Blood on the River 2023
Special Announcement!
Normally I write these blog posts once each quarter has concluded, but we’ve got a special announcement! We’ve been picked by Feedspot’s Top 25 HEMA Blogs! We’d like to thank them and everyone who reads these blogs for helping spread the word about our little organization. To thank you all, we’ll put this blog post out a month early. I don’t have time to write a full update on what we’ve been up to this quarter. That will come out in a subsequent blog post. But for now, here’s what happened at Blood on the River 2023.
On September 1st, 2023, Broken Plow Western Martial Arts and Pittsburgh Fighters Guild held their annual tournament: Blood on the River 2023. The event started off Friday night with a saber tournament followed by a longsword tournament the following Saturday and a party on Sunday. Being the first HEMA club to form in Pittsburgh, they were where I got my start. Now some of you may be wondering why when I split from my last fencing club why I didn’t just go back to Plow. Three reasons:
1) Our current location is 5 minutes from my house as opposed to 25 minutes.
2) I had a unique and rare opportunity to create a fencing club, the support to do so, and a distinctive vision for what I wanted a fencing club to look like. This has resulted in two different club cultures and I’m a firm believer that variety is the spice of life.
3) Broken Plow has very … firm opinions regarding HEMA. Not wrong. Not even necessarily different. But if they are different, that is not likely to change.
As much as I would have liked to enjoy the entire weekend event, I had made a commitment to teach a rapier and cape class at another event happening that weekend. So, I just signed up for Saber on Friday which was cohosted by Richard Marsden. I’ve read his book and taken his Polish Saber class and I can vouch that I’m a fan of both!
Richard Marsden: Author of Polish Saber: The use of the Polish Saber on foot in the 17th century
I don’t usually bother to read the rulesets anymore. I’ve been competing for the past 9 years so I was under the impression that I’d seen just about every permutation and combination of rules that could be put together. I was mistaken. If you’re not in the mood to hear my opinions about tournament rulesets, please skip to the next white color session.
Rant Warning: Soap Box Speech Imminent
So, here’s their Saber Ruleset:
Saber
Each match will consist of 5 rounds
Points are as follows:
Strike to head = 3 points
Strike to body = 2 points
Strike to extremities = 1 point
Thrusts to deep targets = 3 points
Thrusts to extremities = no points and round restart
Doubles will result in 0 points for both fighters and will end the round
Afterblow rule: the fighter who commits the afterblow will receive 0 points, and the fighter who fails to withdraw loses 1 point
Use of knucklebow: use only to displace and malicious hits will result in warning for first offense and DQ for the second offense
The fighter with the most points after 5 rounds wins the fight
Now on paper, this all seems fine but there’s a couple of issues. When fighters are competing at high speeds, it’s hard to determine what was hit but much harder to determine how it was hit. Cuts can turn into thrusts. Thrusts can start at the arm and end up at the body. And all of this can happen in a fraction of a second. Depending on the angle between a judge and the fighters, they may not have a sufficient view to determine arm hits from torso. Accurately making those types of determinations is tough for experienced judges and directors, but when you ask inexperienced judges to make these types of calls and inexperienced directors to adjudicate them, you’re most likely to end up with scoring that is at best inconsistent. This wouldn’t be a big deal with 1 point differentials like there is between a cut to the body and a thrust to the body. But the 3 point differential between a thrust to the body and a thrust to the extremity is in my professional opinion … bananas.
Lastly, but certainly not least, is that “malicious hits will result in a warning for the first offense and DQ for the second offense”. I’d like to clarify that in person they mentioned that if a hit was particularly egregious and if it looked intentional they would DQ you immediately and this wording was meant to give the fighters a little leeway in the case it was an accident; however, it reads like “the first black card-able offense is free”. So perhaps an editor could take a second look at their wording before their next tournament.
Ok, rant over. Back to our regularly scheduled blog post. I hadn’t expected any big named fencers at the tournament, but I was pleasantly surprised to see Philip Bergstaller. For those who don’t know, back in 2018 there was a tournament called “Clash of Claymores” in which there were tournaments for Open Longsword, Saber, and Invitational Longsword. Additionally, there was a pushup contest, a fashion show (which I won), and a team trophy given to the club who scored the most points by placing in the other categories. Phil took 1st in both saber and invitational longsword; which single handedly earned enough points to win the team award, despite being the only person from his club to compete. Ever since then I’ve always had a saying:
“You can’t spell team without Phil Bergstaller.”
He and I never got to fight back at Clash of Claymores, so I was excited to finally get to face off with legend himself! The short version is that he did beat me, but I had two opponents to contend with: Phil and the judging. Thrusts to the body were counted as thrusts to the arms, cuts to the arms were called thrusts to the arms, and some stuff wasn’t seen at all. They even made it so you can’t self call hits you know landed on you nor could you deny points you didn’t feel you deserved. Still though, tournaments are a lot like pizza: even when they aren’t great, they’re still pretty good. Regardless of what the judges said it was great to fight against him, and in my other fights I was much less subtle in my actions. By waiting for clear cuts and prioritizing parries and ripostes I was able to dominate my other fights and get into the elimination bracket. Some of you may be wondering: “But Chris, why didn’t you do that against Phil"?” Feel free to fight him and try it yourself.
In the end, I fought against one of Phil’s students. I don’t recall his name, but the kid was good. Quick as lightning and smart as a fox, I’d hit him with a leg hit then the next round he’d hit me with the same move! We traded blows back and forth until we were tied … sudden death. I attempted to fake him out and get him when he overcommitted on his parry, but he saw through my deception and went straight for the head; clenching his win. Well done! If I’m gonna get knocked out, that’s how I want to go. Kid would then go on to fight Phil in the finals but ultimately ended up taking second. Glad to see Phil is as good a teacher as he is a competitor.
The next day I showed up at 11:00 am to do a demonstration fight. I had an awesome fight with a friend of the club, Tan Nyuyen in “THE CAGE!” It was a very fun and entertaining fight, and the photographer took some excellent pictures. He was also charging $10 a pop, so I just bought the two that made me look the best. All things considered I did have a good time and I’d like to be able to attend the whole event at some point in the future, but Blood on the River falls on the same holiday weekend as another event I love going to (Harvest Fecht, which I’ll talk about in my next blog post). As much as I dislike having to choose between events, I prioritize ones where I’m teaching over those where I’m just competing or having a good time. Still though, it felt great to support my first fencing club and attend their signature event.
Pictured: Me waiting for an opponent.
Pictured: Me lookin’ like a bad ass!
