Hilt and Helm Fall-Early Winter Update 2025-2026
Dust off your Ugg Boots and warm up your Pumpkin Spice Latte’s it’s time for another update for the happenings at Hilt and Helm Pittsburgh Fencing Club! But before I get started, I’d like to address and apologize for how delayed this blog post is. For those of you who aren’t aware, I’ve put on a fair amount of muscle.
Abs are visible, but currently working on definition. Still though, not back for going from “Dad Bod” to “Father Figure” in two years!
The time I used to spend writing this blog is now consumed with lifting weights and adjusting to the ever expanding realities of running a rapidly growing non-profit on top of my day job. Writing the blog takes a fair amount of time if it’s going to be any good and lately I just have less time to spare. People have suggested using AI to write it to which I’ve firmly replied with a “hell no”. The blog is written in my voice and I aint letting no damn calculator take over my creative outlet! So hopefully you can be a little patient with me when it takes me a minute to get the blog post up.
Ok … now that that’s out of the way, let’s start talking about stabbing people and getting away with it!
Harvest Fecht 2025
On August 20th 2025, Hilt and Helm headed over to Cincinnati Ohio for Queen City Sword Guild’s annual spar-b-que: Harvest Fecht 2025. For those of you who are new to the blog, Harvest Fecht is a huge 3-day event where fencers from the tri-state area gather together to camp, engage in free sparing and sparing games, and take lessons from some of the finest instructors in HEMA. Ohio is home to a bunch of the world’s top fencers so any opportunity to learn from them is always a treat … for other people. I’m just there to beat people up and eat tacos.
Meal time at Harvest Fecht 2025!
The event’s highlight sparring game is “War in the Woods”. Everyone who wants to participate is split up into two teams with bases spread across the property. In three rounds, each team takes turns being either the attacking force or the defending force. Attackers get infinite respawns. Whenever they get hit, they have to retreat back to the respawn point. Defenders have to guard a flag at one of three base locations (which changes each round) and only get 2 lives, so they have to be more cautious about getting hit. Each round ends either after 15 minutes or if the attacking team manages to steal the flag from the defenders and get it successfully out of their base. Only synthetic weapons were allowed and any hit counts as a knock out.
For those who’ve read my blog posts before you may recall some of my previous Harvest Fecht performances such as the crawl through the brush to ambush the enemy king, the double katana Naruto run from two years prior, and last year’s Naruto run with theme music pounding out of my backpack with a speaker. Well sorry to disappoint you but this year I planned to be a lot more subdued. Then two things changed that.
1. My friend Tyland lent me a synthetic nodachi and it immediately activated my goblin mode.
2. They allowed armor, meaning those wearing it couldn’t be hit anywhere that was armored.
Challenge … accepted!
In the first round, the enemy base was in the middle of a corn maze and my team was attacking. With my synthetic nodachi I “Homer Simpson-ed” my way through the tall brush and hid … waiting for defenders to walk past me on their patrols and stabbed them in the back from the corn. You know … like a coward!
Me, except image him with a sword and a lot more flare!
My focus was less on taking the flag than it was on witling their numbers down to make it easier for the people with youth and energy to rush in for the game defining win. And win we did, allowing me to take my tired ass to the base and switch roles to defender. Now that the goal was reversed, I figured I’d do the same trick again, but this time sneak attacking attackers instead. Although I did get a good number of kills, with only 2 lives I got discovered and ambushed twice leading me to “unfortunately” sit out and get some water and a chair. Oh noo…
Second round was super fun! In this round we were attacking again and my longtime friend JW Pugnetti was guarding a narrow path that led to the enemy base. Sneaking around behind the position while my team mates were engaging him, I noticed two things:
1. His butt was unarmored.
2. His field of vision was greatly reduced.
As he was swinging his longsword around to keep my team mates at bay, I snuck around and stabbed him in the booty! I know … I know… wildly chivalrous. But we had a flag to steal! When things switched around and we had to defend, he and I rematched at the same intersection. I fell back and allowed two of my team mates to engage him. Then as his sword swung into my friend I snuck behind said friend/stab victim and tagged JW in the crotch. In my defense, I did confirm he was wearing a cup before the event commenced and he did clobber me in the head. So again … not the most gallant of my deeds but having been the guy who knocked out the armored fighter twice was definitely worth the negative karma points.
Going into the last round, a few people dropped out of the game because they were tired and a new guy jumped in! When I met him, I thought I’d seen him before but I couldn’t figure out where. Then after a short conversation I realized who he was: Instructor Bensei from Instagram! For those who don’t know, this guy is a well-known internet celebrity famous for his mastery over meteor hammers and other rope-based weapons. In the last round, we were defending and were dead set against allowing the enemy to take our flag. After going out and getting killed, I decided to just march in circle around our flag to deter anyone from trying to “Leroy Jenkins” their way into our base. And thankfully it worked! Well … to be completely honest I was more of a humorous deterrent. The more active defender was Bensei who ran after people with a meteor hammer and knocked several of them out! Nice to see that his skill isn’t just limited to stationary blocks of ice and training dummies! At the end “War in the Woods”, he and I took this cool selfie and exchanged stickers.
Instructor Bensei and I enjoying the post war in the woods selfie!
