Longpoint 2015
As many of you know Eliisa and I traveled to the U.S. to attend Longpoint 2015. We signed up for the event and booked our flights about 6 months ago and had both been looking forward to this trip ever since. The trip was eventful to say the least and now as we’re finally home, it’s time to do a short write up.
Our journey-plan was to fly to NYC and spend a few days there and recover from the jet-lag before driving down to Maryland with Eliisa’s club mate and fellow instructor Kristian. As is typical of plans, this one did not survive it’s initial phases. Our first flight was an hour late and as a result we ended up missing our connecting flight in London. Luckily British Airways handled that screw-up nicely and we spent the night in a very classy hotel and flew out the following morning. We arrived to NYC on Tuesday only to find out that our gear bag did not. The missing bag contained most of our fencing gear, all our swords and all our clothing. So we spent Tuesday and Wednesday wandering the city and shopping for clothes. We also had a wonderful footwork/speed/agility workout in the central park. Good times all in all.
Pictured: Tim performing leaping excercises in NY central park
We drove down to Maryland with Kristian on Thursday. Longpoint is held at a golf resort / conference center called Turf Valley Resort and we, like many other participants, chose to stay at the hotel. The venue was very nice. In addition to the great ballroom that hosted most of the competitions, Longpoint had booked several smaller ballrooms for workshops and sparring. Also the venue had a restaurant and a pool! Very nice indeed.
Pictured: Kristian (Red) landing a thrust during the sword & buckler finals
As most of you know we both competed in the event’s longsword tournaments. We both took part in the open steel longsword and Eliisa also entered the women’s longsword. Eliisa won 2 of her pool fights in the open and made it through to the elimination rounds placing 43rd in the ranking after pools. Later on she went through her pool in the women’s like a hot sword through butter. She won all her fights by point difference and was ranked 1st with the highest indicator score in the whole event. (Indicator score was calculated by dividing the number of landed hits, including failed withdrawals and doubles, with the total number of points you earned. So essentially the score was average points per landed hit)
Pictured: Eliisa in stand-by mode between her elimination fights
I won all my pool fights and was ranked 5th after the pools. That is the highest I have ever ranked in any tournament so I was very happy with my performance, not bad with less than a year of training. In the eliminations I got as far as quarter finals before getting knocked out to the losers bracket by Ben Strickling. In the losers bracket I finally got to fight Ties Kool in a tournament setting. The fight was great, but ended up with me having a lot of bruises and Ties having a lot of points.
Eliisa lost her first elimination match in the open, but went on to take bronze in the women’s finals. Yet another medal to her impressive collection.
Pictured: Eliisa (Red) facing Rebecca (Blue) in the women’s longsword finals, photo by Rebecca Glass
The tournaments left us with mixed feelings that turned to very good after a couple of days of rest. We both feel that we displayed the best fencing we ever have during the competitions and we also learned a lot. Not just about fencing but also about competing, coaching and more importantly each other.
The rest of our event consisted of Eliisa giving a class about training games for fencing, with me helping out as an assistant instructor, and trying to fence with as many people as we could. We had a great time and made so many new friends. We truly hope we can make it back next year!
Pictured: Team Nordic during the gala dinner on Saturday night
After longpoint we spent a few more days at the resort with the rest of the Nordics. We hung at the pool, went to see Baltimore and generally enjoyed stuff we don’t have back home. Like huge burgers and a proper summer. Then we packed our car and drove to upstate New York, where Mike was kind enough to host us for a few lovely days of swords, guns and barbecue. On our way back to NYC we also got to take part in NYHFA’s sparring session and meet even more American fencers.
Pictured: Tim, Eliisa and Mike , photo by Tristan Zukowski
All in all the trip was a well needed vacation and a great chance to get to know and fight a lot of new people. Thank you to all who hosted us both in the event and after it. We hope to see you all again next year!
-Tim
