Hilt and Helm Spring Summary 2023
February of 2023 presented a myriad of new challenges for our club. For starters, our student base had just about doubled but Sheradan could no longer teach on Saturdays due to his work schedule. The solution was to have guest instructors fill in so I didn’t have to sacrifice every weekend to teach. We were able to tag in our good friend Nick Bulan to fill in one Saturday a month. Camilla Frazier drove over for another and we made a whole event out of it, with a stunning record turn out for her Whirls and Twirls class!
In March, Christian Butner volunteered to teach a dual Longsword and Saber Class!
In April we had 2 local fencing masters come and teach class. Big shout out to Malin Grant from Pittsburgh Fighters Guild and Daniel Evans from Steel City Historical Fencing for coming out and teaching us grappling with the longsword and fighting against left handed fencers!
I also wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the sheer volume of weapons we’ve acquired. When we first started, we had exactly one metal sword that wasn’t mine.
Back in my day we had exactly one sword to swing!
Now you can’t swing a sword around here without hitting another sword!
We also got to compete at the Ascalon Sword Festival where we earned our club’s first two medals!
Pictured: Tony Cavaline earning the club’s first bronze medal!
Pictured: Chris Shelton earning the club's second bronze medal!
Back in March we held our first ever public class in the park spear headed by Vice President Sheradan Crow. The good news is that we had a fair amount of interest from passersby and with a little consistency it could have turned into a decent way to gain awareness and publicity for the club.
The bad news is that it was cold as a hell, hauling all of the gear to and from the club was exhausting, and we haven’t done it again since. This is exactly why I’m glad we have an indoor space. Still though, we did get some fond memories out of the event!
Pictured: Our first but hopefully not last public class in the park!
Pillowfecht 3: Saber the Moment was a blast and a half! This time Pillowfecht was a Saber Tournament with one large caveat: style points. Matches went on for 3 minutes or 12 points; which ever came first. During the match, music of the fighter’s choice was played and fencers were encouraged to be as extra as their hearts desired. All of the audience members were given a single artificial rose, and were told to throw it at the fighter who captured their heart. Whoever got more roses received an additional 5 points, so style wouldn’t win you the fight, but in a match of equally talented fighters it would be the decider between victory and defeat. Although it wasn’t my intention to fight in it, Pete was willing to direct the whole time and others volunteered to judge; meaning that I could actually participate! The event climaxed in a fight for gold between myself and Tom Amoroso. We played “Holding Out For A Hero” by Bonnie Tyler. During one of the iconic lines “I need a hero!” I thrusted in on the thunder crash scoring 2 points! In the end Tom and I wound up with 11 points each and it came down to the audience’s decision of who was the more fabulous fighter and I’m happy to say that Tom won!
Picture: Tom Amoroso, Chris Shelton, and Daniel Evans … the most EEEEEElegant fighters in AAAAAAll of Pittsburgh!
Not all of our news was good though. Back in March, Jon and Kait Heidenreich formally resigned from the club. It was with their help that I was able to start the club, but due to irreconcilable differences they chose to part ways. I want to address one major point they made in their letter of resignation.
”Since the co-founding of this club, one of our shared goals has been to protect and support everyone involved, but we feel that we have been met with reluctance to pursue accessibility for the physical disabilities many times.” -Jon and Kait Heidenreich
I would like to clarify that this reluctance was not born out of malice towards the disabled nor indifference, but out of financial necessity. I do not own the space we are currently using for practice so I can not just pay to get the elevator fixed. We are in our location because they allow us to store our equipment there and the rent is low enough that if no one comes to class I can (and have on numerous occasions) pay the rent out of pocket. And as much as I would like to move the club to a location with air conditioning, a reasonable amount of stairs, and a more accessible parking lot I don’t have the energy or time to do the necessary research that entails on top of my other responsibilities as the Jarl.
I’m at the club twice a week every week either teaching or administrating. I regularly attend tournaments and external HEMA functions. I handle the club’s expenses, taxes, website, event planning, advertising, insurance, purchasing and maintenance of equipment, design, acquisition, sale, and distribution of club merchandise, scheduling and training of instructors and staff on top of my day job and what remnants of a social life I have outside of the club. Could I maybe slow my roll a bit on some of these initiatives and channel that energy into finding another space? Yes … but that brings me to my next point.
The club doesn’t generate that much money. Last year the club earned about $3800. You may look at all of the stuff we’ve acquired and think “Maybe the club is generating a lot!” but it’s not. I’m personally making up that difference. Last year I spent $8800 of my own money either buying equipment for the club or making up the deficit between what the club had in its coffers and what we owed in rent. And we are still going strong because I was able to do that. But were we to find another location that meets all of these requirements I’m not confident I would be able to afford it if club attendance waned for a prolonged amount of time. Can we meet in parks that are ADA accessible, yes … but if it rains or is too cold we would have to cancel. And who is going to lug all of our gear back and forth from the club? The answer unfortunately was me and there is only so much I can do for the club, physically and financially. In the end I’m sorry I couldn’t have made the club everything that they needed and I hope they can find another space that is more accommodating if they continue with HEMA.
But let’s end this blog post on a positive note! For those of you who have seen what our club’s storage situation used to look … depressing. Basically I had a bunch of tires that I turned into a “sword bin”, just a tiny ass closet to put all of our stuff in, and more pillows that actual weapons. Beginnings don’t get much humbler than this.
In April we were finally able to convince our neighbors at Corsair Fencing Club to let us clean out a portion of the back room so we could store our things in a space big enough to actually get dressed in. With some help from our students, Fit Lyfe by Gray, and 1-800-Got-Junk, we were able to clear out 9+ years of garbage in order to give us this sparkling new storage space!
I also want to take this time to welcome three new staff members! Sean Grable our new Warden of Week’s Center, Sean Martin our new Master of Lessons, and Auren Butler our new Quarter Master. Their assistance is most appreciated and I welcome the weight they’ll take off my shoulders.
As for future plans, we have every intension of putting on our first for-real-zies tournament in the near future. Keep an eye out for “The Unicorn Cup”. I will need help getting this thing off the ground so any assistance people would like to give towards running a HEMA tournament I’m more than happy to accept.