The next day after a roughly a day and a half of free sparring people, I decided to take a class by a young guy who recently started teaching. It was a sword and buckler class where he’d printed out pages from I33; one of the oldest fencing manuals in existence which dates back to the 1300’s. He chose to have everyone split into groups of two, interpret one treatise/picture at a time, discuss what we thought was going on, and then after about 10 minutes we would all get together and share what the author was trying to convey. What transpired next is one of the reasons why HEMA is both a fascinating exploration of history and also results in so many different fractures within the community: EVERY SINGLE GROUP HAD A DIFFERENT INTERPRETATION. Now it is common for people to read text or look at pictures and draw different deeper meanings. This is what makes book clubs so enjoyable. People’s different perspectives allow some to see patterns authors may have been subtly hinting at (either intentionally or not) where others without that same shared experience may have glossed over those nuances. This should not have been the case here. If 7 different groups can read the same 3 sentences with a picture and come up with 7 different interpretations of what it meant from a document that is supposed to be clear and instructive, that is a problem of the medium. These are the common interpretation types I noticed:
· Those who study ancient European texts recognized the context of the treatises from the whole document, from common artistic and literary tropes and how those tropes are commonly used/misunderstood by modern readers offered the most knowledgeable interpretations in my opinion.
· Those who were more experienced sword and buckler fighters re-contextualized what they were reading into something they’d tried before and reinterpreted it as best they could to what they knew to be practical advice.
· Those who were neither experienced nor knowledgeable looked goofy but at least they were having fun.
Depending on who you’re taking lessons from, you could get an entirely different experience from a lesson on HEMA. And (almost) all of them are valid as long as it is what you’re looking for. What you shouldn’t do is take any one interpretation as gospel. Especially with a document that is 700+ years old, just because it is the oldest document doesn’t mean it’s the best one. This book was the inspiration for fencers in the 1600 and 1800’s, and they (specifically the Bolognese style of sword and buckler) managed to improve on those initial findings. And even as modern practitioners, we have the latitude to improve on what is being taught to us by masters that have been dead for hundreds of years. Personally, my sword and buckler style is modeled after I33, Bolognese sword and buckler, and Haitian machete. At the end of the class, the instructor and I spared for a bit. I had the advantage of knowing what they teach in I33, so I knew what to expect from him. Since he hadn’t studied Bolognese or Haitian machete, he had no idea what to expect from me. The sparring match was illuminating for both of us. For him, he got to see how different styles fight the same weapon, and I got to refine my anti-I33 fighting strategies with an unwilling opponent. I look forward to attending his next class.
All in all, Harvest Fecht was much more than War in the Woods and a sword and buckler class, but there’s only so much I can cover in a blog without it turning into a novel. So much of these events can only truly be experienced in person so if you’re looking for recommendations for a chill event with lots of stuff to do, please take this a ringing endorsement!
AG Open 2025
On September 9th, Vice President Ryan Leonard, long time friend JW Pugnetti, and I travelled out to Plymouth Michigan to compete at Ars Gladii’s annual tournament: AG Open 2025. JW and I competed in Tier A Longsword while Ryan competed in Tier B. As those of you who’ve read this blog before may know, I’m a big critic of any tournament whose ruleset you have to keep in mind while you’re fighting. In my opinion, rules are meant to keep the fighting as safe and efficient as possible and NOT about trying to elicit the type of fencing YOU want to see from people. For the most part the rules were fairly standard.
· 3 pts for cut/thrust to upper openings
· 3 pts for thrust over sword arms
· 3 pts for standing take downs
· 2 pts for all other cuts and thrusts, slices to the arms or upper openings
· 1 pt for pommel strike to mask
However, there are some rules that I very much didn’t agree with.
· Ring guards are not allowed on longswords.
· One handed strikes are not permitted.
· 3 double strikes results in a double loss
My signature custom longsword getting disqualified JUST because it had ring guards. Also because it’s 5 inches long.
Their justification for disallowing ring guards on swords was that if a takedown occurs, landing on a ring guard sword could severely hurt someone. My counter argument is that landing on the floor could also severely hurt someone, which is why most tournaments do not allow take downs at all. Personally, I take issue with any tournament that disallows one handed thrusts considering they are perfectly martial in literally every other weapon. As long as the strike lands with control, it should be allowed. This feels more like the tournament organizers shoe-horning their opinions into the ruleset. I mean … it is their tournament and they can do what they want, but rules based on personal preference and not safety or economy of time feel like an abuse of power to me. And doubles are a natural consequence of two fighters not recognizing when the other is attempting an attack. They happen at both low-level fencing (where each fencer just isn’t aware) and at high level fencing (where each fencer is going so fast it becomes hard to determine when an attack is about to begin). Penalizing them both as if the doubling is an intentional action feels unfair to me. But going to tournaments is as much about getting out of your comfort zone as it is about bonking people upside the head, so I put aside my many aspersions to compete anyway.
Competing in Teir A Longsword a long way from home is an excellent way to see how well you stack up against other ass kickers you don’t typically get to see. Doing so without two of your best go to moves or your competition longsword made the ordeal even more challenging. But I’m never one to shy away from a challenge. What I did discover was the following:
· Zach Showalter is really fucking good! We fought maybe 2 years ago at the last AG Open I attended. The man is lightning fast and very skilled. Getting several stop cuts on me as I was coming in for attacks and managing to sneak hand shots around my parries was as impressive as it was frustrating.
· I’m actually super-fast when I wield a lighter sword without ring guards. Thankfully I practice with the club Regenyei which doesn’t have ring guards so I can be prepared for goofy rulesets like these. Although the ring guards do offer better hand protection (which is my primary concern when fencing high level fighters), they do also inhibit proper zwerk-hau technique by preventing you from getting a proper thumb grip when raising the sword over your head. This wasn’t exactly new information. I’ve fought with the same style of sword for going on 12 years. But it’s not every tournament that forces be to get out of my comfort zone to try using other swords.
