The first rule of fecht club...

May 14, 2016 6:20 PM

In New York this weekend women warriors are coming together for "Fecht Yeah" the first tournament for women who practice the art of Historical European Martial Arts.
posted by agatha_magatha (11 comments total)

agatha_magatha, stop trying to make fecht happen! It’s not going to happen!
posted by Talez at 6:29 PM on May 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

A quick scan reveals high levels of awesome, captain.
posted by vrakatar at 6:36 PM on May 14, 2016

I'm not going to lie. I might have enrolled my 5 year old into a boffer sword class so he can grow up and meet women like this.

When this article first came out, I showed him some of these pictures and asked about the knights Power Levels.

They averaged 11 out of 10 across the board.

#winning
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:13 PM on May 14, 2016 [5 favorites]

Neat!

Netflix is currently streaming the documentary series Warrior Women, hosted by Lucy Lawless, which makes excellent companion viewing for this post.
posted by teponaztli at 7:30 PM on May 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Well, isn't that awesome.
posted by suelac at 8:00 PM on May 14, 2016

This is the best thing ever.

Many many years ago and only for a short time, I fought sword and shield in the SCA, and this sort of thing makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
posted by PussKillian at 9:12 PM on May 14, 2016

Not everyone welcomes Fecht Yeah's feminist implications, though.

And so begins the part of every one of this kind of article that makes me want to apologize for my gender. Come on, guys, you don't need all the stuff, all the time.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:29 AM on May 15, 2016 [6 favorites]

Laura McBride will eat your fucking soul.
posted by Etrigan at 6:33 AM on May 15, 2016

Laura McBride will eat your fucking soul.

Hopefully with merciful speed.
posted by datawrangler at 8:59 AM on May 15, 2016

john baez links to this video of german longsword fighting :P

oh and fwiw in this pbs newshour segment on transgender soldiers...

As a man, Brynn Tannehill graduated with honors from the Naval Academy in 1997. She went on to serve as a Navy pilot for over a decade.

LT. CMDR. BRYNN TANNEHILL, U.S. Navy Reserve: I was flying an SH-60B helicopter full of sub hunting gear and surface search radars and infrared cameras. We could carry anti-ship missiles and torpedoes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: She served in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. And after leaving the Navy, she joined the Reserves, but she soon realized she couldn’t keep flying.

LT. CMDR. BRYNN TANNEHILL: I left the military in 2010, left the Reserves, because I was dealing with gender dysphoria. I was dealing with the fact that I didn’t identify with the gender I had been assigned at birth.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: She’s now a military consultant. In her free time, she makes her own medieval-style body armor and participates in popular one-on-one mock combat...

footage of pretty awesome looking helmet at ~2m30s!
posted by kliuless at 3:11 PM on May 15, 2016

This sword talk reminds me of a story I read recently about the Vikings in North America

There are conflicting stories but one account states that a bull belonging to Karlsefni came storming out of the wood, so frightening the natives that they ran to their skin-boats and rowed away. They returned three days later, in force. The natives used catapults, hoisting "a large sphere on a pole; it was dark blue in color" and about the size of a sheep's belly,[13] which flew over the heads of the men and made an ugly din.[13]

The Norsemen retreated. Leif Erikson's half-sister Freydís Eiríksdóttir was pregnant and unable to keep up with the retreating Norsemen. She called out to them to stop fleeing from "such pitiful wretches", adding that if she had weapons, she could do better than that. Freydís seized the sword belonging to a man who had been killed by the natives. She pulled one of her breasts out of her bodice and struck it with the sword, frightening the natives, who fled.

posted by asok at 3:00 AM on May 16, 2016