Hilt and Helm Spring and Summer 2025 Update
It’s time to chill in a hammock, grab your favorite drink, and scroll through the latest coming and goings of Hilt and Helm Pittsburgh Fencing Club! Before we get started, we wanted to make a quick shout out to Feedspot for once again naming our blog as One of their Top 25 Hema Blogs!
Oh yeah! Number 14 mother f&#ckers!!
Ok now that the obligatory gloating portion of the blog is over, let’s get to discussing what we’ve been up to this season!
Funfecht 2025
Our biggest Funfecht yet!!
This year’s Funfecht was our biggest yet with 136 people! In last year’s blog post, we lamented that we weren’t the largest HEMA sparring camp in the world because of an event called Fight Camp in Britain. After a little research we discovered that Fight Camp includes individual and group tournaments. Since it technically counts as a tournament AND a sparring event, we’re gonna go ahead and say we are the LARGEST NON-TOURNAMENT SPARRING CAMP IN …
This year’s star studded line up of instructors included The Duelists Randal and Mike who ran an archery class and contest.
Sam Ryals put on an excellent HEMA Human Chess match. The goal of the game is to knock out the opposing king in combat: no check mate required. Each king picks their team by choosing players and assigning each a specific piece on the board. When one piece attempts to take another, the two fighters spar to the best of 3 matches. Doubles cancel out and only clean exchanges count. Each piece gets a specific weapon:
Pawns - Messer, but are supposed to be less experienced fighters
Knight - Saber, but can’t get hit in the torso
Bishop - Sword and Buckler
Rook - Spear, but can’t move either their front or back leg
Queen - Rapier and Dagger but must be played by a gender minority
King - Longsword
Initially I had planned to sit this out since it was occurring first thing in the morning and I didn’t feel like getting my gear on. When I heard they were down a couple of people and it would be using boffers instead of full steel I changed my mind at the last minute and jumped in! Keep that lack of preparedness in mind as I tell the rest of the story.
I wound up on Jason’s team as a knight. Initially the game went a little slowly since only the pieces that interact get to fight. A little dull until your particular piece gets used, but my morning would soon get a lot more lively! Jason put me in a pretty disadvantageous position from a traditional chess perspective. I was right in line to get taken out by a pawn. When the enemy king took the bait I claimed my first victory! To avenge their fallen soldier, then sent the queen after me; whom I also beat! Not one to sit back and let them catch a break, Jason sent me after their first rook.
During the fight, my plan was to krump the spear, ride the shaft to the base (giggity), then take off their head in a stunning third victory. What happened instead was a swift thrust to my groin! After hobbling back to my corner Sam reminded everyone that they should be wearing groin protection. He then asked me if I was and I sheepishly said “no”. After that, I adopted what masters call the “Jackal Guard” where you cover your crotch with your left hand and fight with your right hand. With the jewels guarded, I went back to the old plan and clenched a 3rd victory!
Once they saw how much trouble the last rook gave me, they decided to send the second rook after me and that one finally took me down. Oh well, it’s best that I leave some fight for everyone else. In the end, Jason’s team won. Partially it was sound tactics but mostly it was because he totally stacked the team with Tier A fighters. Matt Dicken, JJ Conlon, Olivia Cleymaet & myself were just some of the heavy hitters and the other team barely had anyone who competed on a regular basis. Still though it was immensely fun at was the inspiration for our next Pillowfecht: Check Mate!
This year we also saw the return of Sellsword Arts’ David Miller and Clark Simon with a fresh Stage Combat class! Although I didn’t get to check it out this year, they made a bunch of content with our guest instructor Micah who taught everyone about atalals!
We also had Jason Cook come down to teach “Harness Your Potential!” The class taught beginner armored combat techniques and gave beginners an easy to follow guide on getting started on purchasing their first kit including where to buy certain parts on the cheap and where to splurge if you have to.
This year’s Foam-ma-geddon was the largest it’s ever been with 94 fighters! The newest weapon to enter the fray was the Kentucky Fried Flail: a pool noodle with some rubber chickens attached to it!