· One handed or two, my thrusts are just as difficult to deal with. The one handed thrust offers less of a tell than the two handed ones, but it is good to see I’m not overly reliant on any one technique which can be banned arbitrarily.
When it came down to the elimination bracket, that’s when I truly got to shine. I managed a pretty sound defeat of Ashley Hearn who would go on to earn a gold medal in the Gender Minority Bracket!
Also managed to defeat my long time rival Johnathan Paulino who usually beats me like the red headed step child of a rented mule!
But ultimately it was Brodie Perrson who managed to knock me out in the top 8. Still though, to make middle of the pack in a tournament full of the very best feels pretty sensational!
The event wasn’t all about fighting though. Got to meet some pretty amazing people as well. Noah from the Kalamazoo Free Blades and I had an impromptu Jo-Jo off in the hallway.
Noah and I getting into a Jo-Jo off!
Only later would I discover he has an absolutely amazing HEMA kit. Also ran into another guy who’s name escapes me who was also from the Kalamazoo Free Blades who had an equally on-fire fencing kit. Here’s the three of us posing for a picture.
The most ELEGANT Fighters in ALL of Michigan!!! Here’s Noah, myself, and … on jeez this is what I get for writing this blog months after the event happened. If someone can tell me who this guy is I’ll happily update this blog post!
Ok back to talking about fighting. On Sunday, Ryan, JW and I competed together in what’s arguably the most fun event at AG Open: the team relay. This time their silly rules actually worked in our favor. All team mates were required to fence for the same club if they were going to compete, meaning I finally got to claim JW as a member of Hilt and Helm for an official tournament AND the three of us were a pretty competitive team! During pools, JW never even had to fence. Ryan and I cleaned up pretty much all of the fighters on our own. It wasn’t until eliminations that things started to get real. With double eliminations, we had two chance of walking away with a shiny. Our match against Virginia Tech’s team was tense! Alessandro Vera, Devin Cordel, and Brody Perrson … the same guy who knocked me out of Tier A longsword! Ryan and I managed to chew through Alessandro and Devin, but Brody was once again too much for me to handle. It then came down to Brody and JW. The score was tied 14 to 14 with one point being the decider between who would go on to the semi finals and who could go over to the consolation bracket. Unfortunately Brody managed the same stop cut on JW’s wrist that he got on me and knocked us out. Still though, it was good to get Hilt and Helm that far in a tournament with that many super talented teams.
Go Team Hilt and Helm! Picture Ryan Leonard, Chris Shelton and JW Pugnetti!
En Garde! A Lesson in the Art of Fencing
Last quarter, we hosted a rather unconventional bachelor party in which the groom to be and his party wanted a private fencing lesson at the club. Among them was a guy who worked at KDKA, our local CBS news station. He pitched the idea to Daisy Jade to have a segment at the club for national fencing day and she reached out to us about coming in to shoot some footage. Initially I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to get anyone out to the club on a Tuesday morning to help shoot some footage but when I reached out we got a staggering amount of help from the club members! Daisy and her producer were fantastic to work with. In only 3 takes we were able to shoot the whole segment in about an hour and the results were fantastic. Here’s the video from Pittsburgh Live Today!
More Bang for Your Buckler 2025
On October 19th, Hilt and Helm hosted our very first rare weapons tournament: More Bang for your Buckler 2025. After competing in Duel for the Jewel 2023 and getting my first for-real-zies gold medal in side sword, I was pretty displeased when they decided to shift to single rapier the following tournament. There are hardly any side sword tournaments at all, so we decided to throw our own! More Bang for your Buckler was actually the name of one of our Pillowfecht in house tournaments. A name that good bared repeating so we threw that weapon plus small sword into the tournament queue. For those of you who aren’t in our discord, there was a rather humorous evolution of the event logo. Initially, this was my first swing at creating it.
I have a lot of talents. Graphic design is not one of them.
Naturally, anyone with taste and eye balls scoffed at it. Through a little bit of committee work I managed to shape it into this version …
Ok … looking a little better.
Then long time friend of the club Michele Gully jumped into the chat and offered to create a new logo for the event in exchange for a discount on the tournament entry fee. I told her if she made a good logo I’d waive the fee all together and let her stay at my house! What she produced was one hell of a logo!
This is why I leave the graphic design to the professionals.
With that matter settled, we finally had the artwork to get the medals done for the tournament. The morning started off strong with sword and buckler. If you can believe it, Michelle managed to pull off the bee sting against Saoirse Nies in the very first match!
Oh my God! Can you believe this happened?! Saorise has never looked to happy about getting stabbed in the chest!
Then it got followed up by Fionn Kusnir doing a power slide to Steve Corwin!
This is absolutely unbelievable! I simply CAN NOT BELIEVE this happened!
And then if you dare to believe it, Andrew Kirkland totally got Jason Riley with the Executioner Thrust!!!
Look at the sheer disbelief on Tan’s face!
In all seriousness, our photographer couldn’t make it that day and I had to direct. So there aren’t as many pictures of the fighting for the tournament as I would have liked so I asked the fighters to help me stage a bit in case there weren’t enough good photos from discord to put on here. Hint. There weren’t. Still though the sword and buckler went off without a hitch!
Congrats to our medalists!
1st Place: Collin McConnel.
