Bigfoot in Seattle – Beth Hammer talks about Swordsquatch 2016

Tell us a bit about the PNW Gathering for those who are outside the US or may not know about the event.

The PNW HEMA Gathering started in 2010 as a small get together in someone’s garage, followed by beer. Since then it has slowly grown as a yearly gathering for the clubs in the Pacific Northwest aka PNW. This region includes Oregon, Washington, Northern Idaho and British Columbia. When society falls apart we will all band together to form the great nation of Cascadia where we will thrive on our abundant natural resources and vast knowledge of craft beer brewing.

Women’s longsword eliminations

What was the reaction when Lonin League got nominated to host this year’s PNW Gathering?

We weren’t so much nominated as we had the most people actually interested in putting it on this year and no one else objected. But we were a very enthusiastic little posse and we had a lot of fun ideas we wanted to make happen. Things really got exciting when we ended up booking SANCA (the circus school we train in) as the venue. That opened up a ton of opportunities to show off our space and the uniquely Lonin things about our club.

What was your role in the event?

I was one of the four core organizers. Leigh, Aidan, Erik and I started on this adventure back in January. This was an amazing team and we all worked together incredibly well and naturally fell into each of our roles. Erik ran the tournament, including judging training and recruitment. Leigh rocked the socks off administrative stuff and all the social media. Aidan wrangled vendors and recruited our amazing lineup of workshop instructors. I did all of the graphic design/website, budget coordinator, set the schedule and general wrangler of the event.

What’s with the name Swordsquatch?

Mostly just that we are giant dorks.

Early on we decided to rebrand the event to go along with the new direction we were taking things. One of our major goals was to create an environment that wasn’t solely focused on the tournament. We wanted to keep things hella fun and uniquely Seattle. Also we have a problem with puns. Someone should probably hold an intervention.

… if you’re asking literally what’s a Swordsquatch that would be a mashup of “sword” and “Sasquatch” aka Bigfoot.

There’s some pretty rad promotional artwork, and those medals are unique. Can you tell us about who made these and the concept?

THANK YOU That was all me (except the t-shirts, designed by the wonderful Pat Jenson) I wanted to break away from the standard HEMA photos and HEMA black so the only possible solution was neon pink and monsters.

The medals started from the concept that “we fight with steel, our medals should be steel.” Also I like playing with fire and chemicals. I went through several iterations on the design playing with the shape and the layout of the swords and mountains and tiny squatch. The medals were cut out using a waterjet (thank you, Rusty Oliver of Hazzard Factory). I then used the toner transfer technique to iron on a laser jet print out onto the blank medals, then drop them in a bucket of acid for 20 min. Finally with the help of local knife maker Hazel Zel Margaretes of Sideros Design, we used a blowtorch to get the different colors… also I may be an overachiever.

Swordsquatch medals

What are your three favourite moments from the weekend?

1. Handing out the prizes for Bigfoot Brawl. — The BfB was our diabolical plan to get people to spend more time free sparring. We had a space dedicated all weekend to open sparring. We weren’t recording winners, only who fought who and what weapons they were using. No rules other than to negotiate with your partner the level of contact and keep it safe. By the end of the weekend over 200 matches were fought! We saved our best prizes for the the person who fought the most number of unique opponents and for the person who used the most variety of weapons. Moses Jones and Matt Mawhirter spent most of the weekend in the Brawl and were just awesome. They both had basically the same numbers with 76 different opponents and 27 different weapons used. They each took home a sharp from Angus Trim.

   

   Bigfoot brawl

   

   Bigfoot brawl winners

2. Flying Trapeze — We train in a circus school and mostly just get to watch as they play with all the fun toys and jump on the trampolines. But we finally got our turn! SANCA has recreational trapeze set up where anyone can get on and fly. We had 3 hours blocked off for everyone to get a chance to have a go and OMG it was so much fun. I went several times and got to learn the second trick where there is a second guy on the other trapeze and you hang from the bar on your knees and then he grabs your hands and then you’re just swinging from him. It was super mega awesome.

3. Getting to cut with Angus Trim’s 2-handed falchion — Sunday we had a big cutting party outside where we finished off the unused tatami and made a giant fruit salad. Gus made this SUUUUUPER awesome sword that is just made for taking off heads, it’s beautiful, he graciously let me cut with it and it was so good. It was also my first time cutting tatami — super fun.

   

   Cutting at Swordsquatch

What piece of advice do you have for first-time event organizers?