With a Funfecht this large it’s super difficult to capture everything that happened without this blog post becoming absolutely massive, so I apologize if your class or picture didn’t make it in. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one particular incident.
For the sake of their privacy we won’t disclose their name but we will refer to him as “The Engraver”. If you know you know. He attended last year and he was a nuisance, he wasn’t hurting anyone so we decided to keep an eye on him this year when we saw he was returning. For the most part he was well behaved this time. A little annoying at times, but we aren’t going to police people’s lack of conversation skills. What we do police however are the multiple conduct violations he committed while at this year’s Funfecht:
Multiple inappropriate/unwelcome sexual comments to female guests
Threatening comments to other guests
After the first violation, I got several complaints and took him aside to have a talk alone. As much as I and many others enjoy sexual comments, it is very important to know your audience and make sure they are on the same page as you. After our chat he assured me he understood and wouldn’t be a problem for the rest of the event. Not 2 hours later I got the second complaint. Although I didn’t have the exact verbiage or what was said, it takes a lot to make a camp full of trained martial artists feel threatened and this was his last chance. I assembled Ryan Leonard and Sam Ryals to be my wide goon and tall goon respectively, escorted him to the wood shed, and told him he’d be staying the night there. The next morning we watched him pack his camp and escorted him off the property. He is no longer invited to the event.
Now that this little bit of unpleasantness out of the way, let’s announce this year’s winners. With a whopping 110 fights, this year’s Funfecht winner was Jaime McLean followed closely by Mary McConnell who had 105 fights!
Pictured left to right: Jaime McLean (110 fights), Mary McConnel (105 fights), Connor Stewart, Andrew Murray, Veran Stanek, Dylan Levine, and … oh god sorry I forget the last guy’s name. Someone reading this who knows who he is please message me and I’ll edit this later.
Pittsburgh Pride 2025
Hilt and Helm representing LGBTQ+ fencers at Pittsburgh Pride 2025
On Saturday May 31st 2025, Hilt and Helm prepared for our annual tradition of marching in the Pittsburgh Pride Parade. As usual we signed up to have a booth and march. When I was registering for our spot to sell merch, I marveled at how much more affordable the booth prices were this year! Had I taken a moment to read the schedule more clearly I would have realized why it was so affordable. Not only was our reservation on the day BEFORE the march, but it was also AAAAALLL the way at the other end of the park. Still though, it gave us the opportunity to march on one day and booth on another so everyone could enjoy the after parade festivities. Not the best decision from an advertising perspective but hey … live and learn. On the plus side we did get a bunch of really cool pictures including making the QBURGH highlight real and this adorable baby holding a dagger!
Adorable baby holding a dagger!
Camp Kon-o-Kwee Demonstration
Camp Kon-o-Kwee demonstration!
On June 7th, we went out to Camp Kon-o-Kwee to demonstrate what fencing looks like to the young kids of the camp! Fionn (having been a former camper) and Keith (who jumps at any opportunity to help out) came along with me to teach kids about consensual violence. For those who have never been, the camp ground is absolutely gorgeous! I took a couple of wrong turns on my way to the demonstration area and got a full tour of the camp. Not only does it have a whole village of cabins, a pool, tennis courts, and kick ball fields, but an absolutely stunning mess hall where they served us dinner which consisted of a burrito bar with corn on the cob.
After dinner we prepared for the demonstration behind the barn on a porch like stage. We gave a light version of the show we gave at the Carnegie Science Center. First we talked about what HEMA was, then fought. Then we described what it wasn’t (ie Olympic Fencing, Armored Combat, SCA, and LARP), then fought again. We talked about different tournaments we travel to and events we host and ended with a fight where I fought both Keith and Fionn in a relay of different weapons. The questions the kids asked were hilarious as were my responses and the whole affair ended with letting the kids pick up the weapons and take pictures with them. Afterwards they invited us over to eat smores, and what camping experience is complete without smores!