2nd Place: Benjamin Orr
3rd Place: Tony Cavalline and Adam Whaley
Next up was side sword. What I really love about side sword is that it’s a broad enough category of weapon that a lot of different weapons that normally wouldn’t have a place in any tournament were allowed here. For example, Tan Nguyen’s Jian and Keith’s basket hilt broad sword were both allowed in! There is of course the issue of “what gloves” do you wear to a side sword tournament. This was the issue at the heart of Duel for the Jewel’s decision to switch it for rapier. Our solution: wear better gloves. The purple heart high guard gloves are really stiff, but once you wear them in they are perfectly suited for side sword. This is also a perfect place for articulated five finger gloves. Gear talk aside, here are a couple of the highlight photos from the tournament
And here are our medalists!
Congrats to our medalists!
1st Place: Collin McConnel.
2nd Place: Tan Nguyen
3rd Place: Tyland Stiener and Michelle Gully
Last but certainly not least was small sword. When we were deciding what the 3rd weapon for More Bang for Your Buckler was going to be, Keith asked “Who do I have to sleep with to get small sword added to the event?” The answer of course was “Me, but that won’t be necessary.” Small sword is an excellent introduction for Olympic fencers into the world of HEMA and we got a couple really good new fencers to come out for it! Below are a few highlights from the tournament.
And here are our medalists!
Congrats to our medalists!
1st Place: Connor Turley.
2nd Place: Benjamin Orr
3rd Place: Tyland Stiener and Clementine Cuspard
Over all the tournament was a great success with lots of fun and no injuries. We’re pretty sure we’re going to keep the same weapons next year. As for the other weapons we didn’t get to put in like messer, rapier/dagger, and rapier/cape, we’ll have just have to expand the tournament to two day next year!
Scioto Open 2025
On November 8th, I travelled west to Ohio to Columbus for Columbus United Fencing Club’s annual event: Scioto Open 2025. This was the spiritual successor to their old event Blue Box open back when they were apart of Royal Arts Fencing club. It was a Blue Box that I got my first ever for-real-zies medal back in 2018 so it’s always a pleasure coming back to an event so near and dear to my heart as well as wonderful event to bring my new rising star students to cut their teeth on a fun and approachable tournament to hopefully get the same kind of memories I got. Unfortunately none of them could make it so I went on my own.
Thankfully, you’re never alone at fencing tournaments! Hema tournaments are a lot like family reunions, except you’re SUPPOSED to fight people at them. Although Hilt and Helm wasn’t very well represented Pittsburgh was! Ran into Matt Huber, Levi Ryan, & Gwen Crew from Broken Plow (my first fencing club), my arch rival JW Pugnetti, my great friend and former Steel City cohort Mary McConnel, and a big contingent of fighters from Waterfront Historical Fencing … including one of their newest members: Kevin Brough.
For those of you who aren’t aware, Kevin had been a part of Hilt and Helm for the past two years. First an admin, and then an advanced longsword instructor, Kevin helped refine our beginner longsword students into more polished and competent competitors and was the steel which sharpened the steel of some of our most fierce longswords-men, myself included. He’d told me he was stepping down from his position and the club, but when he suddenly showed up fighting for another club in town I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised. Not angry, just surprised and a bit sad. No person “belongs” to any fencing club. And Waterfront has some very talented fencers that are able to help refine his longsword skills. Had I not started Hilt and Helm I would have joined up with them as well. When you’ve been with an organization for two years and you’ve learned all you can from them, if you’re really interested in broadening your horizons it’s only natural to move on to fight with another organization. Plus as ideologically aligned as our clubs are, it’s much healthier to think less in a “my club” versus “their club” mentality and more in a “Pittsburgh solidarity” mentality. Across three clubs and a group of friends, Pittsburgh had 10 fighters representing the Steel City in every event. With that mindset, I walked into the first of the three tournaments I’d signed up with a whole group of people to cheer on!
Go Team Pittsburgh!!! Pictured left to right, Matt Huber, Matt Melonuk, Kevin Brough, Josh Derby, Mary McConnel, Chris Shelton, Tom Barefoot, JW Pugnetti, Gwen Crew, & Levi Ryan
Single rapier started off super well for me! Seeded first in the tournament by HEMA rating, I was the scary one in my pool. I managed to win all of my pool matches, but one fight in particular really stood out to me. As I was watching Rob Cox fight, Tom Barefoot and I noted he was fighting in the distinct style of Distreza; which features the fighter keeping their sword arm extended and walking in stiff legged circles around their opponent to box out their escape options and pin them into a desirable position. He and I theorized how we would both go about fighting someone who fought like that. With Phil Clark as our resident Distreza expert, I had a whole catalog of fights against him to rely upon when developing my strategies. When it came time for Rob and I to fight, I allowed him to circle me just as Distreza intended. He did manage to get me in the arm during my first approach, but after I recalibrated I lunged forward off hand outstretched to parry his blade and deliver a mighty thrust straight to his chest in a lunge that ended with me mere inches from his face and my sword so heavily bent that it snapped in two! My tip when flying through the air and the match was paused briefly as we found the tip, got me a new rapier and allowed me to resume the match with a 7-1 victory. Initially I was going to allow my broken rapier to rest on the wall of heroes at the club, but then I remembered I had a spare blade at the club so I let Rob keep the tip and a souvenir!
Rob Cox got an interesting souvenir from this tournament: the broken tip of my rapier!
In the end, Tom Kesler managed to beat me again in the bronze medal match allowing me to take home another shiny.
Took my new trophy out to Tim Hortons for coffee so we can get to know each other.