Teamwork. This event was a complete team effort. From the leadership on down everyone was in it together. For our core team this meant seamlessly picking up the slack as life got hella real — there was a ton of illness, death and a major surgery — but we all were there for each other and kept encouraging one another and kept going. When we started expanding our team we gained some wonderfully capable people who jumped in on our vision and did their jobs wonderfully. And at the event everyone including those who weren’t official volunteers were always ready to help and be apart of what was going on. We created an environment where everyone wanted things to go well and were invested in making it work.

Also plan the shit out of everything *before* the event and then when it’s actually go time, chill and roll with the punches. And having 16 backup plans for every piece of the puzzle is also useful.

Golden Finnish – interview with Sara Vertanen

“I stabbed and I won” Sara fighting at Swordfish 2016 Photo by: Tapio Väänänen

Written by Claudia Krause

Sara Vertanen, 21 year old longsword champion from Finland, has been more than successful in the last 12 months. In 2015 she won the women’s longsword competition at Swordfish, our unofficial World Championship. This year she became Nordic Historical Fencing League Champion of the women’s longsword division, with a very clear margin. Just yesterday she scooped up a gold in the Dutch Lions Cup. How did she become such a dominant longsword fighter in Europe? Sara isn’t exactly dying to give impromptu interviews. Some may have noticed that she did not appear in the Swordfish live-stream for a statement after her win. However, she kindly answered some questions on-line to enlighten us.

Sara was born in Jyväskylä, a city of just under 140,000 inhabitants in central Finland, about 234 km (145 miles) from Helsinki, as the crow flies. When she  first came in contact with HEMA in 2011, Sara was no stranger to sports.  She had played Finnish baseball for 6 or 7 years, and was still training volleyball regularly . When a classmate in  high school found an advert for a beginner’s course with the JHMS (Jyväskylä Historical Fencing Club), several friends, including her, signed up.

She was still training with JHMS, when Eliisa Kuusama (then Keskinen) sent her a message 2 weeks before the 2015 Helsinki Longsword Open. Eliisa Keskinen is a household name known to many, as two time gold medalist in  women’s longsword at Swordfish herself, vocal supporter of women’s tournaments in HEMA, instructor at EHMS and contributor to the Nordic fencer blog.

So when Eliisa suggested she might be interested in the women’s longsword competition, Sara said yes. That was her first time in the arena. She didn’t start by winning all her pool fights, let alone getting anywhere near a medal. But she ended up fighting all Nordic League competitions that year, all the while making visible progress.

In autumn last year she moved to Espoo, near Helsinki  to start a 3 year degree course in security management. It was mere coincidence that Eliisa happened to follow the same course, albeit in a different year.  Alternatively, we speculate, there must be something about the longsword inspiring this choice of career…

Espoo is a large city next to Helsinki. Together with yet another city, Vantaa,  they are referred to as “capital city area”.  Espoo is  also home to one of Finland’s most prominent HEMA clubs, the EHMS (Espoo Historical Fencing Club).  EHMS was founded and originally located in Espoo, then relocated to Helsinki. This caused some consternation regarding the “E” in the club name, but attempts to change it failed. Presently training has moved to Espoo again, which has resolved the the name conundrum for now.

Whatever its name troubles, EHMS is certainly known for first-tier HEMA competitors and instructors. Besides Eliisa, Kristian Ruokonen has scooped  many medals both sides of the Atlantic. He was one of the major players in causing a minor identity crisis in US HEMA by dominating the competitions a few years ago at “Longpoint”, the largest international HEMA event in the USA. It is fair to say, he is equally feared and welcomed in HEMA circles wherever he goes.  Matias Parmala, Sara’s principal coach, is not only co-founder and instructor of the EHMS, but one of Finland’s finest longsword fencers. Illka Hartikainen heads a whole host of excellent swordfighters of the Bolognese tradition. This  environment has proven very valuable to her. She is rarely thoroughly satisfied with her own performance and has experienced “dry spells” where she did not quite enjoy training or competing.

“Luckily I have a very supportive club full of inspiring and talented people. That motivates me to keep on practicing. It also helps that I have a very good coach, Matias. He was coaching me through this year’s  Nordic Historical Fencing League. He has pushed me to my best performance yet and talked to me whenever I was ready to quit.”

This year’s NHFL competition provided quite a mental challenge for her: “After winning the first competition I thought that I might have a tiny chance of winning the whole league. When I got bronze in the third competition in Copenhagen I actually calculated many, many times what needed to do to still win the whole league. I found it very challenging to keep my head in the game. And yes, it was extremely rewarding to step on the podium after the last league competition, Sweden Open, as overall  winner. It felt like that my training had gone in the right direction.”

