Our Wednesday night 1.33 Sword and Buckler Foundation class concluded after 12 weeks.

It was a blast to introduce the 1.33 material to our organization. We all learned a lot about how the buckler can be used in coordination with a sword. It was really interesting to see some of the oldest written records of descriptions of techniques and strategy. Its easy to see those concepts get passed into the Liechtenauer tradition and continue into Meyer’s system. As the class concluded, we have to come to reflect on how our normal study of Meyer longsword, dussack and rapier can teach us more about sword and buckler.

Our last activity in class was trying out the “Judicial Duel” or “First-blood” style of tournament. Essentially, a sudden death, round robin. Everyone gets 1 hit-point, and all targets are equal and valid, waist and above. After-blows counted for one blade action after a hit to encourage a strong defensive style of play. I can say that was the fastest tournament I’ve ever been in. It was fun and exciting. Dan ended up winning (twice)!

Thank you again to everyone that participated!

Until next time,

Taylor