Although the kids were into the demonstration, the camp counselors were REALLY into it. As the ones closest in age to the average fencer in the club, we talked pretty extensively about what it’s like to make friends as an adult and how little things change once you grow up. The juvenile humor especially! All in all it was a fantastic experience for everyone involved and we’d be honored to come back or have any of their campers join us at the club. Also if you’re an event organizer and you’d like us to come to you and do a similar demonstration, feel free to hit us up at hiltandhelm@gmail.com and we can work something out. We do carry insurance and can get liability certificates with enough notice.
Queens Court Open 2025
On July 19th, Hilt and Helm travelled over to Cincinnati Ohio for Queen City Sword Guild’s annual tournament: Queen’s Court Open 2025. Adam Whaley, Dave Burgman, and Ryan Leonard competed in Division B Longsword while I competed in Division A Longsword.
Division A was the usual pool of sharks featuring Brandon Zipplinger, Sam Ryals, Derek Ray, AJ Trefney (whom regularly beat my ass), but this year featured new faces! Of the notables was Victor Marchetto and Lacey Eck.
I had been watching Victor’s ascension to A tier for a while now. After getting gold in a Division B longsword tournament by beating some of my students, he and I chatted and became fast friends. He even made me a magnetic sword frog (picture coming later) which I sent him a thank you card for with a promise that the next time we fight I shall unsheathe my sword from it before our fated duel. Thankfully the Gods smiled upon that day for we were in the same pool; though they did not smile upon my frog because it broke during a fight with one of my students. Still though at the beginning of our fight we hugged, clanged swords, and I welcomed him to Division A by beating him 10 to 5.
The rest of my matches did not go as I would have liked. First up was Derek Ray. Back in 2018 at the first Queen’s Court I beat him to take Third and won a t-shirt. This time he handed me my ass by beating me 8 - 3. After that was Sam Ryals who got me 8 - 5. Last but certainly not least was Lacey. Just as I’ve watched Victor ascend into A Tier, she too has cleaned up in Women’s and Gender Minority Tournaments and was now in the big leagues. We’ve fought several times before and with my combination of speed and insanity I had managed to beat her each time. This time would prove different. During our fight I managed to get up to 5 points pretty early on. The score board was broken so in my head I had an insurmountable lead. Its at that point that I foolishly disengaged my second butt cheek and decided to save my energy by playing defensively. Apparently she could tell, because she amped up her aggression by targeting my legs not once but three times! In the last exchange I’d planned to just deny her the one thing she needed to win: a thrust to the chest. As I was reengaging my second butt cheek she then proceeded to thrust me in the face, giving her exactly enough points to come out on top and beat me for the first time. I have to hand it to her, I was beaten fair and square so I sent her a “Damn! You Scary!” sticker.
Eliminations didn’t go much better. After Matt Dicken and AJ Trefney managed to narrowly beat me I wound up ranked 7th in Tier A. Not my best showing, but hey … this blog isn’t about just bragging when I do well. It also is meant to show even a man with 25 medals under his belt can have a bad day and that underdogs can come out on top.
Thankfully I had 3 other horses in the Division B race. Coming out of pools, Ryan ranked 6th, Dave 11th, and Adam 20th out of 30 fighters. During elims, Adam got knocked out of the top 32, Dave and Ryan had to fight each other in the top 16, and Dave got cock blocked from the semi’s by Jacob Singley. Still though, super proud of Dave for making Top 8, Ryan for making Top 10, and Adam to competing in a very stiff competition.
After the tournament, Ryan and I met up with Sam and JJ at Weideman’s Brewery. We even got to meet their girlfriends. Apparently JJ and his new girlfriend met at Funfecht! There was also a Buhurt demonstration going on hosted by the Cincinnati Barbarians!
Ryan and I getting beer and food at Weidemann’s!
We even got to chat with them afterwards and try on their helmet! We also compared arming swords. There’s was MUCH stiffer than hours. Definitely not competition grade for our purposes, but even they don’t typically thrust with them for safety purposes.