Smile of a winner Sara with all her Nordic League Medals Photo by : Christopher Warelius

As it turns out, she would have needed to do nothing after the third competition to emerge as overall winner. But instead she won gold in the Sweden Open as well. That is nothing if not true dominance. But it is very comforting to know that even outstanding fighters suffer from the  self doubts and “nerves”.

And Sara has her share of it: “I do stress a  lot about competing and  being successful in it. It’s easier to not stress if you don’t go. But I always  find myself signing up in the end. To be honest, I hate competing, but at the same time I love it. It is hard to explain, but some kind of love hate-relationship.”

Sara  told us that competing itself has changed her attitude to training. She trains harder to learn new techniques to a level that she can use them with an uncooperative partner. She also has started to run and lift weights, in order to become “the best fencer she can be”.

So what does she think are the most important attributes to become a good  HEMA fighter?

“First of all, you must be passionate. You have to be prepared to spend lot of time  training. You have to have patience and be hard headed, even, because there will be times when nothing is working and you feel like you’re stuck.”

But Sara does know that nobody is an island, and hastens to remind us:
“From personal experience, no one can become the best  HEMA fighter they can be on their own. You need to have good, reliable support behind you. Those who push you all the time to perform even better. You also have to be humble. You can’t always win.  Someone will eventually beat you.”

Sara has stayed humble herself. As formidable as she is as a fighter, as personable and calm she is in real life.  We wish her a long and happy HEMA career, both in and out of the arena.

She wouldn’t humour us to invent a battle cry for herself, because “I’m a Fin. I don’t show that much emotion”. We, however,  will be sure to cheer plenty for her, next time we see her fight.  It turns out she has registered for swordfish this year again.  The Swordfish life-stream is a definite possibility then!

 

The author of this article is wholly responsible for its content.

NHFL men’s and women’s divisions in 2016

Originally published 1 November 2015

By Fran Terminiello

The Nordic Historical Fencing League will have mens and women’s longsword divisions in 2016, says Kristine Konsmo, senior NHFL committee member and familiar face in the International HEMA tournament scene.

Kristine has been a part of competitive HEMA for some years now, famous for winning the open sword and buckler in Swordfish 2010, and winning or refereeing many high profiled matches since. This year she took over as senior instructor at Fekteklubben Frie Duellister in Norway.

Following on from her thrilling Swordfish rapier and dagger final against Piermarco Terminiello of the UK where she achieved silver this weekend, Kristine issued the following statement:

“In the very first NHFL season there were 4 tournaments. In them, 5 women competed a total of 9 times. One woman competed in all four tournaments.

In the second season we started a women’s division. While there were only 3 tournaments that year, we still had a total of 16 women competing a total of 33 times, and 8 women competed in all three tournaments! This year’s Swordfish has the biggest women’s tournament in its history, and many of the fencers from the league have been competing here this weekend.

Due to the nature of the team competition, women were forced to compete in either the mixed or the women’s tournament, and not a single woman competed in either of the mixed tournaments.

There was clearly a demand that we were meeting, and it was also clear to us that there was no real need to keep the mixed tournament open to women.

That in and of itself was no reason to close the mixed to women, but unfortunately, some people kept comparing the results in the women’s to the mixed, and calling the mixed “the true test of skill” and otherwise disparaging the results of the women who competed there.

We feel like this is a way of denigrating the efforts of the women who participate in the women’s tournaments. To further emphasise the hard work and amazing progress made by women fencers over the past year, remove what we consider an unfair comparison between the genders, and to create the best possible environment for further growth in the women’s tournaments, we have decided that next year’s NHFL will no longer have a mixed division, and instead be separated in the women’s and the men’s. The team competition will continue as previously.”

The news will be welcome by many women on the competition scene, and is bound to cause controversy elsewhere. Some may see it is a sign of the ‘mainstreaming’ of HEMA, whether that is for good or ill is a topic for debate. One thing is for certain however, we are seeing more women in HEMA competitions.

Link to original article

 

WOMEN’S TOURNAMENTS: MEANINGFUL CHALLENGES

Original Post: 4 Mar 2014

The views expressed in this article are those of the author.

By Eliisa Keskinen.