Next up was Div 1 longsword. I’ve really struggled to do well at this tier of competition but I did get two wins I was very proud of. The first was against my longtime rival JW! This was the first time I’d beaten him in years but I managed to pull off a 7 to 5 victory! The second was against Lacey Eck, who beat me for the first time back at Queens Court Open 2025. Aside from those two wins I got my stool pushed in. I will say this about those who beat me.
Stevi Parker is one of the greatest female longsword fighters in the world. The last time we fought was at Blue Box open 2019. During the fight, we got to suddent death and she managed to beat me by going for my head when I went for her leg. This time it was not even close. She cleaned my clock more thoroughly than ever and I tip my hat to her peerless skill. She has most definitely learned a lot from Steven Cheyne.
Thomas Kesler once again got the best of me. Beating me 7 to 4, he was once a consistently beatable opponent but has evolved over the years into an absolutely wrecking ball of a fighter.
Josh Derby is one hell of a fighter. Although he hasn’t been on the scene as long he consistently comes away from tournaments on the podium. Our match was extremely close, squeaking out a 7-6 victory against me. And as frustrating as it can be at times to see a newer person start to eclipse you, I’m also in awe of him as a fellow fencing master and a person. If you ever have the opportunity to just have a chat with him, he is as witty and funny as he is effective with a sword. So I can’t even be mad. Hats off to Josh!
Predictably I didn’t make it very far up the bracket. What wasn’t predictable however was the person who knocked me off. I remember when I first me Olivia Cleymaet at Blue Box 2022. During our first encounter I’d won, but she was a fierce competitor. Even as a newbie she made me work for that victory. We would later meet again at Funfecht 2023 where she and I fought for cards and I gave her a “Damn! You Scary” sticker for having bested me in the gravel parking lot of the Hema Manor. Now she stood before me in a Tier A fencing tournament. We tied up 11 to 11. Sudden death. I had a plan to fake her out by feinting to her left with an oberhau and disengaging right for a zwerkhau, but she managed to void my feint all together and snipe my outstretched hand to seal her victory. Quite frankly, I’ve never been more proud!
When I first got started doing HEMA, it was very much a boys club with a few women here or there but none of them were considered top tier fighters. Now two of them had beaten me, and it made me realize how far HEMA has grown. They’ve proven that there is no reason in the sport to separate people based on what set of genitals they have. That the sword is the ultimate equalizer, and as long as you can best your opponent gender truly doesn’t play a factor.
Lastly for the day was Division II longsword. Long story short, Kevin got his first ever medal by taking second!
The next day was the open saber. I won all my pool fights, and it was smooth sailing until the bronze medal match. There I squared off against Logan Caldwell. The two of us officially first met at Duel for the Jewel back in 2024 when we did a little sparing before the tournament and I kept him from getting his first medal in saber. Then we met again at Scioto Open 2024 where we both ended up with bronze medals. Now he stood before me again. If I was happy to see Olivia best me after years of seeing her struggle to finally become the champion she is today, that feeling was felt several times over when Logan whooped my ass! Granted, 7 to 12 isn’t exactly “going softly into that good night”, but I had essentially been doing the same thing all day (attacking the outside line). He picked up on that, baited my attack, and just murdered the shit out of me to sail into the gold medal match and ultimately win gold for the whole event! Great job Logan! Couldn’t be happier to get my ass beat. Now me and my two new medals are gonna ride off into the sunset.
Me checking out my new medal with my old medal still in hand.
Nerd Night
On December the 4th, Hilt and Helm got invited to present at Pittsburgh Nerd Night. The event starts off with speed friending, where everyone signs up on an app created by the event coordinators and gets assigned a person to chat with for 10 minutes. If at the end of the chat the two of you select on the app that you want to hang out again, the event coordinators will then share each person’s contact information so they can arrange new hang outs. Since Ryan and I were presenting later, we decided to throw our hats in the ring to make some friends! The app was really cool … when it worked. There were a couple of times where it wouldn’t assign me a person to meet with and I just had to chat with people the old fashioned way. At the end of the speed friending portion of the night, I did end up making a good friend whom I’m gonna try to hang out with later, but the real take away was our presentation.
Ever since I started doing HEMA, I’ve loved listening to Steel Panther and their hit holiday single “Sexy Santa” has lived rent free in my head for over 12 years. In my head, I’d have a red and white fencing kit and I’d spread Christmas cheer by kicking the asses of every in town! That dream was realized that night as I debuted the fencing kit I’ve always wanted during our presentation fight. Here’s a video!
Lake E-Fecht 2025
On December 6th, I travelled up to Erie PA for Steel Head Western Martial Art’s annual tournament: Lake E-fecht 2025! This tournament isn’t an official one, but it does have a lot of emotional significance for me. First of all, it was where my first ever student Julia Holfelder got her first medal and being the jealous bitch that I am I had to get one as well. Secondly, my long time friend Morgan Wheiler founded the club back in 2017 when she went there for college. Although she’s no longer running the club, it’s still kicking after all these years and two management changes. It feels like a cousin club to Hilt and Helm. Run by great people, I’m always itching to support them when I can. Lastly, I had a new outfit I wanted to debut just in time for the holiday season! When I rolled up to weapon check, initially they were perplexed as to why my longsword was covered in red and white tape. When they saw the rest of the Krampus kit, they knew exactly where I was coming from! As with all fencing tournaments, I got to meet up with some good friends I hadn’t seen in a while. Mary, Wesley and their adorable kids Lauralie and Adelaid were there. My good friends Keenan and Jamie McClean from the Steel City days were there with the club they founded (Rochester Historical Fencing). Oh yeah, and Kevin made it up!
