Celtic Exchange 2008

Well I went to the Celtic Exchange 2008 over the weekend and thought I would write a review of what I did and saw. The Celtic exchange is a gathering of the Scottish Western Martial Arts Clubs to freeplay and exchange ideas/insults.

Starting with Freeplay:
I had three bouts while at the weekend.

#1 Martin Page - Dawn Duellist Society
Martin is a good fighter. Instinctual control of the centreline and combines strong thrusting ability with years of experience. I would rate this one as a draw. Martin was not fighting at his best though and was very cautious against me which allowed me to score a few hits. Not sure this would always be the case. I was happy to get through this one.

#2 Ian MacIntyre - Dawn Duellist Society
Ian is Secretary of the Dawn Duellists and studies a number of weapons. I believe sabre being his forte, however he is rated as a Certified Instructor by the British Federation and not a man to be taken lightly. This one went badly for Ian from the start. The first bind allowed me a perfect opportunity to wind and scored a solid hit on the head. After that I geared up with aggressive pressing attack and forced him back to the far side of the area cutting off his ability to void. This allowed me to use my favourite attack a rapid advance from the bind in to wrestling at the sword and concluding with a pommel strike. Unfortunately, I over-powered Ian too much and he folded dropping head his as my pommel strike came in and I made contact with the base of his skull and he went down. Luckily the blow was controlled and after a few minutes he was up and about with only a small lump. Sadly the fight was over in less than a minute.


#3 Marco - Glasgow Company of Duellists
Marco and my fights are always very sparky. Marco is quick and inventive which counters my strength and agression which makes it fun to watch and take part in. During this bout Marco even managed to disarm me which was a surprise. Our fights are usually too close to call however I would give this round to Marco and he was well fired up and managed to disarm me.

Seminars:
#1: Rapier - THE BEAR DO A RAPIER CLASS ...... NEVER

#2: Fiore Dagger - Run by Aberdeen Sword Group
This has some interesting ideas on grappling against a dagger wielding opponent and using a dagger to fight against a sword. The ideas were well expressed and clearly demonstrated however I felt that they still needed to do some more work getting this type of work against a resisting opponent. Neil the chap leading the seminar attempted one on myself and simply stated that they didn't work against very strong people, which I did disagree with and feel that the inclusion of softening strikes would solve these problems. I discovered later in a discussion with another chap on fiore dagger that softening strikes are indeed mentioned in his translation.

#3: Long sword - Rabid Hamster
Well since I was the assistant in this one not really fair to review it.


#4: Tall vs. Short - MacDonald Academy.
This I felt was the weakest of the seminars though the concept is extremely important of how shorter fighters should hand much taller opponents and vice versa. I paired up with Marco on this one, who has no hand to hand experience. None of the exercises worked against a lightly resisting Bear. Key concepts were missing from the explainations, even though Marco clearly struggled to get anything to work, the instructor didn't attempt to demonstrate techniques on me to show Marco how they should work. My patience wore thin very quickly and began to show Marco how to make them work correctly. To add insult to injury I was spoken to afterward for not letting Marco just waste an hour and a half struggling with techniques that clearly would NEVER work.

As my first outing in the WMA seminar world, it was interesting, would I go back. Not sure.

The Bear.

 

I'll be the first to ask - any pictures?

 

Would they ask you back.

regards koyo

 

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These are pics of Louie, Marco and Hamster in action. None of me since I like my privacy too much.

Hamster is the one dressed like Andy Pandy.
Louie is in the natural coloured Armour.
Marco is in the Black and Gret Armour.

The Bear.

 

Hmmmm, you'd need to ask them.

The Bear.

 

Bears first opponent was Martin PAGE .... unless Martin has changed his name and not told me!

 

Oops sorry fixed it.

The Bear.

 

Nice pic of the Hampster holding a sword to an Aberdonian's throat before mugging her!!!


George's sword doesn't usually bend!!!


Marco, the man in Black!


Me....waiting around for a fight!


Would have got a nice shot of Bear pommeling an Edinburgher and pinching his snuff but he didn't want his photo taken :cry:

Louie

 

Thats glaswegians for you ... never go anywhere without their chib! :Angel:

 

Personally I felt as group we all did well. Marco, Louie and myself have only been fighting for a couple of months. We were up against people with 6-10 years experience. None of us were out classed and we atleast matched the best that was out there. So I think we have hight hopes for the future and our next crop of fighters we are training.

The Bear.

 

well as your instructor I was pretty proud of you guys. When Martin (11 years experience) said you were safe then I was relieved and when he said you were welltrained I got all smug and when he said he enjoyed the fights I knew that you had done the class proud.
Cant ask for more than that.

 

Well the amount of actual sparring time in those few months probably only adds up to less than an hour each

Louie

 

Yeah well you know how the Hamster likes to talk.

The Bear.

 

Some More Pics from the Celtic Event....

Okay...Replaced old pic with the 'Hand of the Hamster'


Yes there is a counter to this lock but I'm not telling!


Some of the original period weapons for the show & tell!


Louie

 

I would prefer it if you took down my picture please Louie or blot me out if you want to use the image.

The Bear.

 

Okay! an alternative pic is in it's place.

Here guys, a few more picture of the event...

A bit of sword & dagger - I think FMA artists might have found some interesting parrallels with this art....



The GCD & DDS longsword veterans


Hamster & Marco at sword & dagger



Louie

 

Hey .... me n marco look like we know what we're doing with those knitting needles! Who would that thought it!

 

Here's another of Hamster & Marco under instruction -



They had a lovely shawl made by the end of the seminar....


Louie

 

Didn't we have a little spar when we met at one of Higs get togethers years ago?