“Did you hear about Bill’s armor?” Lisa asks.
I’ve just walked into Turf Valley after a three-and-a-half hour drive, and Lisa’s already assisting me with my one billion bags into the elevator. I haven’t heard, but I’m already preparing for the worst.
“No, what happened?”
“There was a break-in in Cambridge, someone stole it from his car.”
There is no one in HEMA having a worse year than Bill, but this is a dagger. His armor isn’t only a passion and a hobby; it’s a significant part of his livelihood.
Wednesday, the day before Longpoint officially begins, the news spreads with ridiculous speed - but so, too, does our response. Dayna’s already collecting donations.
****
In the four days and change I am at Turf Valley, I feel more like I belong here than I do anywhere else. We don’t have to explain to each other what this whole sword thing is about; we already know.
We welcome each other, accept each other, challenge each other. We fight our friends and teammates in our pools and then become their loudest supporters. We corner for each other, staff the ring for each other, and race down the hall to let someone know they’ve made eliminations when they thought otherwise.
It’s impossible to walk more than a few feet without running into someone you know, and you didn’t know them before, well, you know them now. There are people I see at every event I go to, and people I may see only once or twice a year, but it never gets old.
Longpoint doesn’t feel like a vacation; it feels like a return home.
****
Here I went into my pool with a general idea as to how it would go, and it went exactly as I expected - winning one match, losing one, and getting lucky on my third. Although there are multiple people telling me I fenced well, I’m still not sure it’s the best fencing I’ve ever done. I still don’t know when to avoid the grapple; still hesitate way too much on the attack.
The next day, I lose my first elimination match to Lisa, coming back from a large deficit to nearly tie the score before I run out of time. It’s disappointing, but on the other hand Lisa’s saved my butt g-d knows how many times, and it’s a pleasure to see her make it to finals.
It’d be easy to be bitter over losses, to envy those who perform better then ourselves, but our family is such that we find ourselves cheering for those who’ve bested us, and then washing it all down with some food and generously shared drinks.
****
So then the video above shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows us; letting Bill go home without at least *some* idea of how much he means to our community was just not possible.
Never in my life have I seen so many people come together so fast to support one person, and yet this is the community we’ve created. We could have spent the weekend caring only about our own fights, our own performances, and our own clubs - but we did more than that. We cared about each other, supported each other and made our community that much stronger.
Bill says it, but it bears repeating - this is HEMA.
This is family.
(my apologies for the shaky cam - it was a bit of an emotional moment...)