Steel City Reunion! Pictured: Chris Shelton, Keenan McClean, Wesley Halstead, Mary McConnel, and Kevin Brough
In this ruleset, head and torso were worth 2 points, arms and legs 1, and both fighters fought the best of 5 exchanges. Although they had Tier A longsword, Tier B longsword, and messer, I just fought in Tier A because I had other stuff to do that day back in Pittsburgh. During pools I won 3 out of 6 fights. Of the ones I lost …
Wesley and I have been trading who beats whom for the past 12 years. There’s never been a clear and definitive distinction between us as to who is better, but today Wes was on fire! Ever since his loss last year at Scotty Scuffle he’s had me figured out and this tournament was no exception. Although I didn’t make it easy on him, he definitely had the upper hand in that match.
Kevin Brough and I go way back to my Steel City days. Just as I had left to start Hilt and Helm, he had just started there with about maybe a few months of over lap between us but not too much contact. After Steel City imploded, he came to admin and instruct at Hilt and Helm before finally leaving to join Waterfront Historical Fencing. Fresh off his Tier B silver medal from Scioto Open, he started off the fight with a mixture of patient defense and explosive aggression that surprised and got the better of me! Glad to see the guys at the Waterfront are teaching him well. Those lessons with Josh Derby seem to be paying off!
Geoff Lehman was from Nickel City Historical Fencing and he was WAAAY better than I gave him credit for initially. I was expecting an easy match and he completely turned the tables on me! Once I find him online I’m gonna send that dude a sticker.
Ultimately when it came down to the elimination bracket, I managed to beat Kevin to get into the gold medal match then lost to Wesley to get a silver medal. Also managed to get the least double’s award: meaning I walked away from this tournament with shinies numbers 27 and 28!
Santa Claus came to town and left with a cookie!
Congrats to the Medalists!
1st Place: Wesley Halstead
2nd Place: Chris Shelton + Least Doubles Award
3rd Place: Geoff Lehman
4th Place: Kevin Brough
Shady Avenue Magazine Feature!
For their holiday edition, Shady avenue magazine asked to interview us since they cover a bunch of local businesses in the Squirrel Hill area. After being approached by Deb Hansen, she and I have a very pleasant conversation about what the club is, what we do, and where people can contact us. Not wanting to just be a feature story we also bought an advertisement so people would know where and how to reach us. Considering that this club’s humble origins, it’s really amazing to see us sharing space with another club, to getting our own brick and mortar location, to now being featured in print media and on the news! Here’s the article they wrote as well as the advertisement we took out!
Look Mom! We made it into the fabulous world of print media!
Pillowfecht 11: Krampus Nacht
On December 13th, Hilt and Helm Pittsburgh Fencing Club celebrated it’s 4th anniversary with a hallowed tradition: a Pillowfecht In House Tournament! For those who don’t know, when we first started the club we had absolutely no money and we fought with pillows in body pillow cases like flails to teach new students the concepts of timing, distance, and measure. In honor of our humble beginnings, our first event was a pillow fighting tournament. Since then we’ve been able to buy actually weapons but chose to keep the name for each subsequent in house tournament, but change the rules and concept for the following reasons:
It lets us try out zanny new rules that are more fun than they are practical in a low stakes setting.
It helps train our club members to be become competent judges, directors, and table staff to ensure our events run more smoothly.
It allows us to pressure test new rulesets before medals and HEMA ratings get involved.
It allows our newer fighters a chance to fight at a competitive level before going off to other tournaments.
This Pillowfecht’s twist was that the whole club would have to face ME! Chris Shelton, dressed as Krampus!
Our photographer Paul had grinched our tree from last year. Not knowing where it went I bought a new one. When his heart grew three sizes and he brought it back, I didn’t have enough ornaments for our old tree so I improvised and decorated it with my medals!
Pools would determine the order in which everyone would face off against me. Then in the elimination bracket, I would start at the lowest seed, and fight everyone in attendance as I fought my way up the battle tower. I started out with 3 lives and for every 3 consecutive wins I would gain another. Losing a match would cause me to advance up the battle tower but lose a life. If kept from getting to the top of the tower, everyone in attendance would get to pick a gift from the swag sack in the order of where they ended on the battle tower.
In retrospect, I could have made the numbers ornaments. I’ll keep that in mind for next year.
The gift giving being white elephant style if you saw someone get something you wanted before you, you were allowed to take their gift and force them to pick something else from the swag bag. These weren’t patches and stickers they were fighting for, but unsold t-shirts from last year I had no intention of selling in the new year!
This being our 4th anniversary, I wanted something special for people to eat so I got two things. Firstly, I bought a cake from Giant Eagle with my back patch on it. Secondly, I had the event catered by out next door neighbor: Cheng Du Gormet! One thing that I wasn’t aware of when you order custom cakes from Giant Eagle: they can’t print curse words. I got a phone call at 8 am on Saturday morning (4 hours before my event) from them saying they couldn’t print the word “bitch”. After freaking out a little bit, I told them that this was entirely too little notice for them to ask me to upload a new image. Thankfully we were able to compromise by having them use icing to cover the “itc” so I could still have a cake. Once dessert was secured, we began the event.
Ho Ho Ho B$$$H!
Lunch was served after 2 rounds of pools. Cheng Du walked our food over and we ate every last bite! Absolutely delicious, if you ever have the change to try their cooking I highly recommend it. Once we were nice and full, we ran the last round of pools and I finally got to face off against 18 competitors in a row!