As long as I have been involved in competitive HEMA, the discussion on whether there is a need or if it is even ethical to hold women’s tournaments has continued. I wish to bring up some of the practical reasons to have women’s tournaments, both for women’s sake and for HEMA’s popularity’s sake. I am aware that some people have ideological objections, but I will not discuss them here. I will also approach tournaments as an integral part of HEMA, and so will not directly discuss the more general reasons for or against tournaments.

It is often said that this is a martial art, and you should be able to fight anyone. However, tournaments are by nature an artificial game, not a fight, and that the best way to learn to fight anyone is not necessarily to fight everyone. If one sees tournaments as training, as many do, it is important that this training offers meaningful challenges and a sense of progress. Others want to compete for competition’s sake, or view it as a test of their martial ability.

The common thread between all these reasons for participating in tournaments is that they are supposed to achieve something greater than simply participating in a tournament, and it is neither good training, nor a good test, nor very rewarding, to participate in tournaments where you are by nature disadvantaged to the point that your chances of winning the toughest fights are virtually none. Why is this? Because it does not take skill to get mediocre results year after year, nor does it test anything: what is the meaning of a test you’re unlikely to improve on? You do get a bunch of fights, but it is very difficult to get a good sense of progress, especially after a certain point. It does take some amount of courage to risk injury, but at the same time since one is going in as an underdog, there is no risk of losing face.

If a large segment of potential fencers, in fact over half of the earth’s population, lack a meaningful competitive environment, many of these people will be lost to HEMA. One only needs to look around at an average HEMA event to see that this is probably already happening, and has been going on for years. This is also not the case in similar activities with established women’s series, such as sport fencing.

You can see the effect of this in the tournament scene: the Swordfish 2012 women’s tournament probably had more female participants than any other modern HEMA tournament has had. If there was no social call for women’s tournaments, this would be not the case. Of course it takes time for this to take effect: the Swordfish 2009 ladies’ tournament had a mere five participants, but those brave pioneers paved the way for the rest.

There is also a need for role models for female beginners, non-competing practitioners who are still interested in tournament results and young people who might not practice HEMA but are fascinated by the world of historical swordplay. It does make a difference that female role models exist, and for that purpose it is good to have female champions. Imagine if someone asks, for example, who is the most successful female HEMA fencer in the world? Without women’s tournaments, the answer is likely to be someone who did well in an open tournament, but did not win. Which is more inspiring: that, or female champions in large, international female competitions?

A beginner’s tournament in no way replaces a woman’s tournament: it does not create role models, and while it does offer the possibility of progress, there is no point for someone to compete in a beginner’s tournament year after year if she is no longer a beginner, but at the same time winning the open competition remains an unrealistic prospect. Frankly, I find the concept that women’s competitive HEMA should revolve around beginner’s tournaments offensive, as it defines women in HEMA as second class practitioners.

So why are women disadvantaged in open competition? Let us look at some facts about differences in physical prowess between men and women. For strength, Olympic Weightlifting provides a good example: in the 69kg weight class, the world record for snatch for men is 165kg, while for women it is 128kg. This is a 22% difference!

If we compare world records in two speed-based sports, the 100m sprint and 50m freestyle swimming the difference is smaller, but still there: In 100m sprint, men’s and women’s world records are 9.58s and 10.49s respectively, and in 50m freestyle 20.91s and 2.,73s. This is a difference of 8.7% and 11.9%, in two sports where having a greater mass is not an advantage in itself.

In swordplay one needs both strength and speed (which has been written down at least as far as the 15th century!), and even at the highest levels of training women have a natural disadvantage in both. It is possible for individuals to be stronger and faster than individual men, of course, but the higher the bar of the open competition is raised, the less likely it is that a woman can physically challenge the top men in a tournament. As mentioned before, the opportunity to win tournaments is valuable in itself, and merely the opportunity to take part and get mid-level results cannot replace this. This is true not only for women as individuals, but also for the sake of having a strong female presence in competitive HEMA, and by extension all of HEMA.

Now, obviously women can and have won open tournaments, but the differences in statistical physical ability do make it more and more unlikely at higher levels. People say you can compensate with skill; but skill training is equally available to everyone so it cannot be used to bridge that gap. However, the trend that a women’s tournament can get more women to participate in competitive HEMA, and thus give them the experience and skill benefits of actively fighting in tournaments, actually makes it more likely that a woman will win a prestigious open tournament. I’d say this means that regardless if women can compete at the highest levels of open tournaments, at this point in time women’s tournaments are a positive force.