All in all, even though it wasn’t the club’s best showing in terms of placing well in the tournament that thankfully isn’t the litmus test for whether we enjoyed ourselves. Travelling for tournaments is a lot like a family reunion where the family is continuously expanding and you’re supposed to fight each other. It always feels great to catch up with people you only get to see at tournaments, getting to know your friends on the road trip, seeing new places, experiencing great food, and occasionally adding a few new medals to the collection. If you only go to tournaments to chase medals and raise your HEMA rating, your enjoyment of the event will always be conditional. But if you just enjoy the act of travelling, competing, and deepening your relationships, you’ll always come out a winner.
Alicorn Cup 2025
On July 26th, Hilt and Helm hosted our first ever Gender Minority tournament: Alicorn Cup! We felt bad about removing Gender Minority Longsword from the Unicorn Cup but we wanted to ensure that our cis-female, trans, and non-binary competitors could have a competition space for them to thrive. Since we have the privilege of having our own space, we had the unique opportunity to host our own tournament without the need to reach a certain threshold of participants to make renting a large gymnasium worth the effort of putting on a tournament. This would also be our first time attempting to run a for-realzies tournament at the club since it is a little … cozy as our real estate friends would say. We set up tournaments for our two most popular (Longsword and Saber) as well as a fashion show, because I’ll be damned if I’ll rob my gender minority peeps from the glamour and fashion that is the traditional Unicorn Cup experience!
Longsword got kicked off promptly at 9 am. With 5 fighters, this went by fast… too fast. We budgeted 3 hours for the tournament expecting it to sell out with an hour for the first round of pools, and hour for the second, and an hour for eliminations. We were done in an hour and a half. Although there was no reason to have them fight for shiny 3rd, we did it anyway just to fill the time. For the record, shiny 3rd has the same value as 3rd only it’s slightly darker bronze and comes with a patch. Below is a gallery of some of the fights as well as the winners of URG longsword!
Pictured left to right: Tasia Socha (1st Place from Two Ravens Fencing), Sarah Lucas (2nd from Pittsburgh Fighters Guild), Chris Shelton (Guy in Hot Pink Suit), Saoirse Nies (Shiny 3rd from Hilt and Helm), Claire Mohr (3rd from Steelhead Western Martial Arts), and Brienne Charlton (5th from Cleveland Steel Historical Fencing)
After the tournament and a very long lunch break, we had the fashion show! All contestants are judged in 4 categories:
(C)olor: How much does this outfit deviate from the traditional HEMA Black stereo type? Or does it do something cool and interesting with it?
(U)niqueness: Is this something you can just buy off the shelf or did you modify it somehow?
(T)heme: Is there a cohesive theme to the outfit or is it a bunch of random stuff cobbled together?
(T)oughness: Can you actually spar in this outfit or is this a Renaissance Festival fit?
Four judges are given a category and asked to judge each contestant on a scale of 1 - 10. Once all the scores are tabulated, the winner is announced. During Unicorn Cup 2025, I mentioned there was someone in an absolutely fabulous starry night themed kit that WASN’T in that year’s fashion show that should have been. Well thankfully she made a return to the Alicorn Cup so I could give her a sash that just happened to match her outfit. This year’s Alicorn Cup 2025 Fashion Show winner was Brienne Charlton!
Winner of Alicorn Cup 2025 Fashion Show: Brienne Charlton!
Once the fashion show was over, we moved onto Gender Minority Saber. Here’s a few action shots and the winners of the tournament! One particular shout out I want to make is to Mae, Julia, and Lane. They have been with the club for about a year and were part of the first cohort of beginner saber fencers we had when we moved into our current space. Since then they have become regular fixtures of the Tuesday Saber gang and helped out / participated in a number of our events. To see them go from absolute beginners to competitors warms my heart, and to see Mae take home the gold makes my heart swell with pride! For coming out on top of the crowd, she earned her “Damn! You Scary Sticker!”