What I was not expecting was to actually win the event. After wining 9 in a row, I entered the 10th fight with 6 lives. Phil Clark stopped my kill streak, but then I managed to beat Jesse, Fionn, and Tan to get back up to 6 lives. With only 4 people between me and the top of the tree, it had become impossible for me NOT to win. At this point I clarified that they were getting the presents anyway, but it was definitely not my intention to win. What was hilarious is that there was a brief pause between matches and Fionn shouted “Hurry up and fight him! I can see his hit points restoring as we speak!” They were right. Although 18 fights in a row was exhausting, it was those brief moments of reprieve that allowed me to catch my breath and win the event. Still though, next year I’m gonna make it 5 consecutive wins to make it a little more approachable.
Unicorn Cup 2026
On January 17th, Hilt and Helm Pittsburgh Fencing Club held it’s big tournament: Unicorn Cup 2026! The event actually started the night before when Hilt and Helm alumni Daniel Evens returned to Pittburgh to give a lecture “Indes: Everything Happens Within”. This year’s tournament we made a couple of big improvements:
We added a 4th ring so we could increase the cap for longsword from 42 to 56, saber from 21 to 28, and rapier from 21 to 28 fighters!
We moved the after party to Lawrence Hall (located right across the street)!
Got an official sponsor for the event! (Historical Combat Armory)
Changed rapier and dagger to single rapier per popular demand
Even with the new caps, we still have a wait list for longsword with 16 people on it and sold out the whole event before Thanksgiving! There have been comments that we should expand the tournament to be two days long to adjust for the extra capacity. I’ll speak more on the logistics of why that may be doable but very difficult towards the end of this post. Firstly, lets talk highlights from the event.
Open Longsword
Due to one of our judges being late and two of our directors calling off sick, I stepped in as the judge for pool 4 of open longsword. I did give out a fair number of stickers whenever I saw something really cool though. Here’s a small gallery of the highlights from the tournament. Photo Credits to Caleb McCartney.
Ultimately here are the top 8 competitors.
1st Place: Samuel Ryals Gem City Duelists Society
2nd Place: Joshua Derby Waterfront Historical Fencing Club
3rd Place: Stephen Dougherty Crossing Fight School
3rd Place: Daniel Evans Ram's Head Fencing
5th Place: Piotr Przanowski Charlottesville HEMA
6th Place: Tony Cavalline Hilt and Helm Pittsburgh Fencing Club
7th Place: David Socha Two Ravens Fencing
8th Place: Wesley Halstead
Fashion Show
Next was the fashion show and this year’s contestants were some of the best yet! photo credits go to Scrimshaw Media.
The competition was so good, we gave out 3 honorable mention awards for theme, historical accuracy, and color.
Tan Nguyen has without a doubt one of the best looking HEMA kits in the sport. This beautiful white robe with cherry blossoms isn’t the thickest or most protective jacket around, but it’s certainly the most beautiful. And he fences as good as he looks!
Sanghyun Sheen’s commitment to the red and black motif is as on point (pun intended) as his fencing! The montante, saber, and matching hat serves look and hard as it slays!
Jaymes Walker’s kit was as historically accurate as it was … cheeky and revealing. Although he lost points for toughness, this is in fact what the ancient swordsmen wore. So hats off to Jaymes for his fantastic kit!
Ultimately the winner and most elegant fighter in all of Pittsburgh with 39 out of 40 possible points was Meg Whitman!
Open Saber
Once again I got drafted to judge in saber so I couldn’t be as omnipresent as I would have liked to be, but I was able to give out a few cool stickers. One fighter in particular I wanted to shout out was Vivian Zhou!
Flying like an eagle to score an amazing head boop is Vivian Zhou!!! Such elegance. Such Beauty! I must fight her one day. It will be the most ELEGANT fight the world will ever see!!!
Her fighting was some of the most elegant and theatrical I’d ever seen. Capable of booping tall fighters on their head with leaping lunges, and voiding cuts on one leg while sniping their legs, her fighting style was a fantastical mix of Olympic Fencing back ground with a free form athleticism which had me oozing with envy. I really hope she and I will get to spar at one point in the future. Here’s a video Sam Gorski made that highlighted her particularly elegant fighting style as well as his own.
Below are some highlights of the tournament.
Ultimately here are the top 8 competitors.
Congratulations to our medalists!
1st Place: Joshua Derby Waterfront Historical Fencing Club
2nd place: David Socha Two Ravens Fencing
3rd Place: Adam Growden Shenandoah Historical Fencing
3rd Place: Matt Huber Broken Plow Western Martial Arts
5th Place: Ryan Backos Blackbear Historical Fencing
6th Place: Malin Grant Pittsburgh Fighters Guild
7th Place: Vivian Zhao Salt City Historical Fencing
8th Place: Samuel Ryals Gem City Duelists Society
Open Rapier
After running around all day judging, by the time rapier finally got started, I realized it was already 5 pm and we only had the place for another 3 hours. Instead of being able to just watch the fighting, I was desperately moving behind the scenes packing everything up so we wouldn’t over stay our contract. By the time the last fight had been fought, it was 7:30 pm and we had to get our asses out of there! Below are some highlights of the tournament.
Ultimately here are the top 8 competitors.
Congratulations to our medalists!
