Passage at Arms Update #1

Dear Longpoint Participants -

For the past few years, I have been encouraging (read: harassing) Jake, Ben and the rest of the Longpoint staff to sponsor an Armored Combat tournament. This year, they said, "Ok, but you get to organize it!" For me, the only appropriate response was "Yay! Wait... oh no..."

There has been quite a bit of interest in this tournament sent my way via a few different channels, but I wanted to send a note to answer some general questions and to gauge specific interest in the Passage at Arms.

To be very clear, this will not be a Battle of Nations-style or SCA-style tournament. The goal of this Passage at Arms is to showcase to members of the HEMA community and greater public-at-large the art of chivalric armored combat as recorded in the various treatises of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and to especially display the precision and technicality of fighting in armor. As such, we will expect a relatively high minimum acceptable presentation when it comes to the armor worn and experience of the individual fighters.

Participants in the 2015 Longpoint Passage at Arms will be expected to be familiar with armored combat, using the longsword held in a half-sword position, spear and dagger. Being comfortable with wrestling in armor, especially falling, is strongly recommended. We will have relatively limited target areas, so as to maintain safety and to encourage techniques from the historical treatises. Specific rules for this year's passage at arms are still in development and will be released as soon as they are finalized.

As this is Longpoint's first Passage at Arms, it will be a small invitational tournament. Anyone interested in participating should send an email to me at [email protected] and include the following:

1. Name
2. School/Instructor
3. Experience: including years in armor, previous tournaments participated in (if any), and fight books studied/trained.
4. A picture of you in the kit you would like to fight in

We'll be setting up a smaller email list to those interested, finalizing the rules and participants over the next month.

Looking forward to great fighting this year!
Sincerely,
Jessica Finley, Longpoint Staff
[email protected]