the 35-37 MM range. He didn't plank this sword. (plane down the sides so they're flat).

So I took a serious look at his tape bruising. "Tape Bruising" is the damage done to the cosmetic tape on SCA swords. By examining this bruising, I diagnose a good bit about the users technique.

The bruising was substantial as was the surface pulping of the rattan. There was the aforementioned crack running east - west of the striking surfaces. On closer examination, the inside side of the sword was really mashed. This is a indication of incomplete rolling of the wrist during wrapshots especially since the area of the pulping was the last 4-5 inches of the blade toward the foilable.

I suggested that he go to thicker rattan stock, 40 mm perhaps, and to plane down the blank and shape the handle so that the sword doesn't "swim" on his wrap shots.

Galfrid said he's going to give it a shot...

Makes me want to get down to the shop and make some weapons...