Pictured Left to Right: Mae Boyer (1st Place) from Hilt and Helm, Claire Mohr (2nd Place)from Steelhead Western Martial Arts, Robin Steele (Shiny 3rd) from Hilt and Helm, Julia Blurton-Jones (3rd) from Hilt and Helm, Saoirse Nies, Devon Christman, and Lane McClane from Hilt and Helm.
Once again I’d like to thank everyone who came out to our first Gender Minority tournament. In today’s political climate we believe it’s as important as ever to ensure those who would be marginalized for being their true authentic selves deserve a space where they can freely practice HEMA without having to deal with misogyny or transphobia. The sword is the equalizer between the strong and the nimble. As long as you can stab them and get away with it, nothing else matters. We’re proud to offer a space for the under represented gender community to grow and thrive and look forward to hosting the next Alicorn Cup in 2026. If at some point it becomes big enough to warrant renting a gymnasium we will gladly do so, but until then it’ll stay here in our home on Forward Avenue.
Sword Quench 2025
Here’s Ryan’s recollection about the club’s outing at Sword Quench 2025:
“On August 9th 2025, I traveled to Columbus Ohio with two of our Masters of Lessons in Longsword -Tony Cavalline and Adam Whaley. Tony and Adam were slated to compete in Sword and Buckler AND Open Longsword, so I got to watch them fight some sword and board. Adam and Tony finished 6th and 7th respectively.
All tournaments at this event were in Open format, meaning no skill divisions. Which meant that Tier A, B and C folks were all sorted into pools and this meant that at some point it was likely you were going to fight one of the best fighters around. Adam, Tony and I did well in pools and then we all won our first round of elims. In Tony’s next match, it came down to a 10-10 stalemate, a disputed call and redo, and in the end the final call just didn't break his way. He fought extremely well on the day. Adam won his next match and so did I which put us one more potential victory for fighting for a medal! Adam lost to an eventual bronze medal winner, Addison Foley from our friends at HEMALex, and I got the opportunity to fight Branden Zipplinger. Branden, if you’ve read the blog before, is a beast and there’s a reason he’s high in the top 50 rankings for Longsword internationally on HEMARatings. The guy is an extremely smart, quick and tactical fighter and I was glad to get the chance to fight him. He would go on to take Silver in Open Longsword. All in all, I think we acquitted ourselves well and displayed some really good fencing.
Here are some pictures from the day : one is of me with friend of the club Jason Littleton from Black Bear Historical Fencing, as well as the 3 sweaty boys from Hilt and Helm at the end of our day!”
Jason with Ryan
Left to right: Adam, Ryan and Tony
Pillowfecht 10: Check Mate
The Kings battling deciding the fate of their pawns and noble subjects at Pillowfecht 10: Checkmate!
On August 16th, we held our in house experimental fencing tournament: Pillowfecht 10: Checkmate! For those who don’t know, we call our in house tournaments “Pillowfecht” because when we first got started we had no money and had to teach people about timing and distance by having them fight with pillows in body pillow cases like flails. Since then we’ve gotten a larger budget but kept the name as an homage to how far we’ve come as a fencing club. Each Pillowfecht uses experimental rules for us to either seriously try out in up coming tournaments or to just goof around with. This Pillowfecht was the later.
We adapted Sam Ryal’s HEMA Chess ruleset with a few notable exceptions:
Instead of having one person per piece, each king can assign any person to any individual piece so long as everyone on their team gets used. This way someone could be both the queen and 3 of the pawns to ensure they get to fight more. Also this keeps a person whose piece gets knocked out from having to sit the rest of the game out.
When one piece attempts to take another piece, the two fighters agree on what weapon to fight instead of assigning a specific weapon to each piece. If they can’t agree on a weapon, we default to the weapon with the lightest gear requirements. This ensures no weapon/gear asymmetry (ie a longsword versus a small sword) where one weapon’s differences in gear requirements could lead to an injury.
