SCA – Start to Joust
There are a common set of questions that I am often asked by new people that I have met when i start telling them about doing historically based jousting. They generally consist of: Where do you do that? How did you get started? Are the groups that do really do that? Who do you do that kind of stuff with? And so on of course. Over the years, I have probably told the answers at least a few thousand times and I have typed them in some formation or another at least a few hundred in just the last year. So, I thought I would put this is a blog for all to read and see – and it gives me the double edge bonus of being able to refer future meetings to this blog entry. I have realized after writing this, it is going to be a few post, so here is the first one about the SCA.
SCA - The Society for Creative Anachronism started back in the late 1960′s at a very hip unversity in California. From there it grew like wildfire and today, it literarly spans the globe. It is technically what I would call a historical recreational group, in that historically accuracy is not rigidly enforced. It does require that all who are participating make some attempt at being in costume (or garb) that represents a person from the 6th – 15th centuries. Becuase it is a large organization and has minimum entry requirements it is a great place to start for the historical reenactor. Once involved you are not limited at all and can make your kit as historically accurate as you desire, including developing a paticular persona from a via specific time period.
Some additional information about the SCA that is worth knowing. The world is divided up into kingdoms, for instance most of Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois compos the Midrealm Kingdom, where I reside. Each kingdom has a ruler, chosen two to three times a year by ground based combat. There is no roll of dice to determine the outcome, but actual slugging it out with wood (okay, technically, rattan – a type of wicker) and ones physical abilities. The winner of such a tournament gets to name his (or her) consort to sit on the throne, usually the very inspiration of why they fought.
Equestrian activities when I started to become really active in the SCA some ten or eleven years back were mostly limited to things like what knights and squires would have used to train. It included things like tilting at rings (and I mean with long lances, not the pool-queue stuff you see in Maryland and Virginia sometimes), tilting at the quintain (hitting a shield like device that spins), and throwing a spear. It would combine these into quests and challenge course and sometimes have a quadrille or some such as well. In not the not so far off past they have included a crest combat, based on historical records, with swords and jousting, albiet with stryrofoam tips. There are to date some experiments going on with using wooden (rattan) swords for combat and some balsa wood tip jousting experiments. All in all, the SCA is a good place to start, growing both a kit (costume) and your skill set.
I should note that the equestrian activities have definite seasons and are rare to occur more then one or two a month in a kingdom, but could still have you driving up to 500 miles to attend one. The SCA in general though has something going on just about every weekend and most times you can something with a 100-200 miles maximum, depending on your specific interests of course.
Oh, and just to clarify, I am still fairly active in the SCA, both equestrian and getting going with the ground fighting (as well occasionally practicing some in the artistic side of things). I am just about to stop up to the head position of the equestrian group in the kingdom. There is just something about going to an event and having 8,000 friends there who have a similar mind set for a whole week, the opportunity to met 3,000 of them on the field in combat, or find 50-60 of them to compete with on horseback, not to mention the kicking back and have a deep drink of some homemade brew that evening around the campfire as you recount the days heroics. I would invite everyone that reads here to join me at Gulf Wars XVIII in Mississippi come March 2009.
* – Photo credited to Lady Em, via Flickr
December 16th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
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