Ringo2 days ago I found myself at a private bar surrounded by Bikers, fighting like my life depended on it as a behemoth of man repeatedly hit me in the face with a large metal object. It was AWESOME.
In case you can’t guess it wasn’t a biker beat down. It was a Knight’s Hall exhibition event at a party hosted by the Sword and Shield MC. They were amazing hosts and it was a great experience being able to fight for them and their friends. The dude hitting me was my good friend and fellow USA Knight Dustin Goodale.
He’s a pretty big boy and compare to me he is a literal giant, out weighing me by more than 100 pounds and with a good 7 inches on me. To make it even better he has a decent boxing background compared to my complete absence of any at all and for some strange reason I had decide to stand right in front of him and throw fists. My newly re broken nose regrets that decision immensely.
The day was somewhat beset with trouble, as we started off the first 4 fights with armor failures but despite the rocky beginning we kept the crowd enthused and things smoothed out as the day went along. Lane and Brandon fought a great sword and shield match to open things up. Speaking of opening things up, Brandon chopped through the strap holding Lane’s facemask down, and despite not having a armor repair kit he was back in the ring a half hour later with his mask tied on with one of the leather straps used to point armor. Dude is a fearless warrior.
After they opened the up for the crowd, I faced Dustin. I took a beating the first round, but his helm wasn’t fitting and his padding slipped over his eyes. After fixing that we fought two more rounds, where I just tried to stay out of his reach and dance around him. I managed to take the fight at the end but it was a close one and I was certainly more damaged after the fight than he was. The really great thing about the fight was learning how to swagger.
Cat and Brandon fought next in longsword. I cornered Brandon it was great watching him start to settle in, pick shots, and use footwork to open angles or close lines. Cat still dominated the fight but it was a a big step up in Brandon’s single game. He could definitely make something in that world with some more work. Cat ended the fight early with a perfectly thrown shot that landed on Brandon’s thigh just above the Cuisse and below his metal dags. Gave him a limp for a good couple minutes but he was ready to fight for melee’s just a few fights later.
Lane was back by this point and took on the Knights Hall founder and one of the first guys to play this sport in America, Jaye Brooks. He’s very likely still one of the best Longsword fighters in the country and Lane went into the fight no fear. Teacher and Student traded shots for the first round with Jaye solidly beating Lane, but not dominating him as Lane found his range and tempo, landing a number of shots of his own. The second match was more solidly Jaye’s in look when he manage to get Lane bent over and landed shot after shot to his back. In a real singles match the one handed shots wouldn’t have counted but this was just for fun and to look cool so it definitely went his way.
That was the last singles before we broke up for Melee. Jaye, Cat, and Lane rocked one team, meaning Two striking eagles and both the captain of the Dark Knights and Executioners facing off against Myself, Brandon Captain of the Knighmares, and Dustin. Normally that’s a really strong line up but that day I think they were heavily the favorites. I think we acquitted ourselves quite well though, taking one of three rounds. We only fought 3 as the whole knights hall crew has been fighting and traveling alot recently, something like 3 events in 5 weeks and we have a big singles event in 2 weeks and both the conference and national events in October. All that on top of the number of armor failures we’d already had made us err on the side of cation and we called it at 3. Still a great day.
You can watch all the videos we captured Here thanks to the talented and lovely Knights Hall Videographer Jana Brooks.