The Kings can keep their player/piece assignments a secret. This way you don’t know who that pawn is. Maybe it’s a new fencer, maybe it’s Chris Shelton with a fake mustache!
With these rules set up, it seemed like we had a pretty good format for a team based fencing tournament. There was just one gaping flaw in my plans: I didn’t actually know the rules of chess. In my 38 years on this planet here’s what I’ve learned about chess:
The horse makes an “L”
The castle goes up and down
The bishop goes diagonal
The queen goes where ever the hell she wants
So when questions started coming up about “What do I do if I get my opponent in check?” my first reaction was to say “The king and the piece fight it out”. That happened in 4 moves and almost ended the game super early, so I had to retract that rule. Then there’s the situation where you get the king in check mate. Do all the pieces that have him cornered fight him one at a time or does that king just lose? Without a good firm knowledge of the rules of chess I didn’t have good answers, but thankfully this is a friendly in house tournament so we figured stuff out as we went along.
In the first round, both kings were playing very strategically which resulted in fewer fights but a relatively quick game. The second round the kings were more focused on just getting as many people to fight as possible. Though it took much longer, it was more rewarding for the fighters. If this were ever to become an event I feel like there would need to be an extra incentive to have more fights. When treated like traditional chess, it’s more fun for the kings since they are playing each other and they can’t count on their pieces necessarily coming out on top with every interaction but it’s less fun for the pieces that don’t get to play or the pieces that play once, lose, and have to sit the rest of the game out. Perhaps if there is a point incentive to taking out as many of the opponent’s pieces as possible before a check mate occurs that would be a happy medium between the two styles of play. Still though it was an excellent experiment and a load of fun for all who attended.
Congratulations to the winners of Pillowfecht 10: Check Mate!
Upcoming Events
More Bang For Your Buckler
Date: October 18th 2025.
Description: Join us for our first ever rare weapons tournament: More Bang For Your Buckler! The event will have 3 weapons categories: Sword and Buckler, Small Sword, and Side Sword. See the event page for more details.
Pillowfecht 11: Krampus Nacht!
Date: December 2025 TBD
Description: Pillowfecht 11 will be a different type of tournament: the whole club versus Chris Shelton dressed as Krampus! Pools will be held the old fashioned way to determine rankings. Then the pool rankings will be used to create a Mortal Kombat style battle tower which Krampus will attempt to ascend. Krampus gets 3 lives and gets an extra for every 3 consecutive win. If he manages to make it to the top of the tower, everyone gets coal, but if the club manages to defeat him, everyone gets presents! Winners will get to pick from a sack of unsold merchandise from last year as we make room for new stuff!
Unicorn Cup 2026
Date: January 2026 TBD
Description: Hilt and Helm will host it’s annual huge tournament: Unicorn Cup. Next year we will be running 4 rings to increase the cap of fighters to 56 for longsword, 28 for Saber, and 28 for single rapier. Stay tuned for more information!
Schedule Changes
Thanks to an expanded roster of instructors and volunteers, we’ve been able to expand our hours! Below are the new hours of operation for Hilt and Helm Pittsburgh Fencing Club for September through October:
Mondays
Intermediate Longsword Class with Kevin Brough - 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Free Spar - 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Tuesdays
Advanced Saber Class with Eric McChesney- 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Beginner Saber Class with Morgan Redfield- 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Free Spar - 7:30 pm - 8:30pm
Wednesdays
Beginner Rapier Class with Fionn Kusnir - 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Free Spar - 7:30 pm - 8:30pm
Thursdays
Beginner Longsword Class with Connor Stewart - 6:30pm - 7:30pm
Free Spar - 7:30 pm - 8:30pm
Saturdays
HEMA Workout Class with Eric McChesney - 10:00 am to 11:30 am
African Shotel with Chris Shelton/Alexei Bulan - 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Free Spar - 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Sundays
Private Lessons with Chris Shelton are now moved to Sundays with 3 slots: 9:00 am, 10:00 am, and 11:00 am. See the Class Pass page for details.
