Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2016 20:49:29 +0000 (UTC)
From: Sir Vladimir <scasirvlad@yahoo.com>
To: Marshalls <Marshalls@seahorse.atlantia.sca.org>
Message-ID: <1046171526.8274260.1475441369453@mail.yahoo.com>
Subject: [Marshalls] Rapier Marshals please read
Unto the Rapier and CnT Marshals of Atlantia.
First, I want to thank all of you for being willing to set up and marshal so that others may fight and have a fun, enjoyable day. Without your tireless work, and willingness to put down your swords and pick up a marshal’s staff, we could not have the game we have today. Sadly, we have a problem these days with issues that occur on the field not making their way up to the top ranks of our marshals so that they can be tracked and addressed.
The example I would like to use is two-handed swords at Pennsic. I heard a lot of complaining about hard hits from them by the Rapier Army after a res battle. Everyone seemed to feel either that someone else had already complained to the marshals or that complaining did nothing anyway. When I asked for a show of hands of people who felt they had been hit hard by them over a dozen hands shot up. This is an issue that I as your Earl Marshal and our Society Marshals need to be able to hear about with numbers and facts. Was the problem mostly 1 person, one area on the field…maybe it is one type of blade that are more the problem, or perhaps it is an issue with us since we rarely fight against them and we are making a fundamental mistake in the fights.
Two handed swords are just the issue that comes to mind first, but there are dozens or minor and major issues that come up every year that stay in the shadows because no one outside of the event that they occur at ever hears about them. The only path to a solution for this and other issues is…here comes the bad word… reports. Not just reports but reports with details about who was hit, who hit them, what type of blade, what both sides said happen and the resolution that was reached. What may seem like one in a million incident to a local marshal might in fact be something that is happening 10 times a year across the kingdom and 150 times a year across the Society. If I don’t get reports on a problem in one area I can see if it is happening in other parts of the Kingdom and Master Alan can’t see if it is happening across the Knowne World.
The second thing I would like to talk about is how we as marshals run a tourney fight. We are not only there to make sure everyone is safe, but we are also there to aid the combatants. I understand that we do not want to get anywhere near the idea that we are to call blows, but we should be observing the fight closely enough to offer input if a question arises. As an example, I was fighting in a tourney and my opponent and I closed range and did a passing attack on each other. He missed and I attempted to draw cut his face. After we moved back to range again he said he heard something on his mask but was not sure what it was. I stated I tried to draw his face but was not sure if it had worked. I turned to ask the marshal what he saw and he gave what I thought was a perfect answer: “I was behind you and could not see the blow land but your arm certainly went through the perfect motion of a draw cut.” That was all that was needed and now my opponent knew what the sound he heard was and called the blow good. Sadly, the response that is far more common from the marshals is “sorry I didn’t see.” When combatants enter of the fields we are marshaling, they are putting their health and safety in our hands. If a tip comes off or a blade breaks, it is our job to notice it first. If we are doing our job to protect safety then we should be able answer any questions the combatants have about the fight.
In our rapier culture there is an idea that a person can both fight and marshal at the same time. Coming from a heavy fighting background, this idea is strange to me, but putting aside all the problems that can come from marshaling a fight that you have a strong interest in the outcome of, I am more concerned about the lack of consistent oversight this can bring to the field. At a tourney where you can only either fight or marshal, each list would generally only have 2 marshals watching the fights. When permitted to both fight and marshal, you may (and we have all seen it) have a list with 6 or more people acting as marshal throughout the day. A combatant who is having a bad day and hitting too hard, might give out 4 excessive hits in a tourney; plenty for a team of two marshals to notice and at least give the combatant a corrective talking to. However with multiple different marshals switching between fight mode and marshal mode, it might go unnoticed since each might only see one excessive hit. Add to that, the increased mental fatigue of trying to do two jobs at once, fight and marshal, which could cause a decreased ability to keep track of events on the field. I understand that fighter/marshaling allows more people to play and have fun since you share the duties of marshaling, but this Kingdom right now has 75 warranted rapier marshals. If we all share the load and take a tournament or two off from fighting over the course of a year to marshal, then there will be plenty of marshals available to keep the fields safe and still allow for the vast majority of people to fight and enjoy the day.
With all this in mind, I am setting forth some new procedures. While I understand many of you will not be happy with these, for now I have decided they are the best step forward. I am going to look at them again after a year to see if they have been effective.
Vladimir Ivanovich Aleksandrov
Earl Marshal, Atlantia