NZ WMA 2008 thread

[Colin]

Drafting of the rules for the various tournaments can be found here:

http://www.swordsmanship.co.nz/forums/viewtopic.php?t=569

Hopefully these will be finalised in the near future.

[Colin]

Draft time table

http://www.swordsmanship.co.nz/forums/viewtopic.php?t=577

[Colin]

Finally the show is on the road!

http://www.swordsmanship.co.nz/convention/index.html

This promises to be a phenomenally great event. Those that participated in last year's NZ WMA Convention went away invigorated and enthused. Next year's one is bigger, better and badder.

It's four days long.
We're bringing over someone who leaves my ability to teach WMA in the dust and who I (and a considerable number of people worldwide) consider to be the foremost expert on 15th century Italian fencing master, Fiore dei Liberi.*
Quite frankly this WMA Convention will be awesome. You will never get to meet Bob Charron anywhere near as cheap as you're able to next year.

* Phil and Dayna excepting

[Inigo]

The schedule looks like hard work. But it looks like fun.

If I can get a weekend pass, I think I may just try to get there...

What does this mean? "All styles used must be historical. At the start of each round participants must declare which historical style they will be using."

If someone like me turns up, who has read very little in the way of period manuscripts, and is a bit of an old dog (who has trouble convincing his reflexes to try something new) and says "Um, I'm fighting in the Italian style" and then in the middle of a bout delivers a flat snap to the side of someones fencing mask ... what happens?

[Colin]

Which reminds me I should put up that each class is 45 minutes long, not one hour. The extra 15 minutes is for over-time, questions, refreshments and so forth.

The reasoning behind the schedule is that few people could handle four straight days of nothing but Fiore dei Liberi. In fact last year's convention most people's brains were overloaded shortly into day two The aim is to have numerous short classes that contrast so that everyone's brains are being stimulated throughout the event and avoid burn-out. Of course being a NZ WMA convention we also need to develop national talent, so the non-Fiore dei Liberi courses reflect that aspiration.

As for the tournament itself, some grace will be permitted, but if a competitor is simply incapable of keeping to period techniques he will simply not progress to further rounds. I don't believe this will be an issue anyway. Period techniques work rather well (so long as the practitioner keeps to period techniques )

[Colin]

I should point out there is already a discussion thread on the tournament of the NZ WMA Convention.

It can be found here:

http://www.swordsmanship.co.nz/forums/viewtopic.php?t=569