It's Fun to Stay at the SCA

The Society for Creative Anachronism: dressing in medieval garb, drinking with friends, taking classes, and occasionally hitting people in armor with sticks. Click here if the idea excites you. That is where I spent most of my weekend.

It all started Thursday after my weekly fencing class. I love fencing. Many consider it girly or pompish in regard to martial arts, but it call it "I can jab you! ha-ha! :P" I am learning the Italian form of steel fencing, which is supposed to be more aggressive than the other schools of fencing. My father learned the French form, and claims that his teacher was much tougher and more picky. As for me, I think he might be right.

 We went home and loaded the car. When going to an SCA event, you bring standard camping equipment (NOT a trailer! trailer camping is camping for sissies!!!), twice as much water as normal, and armor, practice weapons, shields, and possibly bows, knives, and axes for the archery and thrown competitions. This took me a little under an hour to load. Then I got into garb. The SCA prefers that people dress in period clothing, thus those who wish not to be dorkly actually research medieval clothing. However, I did not have much for options, and thus went with the standard: tunic, belt, combat boots, and fighter pants. Fighter pants are really, really baggy. You and a friend can fit in the same pair. I does not like fighter pants, but they were all I had.

After came the driving portion. We had rough directions and only passing street lights to read them with. It was night when we set out, and it was much later when we arrived at the scary patch of nowhere the event was at. It was in a park, as was usual for the SCA. (it's either a park or farm, usually) We arrived and set up our lovely eight person tent, right next to a tree. We rued that choice the rest of the event, for we had entered the domain of the Demon Squirrel. Demon Squirrel is a huge, fat rodent that is not satisfied with crumbs and scraps; it desires your food's soul! And to this end it fearlessly strolled into the camp and stole entire bags and jars of our munchies. We feared and despised the Demon Squirrel and it's Squirrelly Wrath!

Then we fell into a routine: breakfast at whenever we got up, a mixture of classes and wandering the site during the day, lunch around noon, more classes into the afternoon, watching fighting competitions at sunset to after dark, then returning to camp to hear the drunken stories of the old guard members. While there is a wide variety of classes, I chose the beginning heavy fighter classes. I hope to later fight in competitions and wars, and to do that I will have to learn the SCA style of heavy armor combat. As of now I have learned a few of the basics of the sword and shield style. I hope to later branch out into single sword and possibly pole arms, but I find that sword and shield is the most common style; that most fighters know sword and shield. Thus, I think it is a good place to start.

I also learned a bit of chivalry at the SCA, though to hear the old guard talk one might think that chivalry is not as common as it was in the good old days. And after looking around at other members, I think they're right. I have seen many walk past royalty without bowing, almost no one offers help to strangers, and lone women walking about is common place. I do not remember this being the case when I was eight! I heard talk of a competition and reward system for "the most chivalrous" that is being petitioned, but it is not set up yet.

All in all, I love the SCA, and it is my fond hope that I will always be a member, and that I too shall have the chance to get smacked in the face by a big, scary, armored guy with a stick.