West Devon Swords attended the May Melee at Knockdown, Gloucs.
The May Melee is a weekend HEMA event held in the grounds of a rather impressive sixteenth-century free house.
Run by Virtus Sword School over the weekend of 22-24th May 2015, the first May Melee brought together several HEMA clubs from across the South-West and beyond for a weekend of classes and sparring alongside general revelry.
Using the camping site at the very welcoming 16th century Holford Arms, Knockdown (Bath Jct M4), the two-day array of sessions were led by a range of instructors from Virtus Sword School and other clubs. The full programme included:
- Sword and buckler
- German long sword
- Bartitsu
- Cutting with sharps
- A mixed weapon competition
A selection of images will be posted in a gallery here soon. RC
Match report from event organiser Jake Free:
Last weekend at The May Melee we held a mixed weapon competition. In the first stage of the competition each of the 14 competitors fought the other 13; meaning we got threw105 fights, and all within an hour and a half! We had 5 judges running 5 separate fights at a time and a separate person keeping track of the scores.
In the first stage of the competition each competitor started with 3 points and lost one when hit, both competitors lost a point for a double and the fight ended when one or both competitors had no points left. The points remaining were then recorded. The total of all the competitors fights we added together at the end of the stage and the two highest scoring competitors went through to the final. The maximum score anyone could get was 42; achieving this would have meant that they were not hit at all in any of their fights. Here’s the list of competitors that got into double digits.
Peter Smallridge. KDF Tonbridge. 26
James Wiggins. Virtus Sword School Bath 20
Amir Sheikh-Warak. Schola Gladiatoria SG-1. 18
Vicki Pritchard. Messengers 16
John Clark. Virtus Sword School Cardiff 14
Daniel Jones. Virtus Sword School Cardiff 11
Claudia Krause. KDF Tonbridge. 10
After a short break Peter and James fought each other with long swords and Peter won 6 – 4.