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- Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
- Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!sdd.hp.com!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!mikes@moose.cs.indiana.edu
- From: "Michael Squires" <mikes@moose.cs.indiana.edu>
- Subject: Re: Midrealm Crown Tourney customs
- Message-ID: <1992Dec30.121844.17464@news.cs.indiana.edu>
- Summary: really, it's not that bad
- Keywords: crown
- Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington
- References: <9212290312.aa25397@mc.lcs.mit.edu> <1992Dec30.005514.11769@epas.toronto.edu>
- Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 12:18:37 -0500
- Lines: 49
-
- In article <1992Dec30.005514.11769@epas.toronto.edu> nusbache@epas.utoronto.ca (Aryk Nusbacher) writes:
- >
- >To those who have said that Crown Tournaments are the apogee of the tournament,
- >I can only say that you must have been very fortunate in your choice
- >of crown tournaments to fight in. In my experience, crown tournament
- >bouts are characterised by appalling conservatism (occasionally
- >bordering on cowardice), rhino-hiding even from people of normally
- >good standards, arrogant marshalling, and lack of the jolly good
- >fellowship that makes fighting fun.
-
- 1. Crown Tourney is the only tourney in which the victor wins something
- that they consider to be "real". This has a corrosive effect on
- a fighter and we may learn a lot more about who someone really is
- in a Crown Tourney.
-
- 2. The best fighters often believe that they have an afterburner mode that
- is often turned on in Crown Tourney. One can win other tourneys while
- making mistakes, but that is usually not the case with Crown Tourney.
- Given this, it is reasonable to be conservative if one is really
- trying to win.
-
- The best fighters understand that SCA fighting is a game and make full
- use of the rules in their bouts. For example, there are fighters who
- use the list edge tactically. It is up to the marshalls to be careful
- to watch for this kind of thing. When I am marshalling a fight in
- which there is a fighter that uses the list edge, for example, I will
- push the populace back and let the fighters run up on me before I call
- hold, rather than calling a hold when they are a yard away.
-
- 3. Calibration standards in Crown Tourneys are usually higher than a
- normal tourney; adrenalin by itself will do that. There is also
- a strong tendency of the populace to see blows that did not occur;
- for example, the finals between Sir Grod and Sir Hugo in which many
- MidRealmers still believe that Sir Hugo did not take a good blow but
- which the movies show clearly was a glance (Hugo started rolling well
- before the blow).
-
- Some fighters will, in the excitement, lose their ability to calibrate.
- This is the point at which a MidRealm marshall would be forced to
- intervene. Whether or not this is a Good Thing is subject to
- differing opinions but I believe that active marshalling in Crowns is
- one reason why there is no move in the Middle to make 10ga helmets
- minimum standard for "serious" fighters (no, I'm not kidding).
-
-
- --
-
- Mike Squires (mikes@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu) 812 855 3974 (w) 812 333 6564 (h)
- mikes@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu 546 N Park Ridge Rd., Bloomington, IN 47408
-