1st Place: Samuel Ryals Gem City Duelists Society
2nd Place: Phillip Clark Hilt and Helm Pittsburgh Fencing Club
3rd Place: Joshua Derby Waterfront Historical Fencing Club
3rd Place: Piotr Przanowski Charlottesville HEMA
5th Place: Matthew Melonuk Waterfront Historical Fencing Club
6th Place: Robert Sherry Crossing Fight School
7th Place: Eric McChesney Hilt and Helm Pittsburgh Fencing Club
8th Place: Benjamin Orr Hilt and Helm Pittsburgh Fencing Club
The Tournament Takeaways
Good help is hard to find. The biggest hurdle we have in terms of tournament growth is finding enough competant judges and directors. (And photographers apparently). As much as I’d love to open up another 2 rings to accommodate the demand, the fact that I had to step in twice is a reflection that we as an organization aren’t ready to expand beyond our current capacity just yet. It would be possible to run a small tournament on Sunday at the club. That would allow another 14 to 28 slots of something else to happen in the same weekend. After running a tournament all day Saturday, I did nothing be veg out on Sunday. I just don’t have the energy to do it all over again the next day.
Big shout out to my right hand Ryan for handling the constant ebb and flow of competitors signing up, dropping out, getting on the wait list, and all of the other insanity that goes into organizing this tournament. He also lead the training for table staff and I could not have pulled this off without him! Also a big shout out to my directors and judges. Without you, this event couldn’t have happened!
Next up, big shout out to Amanda Bruce and everyone else for holding down the tables and resolving technical issues! Table staff is the brain of the tournament and no tournament can run without them!
Lastly, I want to thank my pink ass suit for 3 years of loyal service! Thank goodness I was wearing opaque underwear because it could barely contain my excitement!
The rules could use some adjusting. After speaking with Sam Ryals (who one gold in two longsword and rapier), he mentioned that our ruleset is easy to game in the sense that once you get ahead, it’s actually in your best interest to just double out the remaining matches. The whole purpose on our end of making doubles equally weighted to clean hits was to not throw out exchanges. His suggestion: making clean hits worth one more point so that if you are behind you can claw your way back out by fencing cleanly. This is a change I can get behind! We’ll implement this in our next Pillowfecht: M@g!c the Gathering Step!
Adjust the time slots for each tournament. Although we went way over time according to what I allotted per tournament, we managed to get right on time for the whole event. As long as we adjust how long each tournament is expected to last, we can keep the same duration next year but just adjust people’s expectations.
Very few injuries! This year we have the least number of incidents yet with a grand total of only 3 (two finger injuries and some bruising). One of the injuries was due to excessive force that should have been carded more harshly. We’ll adjust our judge training next year to ensure directors feel empowered to use cards where appropriate.
Other Tournament Criticisms
Here I’d like to address other tournament criticisms we heard and why we are remaining firm on our stances. We’d like you to know we hear you but some rules exist for a reason.
Double losses during pools. Someone asked “Why do you have both fighters lose if they get to 0 hit points instead of doing sudden death?” The reason is to keep the event moving. Every tournament ruleset balances three things with their ruleset:
Tournament efficiency - does this ruleset cause the fights to drag on?
Safety - does this ruleset properly penalize unsafe behavior?
Encourage good fighting - does this ruleset reward good fighting or gamesmanship?
Every time a ruleset throws out an exchange, it makes the exchange last longer. Those long exchanges make it difficult to keep the whole event on schedule, so we reward doubles equally to expedite how quickly the fights end if both fighters don’t prioritize clean fencing. If both of you get to 0 hit points, you both lose so we don’t have to have a sudden death match. Is it anti-climactic? Yes, but it’s more efficient during pools. During eliminations, we have sudden death to give both fighters that satisfying conclusion, but pools is meant to sort out the elimination brackets. If you want better seeding, prioritize clean fencing and get that climactic fight in the elimination bracket.
The rings are a tripping hazard. Someone asked why we have the foam rings with gaffers tape. There were several instances where people slammed their feet hard on them and caused them to come up. This is because we do not own that space and gaffers tape is meant to come up easily in once piece to not damage floors. Y’all are grown ass men and women, so no amount of tape is going to keep those matts down if you put all your weight on them to stop. We use the matts to give fighters a tactile way of determining when they are getting close to the edge of the ring. If you are yeeting yourself so hard that you are flying out of the ring and stopping on those matts, you aren’t fighting with enough control. Slow your ass down and don’t use them to brake! These rings are 20 ft by 20ft wide. That is plenty of room.
Overall, Unicorn Cup was another rousing success! I’d like to thank the following organizations:
Our volunteers! Without you, we definitely could not run this event and I thank you profusely. Also I paid you. If you didn’t get paid, reach out to me and we’ll get you situated.
The Boys and Girls Club! Thank you so much for allowing us to use your space for our tournaments. The venue is fantastic and we hope to come back every year.
Lawrence Hall! The food and drinks were fantastic and we’d love to make going across the street every year a part of the annual Unicorn Cup Tradition.
Historical Combat Armory! Thank you for sponsoring our event. The gift certificates have been distributed to the raffle winners and we hope to drive business your way.
Our Vendors! Thanks to the following vendors who provide our swag:
Medals: Crown Awards.
Trophies: Sam Caloiero from Tronix3D
Cups: byMerryWorks
Sash: Robeon
Up Coming Events
Lynx Cup - February 13th 2026
February Potluck - February 20th 2026
Gender Blender - February 27th 2026
Scottie Scuffle - March 8th 2026
Pillowfecht 12: M@g!c the Gathering Step - March TBD 2026
Funfecht - May 19th 2026