Original post: http://esfinges1.wix.com/e/apps/blog/womens-tournaments-meaningful-challenges

Märta-Sofie Geijer Interview

Original post: 10 Nov 2012

Interview by Fran Terminiello
The views of the author do not reflect the views of Esfinges

Arguably the highlight of the Swordfish 2012 finals last Saturday night was the Women’s Longsword Final. It was preceded by a close fought exchange between Krisztina Nagy of Hungary and Lena Frederikson of Sweden for bronze. The resulting score of 8-6 left Nagy in third place. The final took place between Jessica Finley of the USA, a well-respected personality in the HEMA scene, and the relatively unknown Märta-Sofie Geijer of Sweden. At just 18 years old, Märta took the event by storm with her ferocity, passion, skill and ultimately her victory with 11 points to 2 that left the live audience on its feet with applause.

A modest and unassuming young woman, Märta has been a familiar face in Esfinges. Her win follows on from a previous gold medal at the Women’s Longsword Tournament held earlier this Summer at Kungskrabba in Sweden, which undoubtedly prepared her for the renowned Swordfish event, held annually in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Hi Marta, so how does it feel to have won such a prestigious title at an international event?

I’m really happy with the tournament and the bouts I got to fight. The final fight against Jessica Finley was one of the best I have ever fought. I’ve recently been uncertain about my fencing, so I’m mostly glad to have found that my style works. I have to say that I’m really impressed with many of the fighters I got to meet at Swordfish. The level of technical skill and heart displayed in the matches is truly amazing. I feel inspired by the colourful bunch of people and the varied fighting styles I have seen and sparred with to continue training and become better.

How long have you been studying HEMA, and what drew you to the art of longsword?

My first contact with HEMA was in school where I saw an advertisement poster from ÖFHF (Örebro Society for Historical Fencing), my club, and said to my friends “that is so cute!”. I got one friend to go with me to my first training. I immediately fell in love with the art and the people in the club. An amazing atmosphere of teasing friendship between scholars, sportsmen and those special people found in HEMA made me want to be a part of it, and I have ever since.

The final match was intense to watch, and the live commentary described you as very aggressive in your fighting style. Is this something you normally employ in your fencing?

Usually I’m not as aggressive as in the final match. That whole attitude was part of my build up strategy for each match. However we do train with very mobile footwork and high intensity in each bout. Usually I fight with people who are a lot better than me, and I know that I have a chance of landing a few blows if I’m aggressive, and hardly any if I am calm. However I always try to develop a fighting style that would be more energy conserving and efficient.

What was going through your mind during the final bout?

In the final I tried to conjure as much anger as I possibly could. The adrenaline was pumping and I think it looks quite funny in the video when I bounce into the middle of the ring. I did not think of the techniques much, I just let the sword go where it wanted. My excellent ringside coach Cristoffer Holm kept saying things, but I did not hear much of that between the adrenaline and the cheer of the audience. One of the things I was most pleased with was that I managed to employ a few techniques from the very good ringen am schwert class held by Jessica Finley I attended the day before.

Why did you choose to enter a women’s longsword tournament and not the open one, do you think in the future you might compete in mixed tournaments?

In my opinion the discussions in the HEMA community concerning female tournaments is slightly off focus from the real issue. Although some girls would rather compete in an all-female tournament, most of the people I’ve talked to don’t think so. The real problem is the very high intensity in the open tournament and the high risk of injury. Also the general level is higher in the open tournament, higher. To want to do well in a tournament is not only a female issue. As a girl I was able to win the tournament after a little more than one year, while in the open I would not have come close to that. As a man the possibilities of getting far are dramatically lower, and I would imagine that going into a tournament with the odds against you is not very motivating. Thus the problem is not gender; it’s the level. According to me the discussions should focus on how divisions could be created in a fair way letting everyone regardless of gender compete at their preferred level. I do realise that such divisions would be very hard to create. Should the time practicing HEMA be counted, or some kind of ranking system employed? I don’t have the answer and doubt that there is a perfect one, but hope that someday this problem will be solved.

You are now a huge inspiration to a lot of fighters. What have you learned from this experience, and what advice could you give to would-be competitors?

One of the most important things this tournament has given me is the realisation of all my weaknesses. I feel more inspired than ever to go on improving and learning more techniques and skills. Skill comes with training and dedication; every hour paying off. The fencing itself is the most important thing in a tournament, and in such a context the focus and intensity are very different from training. The minutes of the tournament sparring are amazing and worth the stress and pressure, giving you a great experience.

Märta-Sofie Geijer

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