Recently we were at a melee event and the following thing happened. A young woman who has been fighting for about a year was engaged as a spearman. Her spear was trapped and she was about to be killed by a two-sword fighter who had penetrated her own line. Rather than attempt to free her spear, she let go of it and yielded.
Seeing this, I remonstrated with her… saying “The price of being able to fight is that you have to be ready willing and able to be hit, being hit is the coin we pay to play this game.”
The young lady began to cry. I felt like a complete jerk, and then I got angry. The other females on the field weren’t yielding and crying! The woman in question blamed the heat and stress… but we were all hot and stressed too. I also felt that while yielding IS a legal and appropriate action on the field, that it was inappropriate under the circumstances. I wonder where y’all would draw the line for yourselves? Would y’all be crying over it? Was I wrong to say what I said? I do not feel that I was and I would have said it to any other fighter in exactly the same way. Feel free to blast away at me if you need to but I’d like your perspective. Thanks.
Baron Hamish MacLeod
Kolfinna Says:
I would in general agree with your statement that “The price of being able to fight is that you have to be ready willing and able to be hit, being hit is the coin we pay to play this game.” (Actually it’s a really good line, and I’m likely to steal it for future reference). There are of course special circumstances where this may not apply. If your lady fighter truly believed that she could not get her spear back in time, then yielding is an acceptable answer. It is no fun to be hit without the possibility of being able to hit back. In short, no one wants to be a pell. It is not just newer fighters who yield as well. I am reminded of a day where a veteran war dog friend of mine killed me 4 times in a row with his spear. I purposefully hunted him down and was able to break his defense and run up to kill him. He yielded at the last possible moment. He knew he was dead, he knew I would hit him, and I didn’t feel slighted by the fact I didn’t get to hit him. While yes this game is about getting hit and hitting, you do not have to be a baby seal.
If she really thought that she had no time to get her spear, but in actuality did… train her! Invent drills that will help her become aware of the time it actually takes for a person to break through lines and land a good blow. Teach her how to successfully pull a spear back that is trapped. Retrain her thought patterns so she can realize that she can do those things.
My editor would like me to note that Yielding is a Kingdom custom. Kingdoms like Caid do not generally yield during a fight, while others it is customary to ask your disadvantaged opponent to yield.
Now onto the sticky part of the question: Crying in Armor.
From what you’ve written, I do not think your comment was over the line. She may have been equally frustrated by the situation, and when you made your comment it made her leak. It probably was a combination of frustration, heat, stress and your comment. We are all aware of how society trains us that it is okay for women to cry and not okay for men. This means in general (not always) women are going to be much more likely to cry when something goes awry. This is a reaction, just like yielding or flinching, that can be retrained. The retraining, I believe, is something that the fighter has to be able to do on her own.
One of the realizations she has to make is that she is fighting in a man’s game. Men are the primary participants in SCA fighting, primary members of the Chivalry and the Royal Peers who have won by their own hand. It can be very difficult to walk the line between being a woman and a fighter. You have to be able to keep your identity while being “one of the guys”. If you cry in armor you no longer are just another fighter, you become a woman. Your fighter buddies will treat you differently; some will baby you, some will be angry at you, and others will avoid you completely. Now this isn’t fair to women, but it is what happens. To be accepted into a peer group, you have to follow the basic guidelines of the group. Fighters are typically male, and men don’t cry. She has to realize this and make steps within herself to change her reaction of crying on the field. This is not easy to do, it takes time, and not all women want to retrain this aspect of them selves.
This being said, I have cried 3 times in armor; once out of pain and twice out of frustration. Each time this happened I got very angry with myself for being “that chick who cried in armor”, which only made me cry more. After each incident I had to deal with my guy buddies being wary of fighting me seriously for awhile, until I could show them that I was just a fighter again and not a woman. Both of the “frustration crying” happened within the first year my fighting career. Which can be a result of a combination of things… being new at fighting, not knowing exactly what to do, afraid that you’re going to mess up, afraid you’re going to let your trainer down. Once she becomes more comfortable with her fighting career she will be able to resist becoming super frustrated on the field. Which will lend itself to presenting less opportunities to cry, the rest she has to overcome by herself.
Please note that I don’t see any issues with when you cry from injury. It is something both men and women do with pain.
Robert Says:
One of the chief commentaries I noted on when women fighters cry is out of sheer frustration. This takes a number of forms:
- Frustration at one’s own fighting ability and retention.
- Frustration at a situational problem.
- Feelings of letting people down (i. e., trainers, other women fighters, etc.)
- A simple anger reaction.
On the other hand, I have observed that sometimes we men are taught not to cry, but show our frustration in ways that can be seen as just as inappropriate. Kicking or tossing down equipment in anger, cursing or punching an inanimate object, tossing one’s helm across the field (unaware of bystanders), and even taking out one’s frustrations on other fighters in the lists.
While one can see how crying by a female fighter can be seen as potential weakness, one can also see how it can be seen as a motivator to succeed. When a female fighter is frustrated or even angry about a situation, she stands on the motivational cusp of changing from “just a girl in armour” to a determined warrior. Most women fighters that succeed can and do harness the emotions of frustration and anger into gritty determination to learn how to lick their frustration.
Ultimately, women and men approach frustration from the same place–they simply react differently. The key is to not allow one’s emotions to anchor one to failure. Learning to use one’s frustration as a goad to succeed is yet one more weapon in a woman’s quiver.
I know that this is a game, but sometimes it can get intense and maybe she was frustrated, but maybe she was scared too… the feeling of being completely vulnerable to several people running you down can trigger a very strong gut reaction.
OMG, the “crying in armor” issue. I’m more afraid of crying in armor than I am of getting hit. I’ve cried in armor once, at a fighter practice, when I was wearing a helm that was slightly too big for me. Well, I got my bell rung by a great sword, and it rocked my world, I tell you. I had to–carefully and deliberately–set my stuff down (”You okay, Melisende?” “Yeah, it’s my knee!”) and go to the line of vehicles and shiver and leak. Oh, I was so frustrated and angry and shaken. The tears were actually dripping on my breastplate.
I learned not to wear helmets that are a smidge too loose. I learned to block more throughly. And I learned to ramp up my aggression and take the heat to my opponent.
That being said– if she knew she was going to be killed, saw it coming, and there was no way to get her weapon free, or block, then yielding would be appropriate. Getting into the mixmaster is appropriate for new fighters (like me!) who need to learn what it feels like.
On the other hand, if she has a history of yielding just so she won’t have to deal with getting hit–then I feel your words are appropriate.
How is she doing now?