Dixie Kreig 2010

[A Froster]

I will have to give details later but this was the best post ARMA event that I''ve been to yet. I was so much fun and I walked away with a great deal of new knowledge.

It was Awesome!

[Jonathan Scott]

How's that finger, Al? My knee's gonna be just fine in a couple days I'm sure.

Also had a blast myself! I must say Kevin Maurer you were phenomenal in the tournament, I believe you stayed "king" the longest out of any of us. You did not make winning that messer easy for us!

I want to thank Jake Norwood for coming out this time, you made this event so much fun with your ideas on sparring and tournaments and drills, and made us fight all the harder. You're an inspiration for us all, and I can't wait to fight you again!

Jay and Mike C. and anyone else involved in making this happen, thanks for putting on such a great event this year, it wouldn't have happened without you!

And I look forward to seeing some of my new comrades in the near future like the Tampa and UCF guys, whether just hanging out or training with and fighting

Sterke und Ehre, meine Freunden! Bis Bald! (sp?)

[A Froster]

Wow! Where do I start? Well, here's my version:

Like I said above " Dixie Kreig 2010 was the best event I've been to post ARMA". We couldn't have fit another body into the venue. There were HEMAITES from Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Fort Myers, Tallahassee & Texas (that I know of) not including our illustrious President (Jake from MD). The guys from New Orleans couldn't make it and that was a shame because they tend to spice things up (N.O. Style) when they show up. I'm afraid that If the event keeps growing, we will be forced to find a much larger space to accommodate everyone.

Dixie Krieg started out with Jake Norwood addressing everyone on The HEMA Alliance and it's mission. He also gave us a fascinating report on the World Championships that he attended this Summer and what's going on in the European HEMA world. We had a huge turnout by the UCF Meyer Friefector Guild "Knight's Melee" led by Jon Wolfe and Mike Vaughn. That club is a HEMA machine. Saturday classes started with Kevin Maurer conducting a two hour class on Meyer polearms (which I didn't attend) and Jonathan Scott teaching "some of the best of" from the Wallerstien material. I walked away with some new and usable ideas on how to improve my game especially with regard to taking away an opponents sword in close quarters and utilizing pommel strikes. After that I attended Jay Vail’s class on the krumphau and scheilhau which were absolutely an eye opener for me. I think everyone who sparred in longsword that day gave his interpretation a try that day with many having good success. After that was Jake Norwood's "Comprehensive Sparring Clinic" for longsword. He had us snapping to attention and really learning some valuable lessons on sparring and devising drills to address whatever areas where we really needed help. Example: The tendency we all have of pausing the fight after we've been hit. We where given some solid drills on how eliminate that bad habit. The rest of the day was spent in free sparring. I got to spar with Jake for the first time and that was fun. I asked him afterward where I needed to improve and he looked at the blood on my arms and said "don't stick your arms out" I'm glad he didn't overstate the problem.

That night we all went out for dinner and had a great time scaring the waitresses with sword stories. I got to sit across from Mike Vaughn and Ben Floyd from Tampa and we had a lot of good HEMA conversation. We want to plan a joint get together with Ben's Tampa Fightschule and UCF soon.

Day two we began the tournament. I will let Jake explain the rules. Kevin Maurer and Jonathan Scott fought fantastically. Other great fighters were Jon Wolf, Mike Vaughn, Curt Dunham, Ben Floyd and Nick Carr from Jonathan Scott's group. There we some other really good UCF guys that I didn't know the names of but if I did they would have been mentioned. Jayson May our Texas Freifechter although relatively new to sparring, jumped right in the fray. He's going to be hard to handle in a few years. The match got down to Jonathan Scott and myself. I had beaten a worn out Jonathan in our first match and he wasn't about to let me win again. We where heavily into our second match when I did something very stupid and gave Jonathan a one handed shot to the legs. Yep, he went down holding his knee and couldn't get up. I felt like crap for letting it happen. I should have paid more attention to hitting with the flat on that kind of shot. I was immediately ejected because of the rules but luckily Jonathan was able to return and we got to finish the match. Of course he landed a clean oberhau to my right shoulder which put him into the finals against Jon Wolf. In the final bout, Jonathan Scott chose to fight with dussacks and won the tournament on a double hit based on his lead in points. However, Jonathon Scott did not want to win that way and in his own classy move elected to end the match on a clean hit. The hall was electrified on the last point and Jonathan Scott finally prevailed to win the tournament using Dussacks. As his prize, Jonathan won a beautiful wood handled aluminum and brass Messer made by Kevin Maurer and everyone cheered.

After the tournament we had additional seminars in dagger by both Jonathan Scott and Jason Vail. Jake Norwood also gave another seminar on fighting from the bind and steel sparring. I can't comment on these because I only attended a short part of Jonathan's class be for we had to drive back to South Florida.

It was great event and left me recharged to go out and train harder so that I can improve.

Thanks to Jay Vail, Jonathon Scott, Mike Cartier, Kevin Maurer and Jake Norwood for making the event a huge success.

Lots of video to be posted soon I'm sure.

"edited for spelling and mistakes"

[Curt Dunham]

I have to give highest accolades to our women fighters. With only minimal experience with the longsword, they stepped into the ring to face bigger, stronger, more experienced opponents without hesitation. And those opponents had to take their lumps and earn their wins. Then, in the afternoon, those same fearless women jumped into knife fighting melees that were exhausting (but great fun) just to watch. Amazing was one fighter who in her rush to attack got caught by an arm across the throat which stretched her out horizontally in mid air. She fell flat with a wicked splat, shook her head, got up, and ran over laughing to watch the video again and again.

Not only do they each have the heart of a lion, their energy and stamina appear boundless.

[Sigh. I'm really gonna have to start exercising and eating right.]

[Keith P. Myers]

Sounds great guys! Wish I had been there! I am soon to head off to the desert of southern CA for fun in the sand at NTC. Then off to Basra in January. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I will be back from Iraq and able to attend next years event!

[Meg Godbout]

I just want to make an additional post thanking all the instructors, in particular Jake Norwood for his sparring clinic and Jonathan Scott for his Marrozzo dagger clinic. We will definitely be incorporating some of the dynamic drills or "games" Jake taught into our own classes down here at the Tampa Fechtschule. And learning the dagger from Jonathan Scott was just plain fun, if veeeery tiring. (Rule #1 for Zombieland, and HEMA, is cardio! ) It was great to see our fellow southeastern HEMA practitioners, and this year it's my strong hope that there will definitely be more cooperation and visiting back and forth among all the HEMA clubs that are so close together, especially the Tampa Fechtschule and the UCF club.

That's all for now... my dussack hand is itching to see you all again!

[Jayson May]

I started uploading some videos of the Dixie Krieg. The first one is a little dussack free-play between Jonathon Scott and Jake Norwood.

Here is a link to where I'm posting the videos
http://www.youtube.com/user/DrunkenOso

[Meg Godbout]

Being able to see yourself fight is really great for picking up all those little flaws you need to fix, isn't it? I look forward to seeing everything I need to work on.

[Mike Cartier]

Sounds great guys! Wish I had been there! I am soon to head off to the desert of southern CA for fun in the sand at NTC. Then off to Basra in January. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I will be back from Iraq and able to attend next years event!

Indeed keith , you were sorely missed. Stay safe and see you next year.