Harcourt injuries.

[Angel]

Having watched SCA tournaments for many years, a call of "HOLD!" from anyone participating or watching will almost always get immediate cessation of combat, and the call is taken up by everyone else participating and watching until everything stops. (Also works well for stopping SCA kids if they are about to do something silly.)

They're all wearing helmets with sufficient padding to protect them from horizontal blows to the head, and yet seem to have no problem hearing HOLD.

I wonder if any investigation has been done as to which words are actually easier to hear while wearing a helmet?

Stop - usually quiet a short sharp sound, and starts with a sibilant fricative, which has less volume
Break - the ay sound is a higher pitch than the oh sound, and break also starts with a fricative
Hold - Great initial volume, and the O sound carries well over distance

[Mark]

Angel, I agree, 'Hold' is the best command to use - for the same reason it's used during the fast paced & dangerous job of loading concrete tiles onto a roof. It can be heard in almost any noisy area whether its the combat field or a noisy construction area. Many times I have failed to hear other commands that were called before 'HOLD' was used.

[Colin]

A variety of 'stop' commands were barked. None of them were more or less successful than the others. As in there was no magic word.

A whistle will probably work best.

[Silver]

[Colin]

[Colin]

Anyway, I'm done. I've wasted enough time on these threads. If you have any further comments that you want me to be aware of, you'll need to PM me.

[Callum]

I agree that the "right of reply" rule needs to be reviewed and revised.

The "right of reply" rule came about through the "hit without being hit" concept and the situation in modern sports fencing whereby you get fencers landing almost simultaneous hits on each other and the person who landed the blow first getting the point even though the blow was a split second ahead of the opponent's blow.

Obviously our "hit without being hit" rule did not work as intended and may have contributed to some people just attacking for the sake of it because they knew that if they were able to return hit after being hit then a "mutual" would be called.

I am personally still gutted that people were hurt in my event. No excuses other than to say that this was the first time we had held foot tourneys at Harcourt Park where we included the wider re-enactment community. I intend to continue running them with the intention to make some changes so next time I hope that everything goes smoothly and without anybody getting badly hurt.

[conal]

Thanks for the input guys.

Appreciate the forthright nature of the discussion.

conal.

[conal]

dis·in·gen·u·ous Adjective /ˌdisinˈjenyo͞oəs/
Synonyms:
adjective: insincere, false, devious, hollow-hearted
Not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.

Carpe Jugulum.

[Patch]

Uncontrolled blows are going to be dangerous, always and the fighting at the tournaments at Harcourt park was close to as hard as the competitors could throw their blows.
This is why there were injuries.
Some of the competitions at Taupo and other events have been the same.

The marshal sets and controls the hit strength and participant feedback from the competition. I would not be so very concerned about past events, they serve as instruction to all of us, and the players were adults.

---In the future our marshals have the opportunity to control the hit strength of the fighters and to referee these fights to make them safe, intense, competitive, breathtaking to watch and amazing fun to be in.---

I have been in those competitions, I think I have run those competitions. Marshal well and the crowd, the competitors, the peers, the swordfighters, all will roar their approval!
-Patch.

[Patch]

Having experienced both I wholehearted support the call of Break over Hold (or Stop) for the reasons that it was first introduced.

1. On the field the Commander of a side will routinely call out Hold and Hold the Line, and Hold them back. If people take up the call the fighting stops. It is a great word for construction but a bad one for battlefields.

2. Break is like an expletive - it is a one syllable hard consonant sharp angry word. It alarms people and carries through the fighting. We fight in padded helmets all the time, I have run one of these tournaments at Taupo with Carl and there was no issue communicating with the competitors at all. It was great fun.

3. It is sufficiently interesting and medieval-esque that observers find it compelling, not as interesting as Hold or Stöðva but more interesting than Stop.
-Patch