dukesean

The lifestyle that exists within the world of SCA combat is one that is based entirely on honor, chivalry and the inherent goodness of mankind.  Our world is one in which a self-calibrating fighting system is used to heap praise upon those who are victorious.

The scholars of our time, and those of ancient history would have you believe that the desire to attain such accolades runs contrary to the code of chivalry, and in particular is a violation of the virtue of humility.  For the most part I would agree with this.  But, this also brings up the question of why we should strive for excellence if gaining such praise leads to arrogance and vainglory?

Today is my 39^th birthday.  I would first like to say thank you to the many, many people who have sent some great birthday wishes.  You thoughts are much appreciated.

The birthday has always been a time of reflection for me.  My birthday happens to be in the middle of the year.  I get some time for reflection at New Years as well, so twice a year I make sure to take some time to think about where I am and where I’m going.

And this year, it seems that such reflection is more poignant than ever.  Duchess Arielle the Golden passed away today.  She was the wife of someone who I consider a friend, Duke Valhalric.  I met Arielle briefly several years ago, but I do not consider that I *knew* her.  However, she has profoundly impacted the lives of people who are very close to me, and very much for the better.

Yes, she has died on my birthday.  But, that is not how I chose to remember this birthday.  I hope that in years to come I will be able to think fondly of my friend Val.  Just as I hope to remember the anniversary ofamerican_knight and Ducheess Asa :D

Otherwise, I am reminded of a phrase often delivered by someone else I am pleased to call a friend.  Duke Jade is fond of saying “Life is GOOD!”  And I could not agree more.  People often ask “How are you doing?”  Usually this is just a polite figure of speech.  Mostly a rhetorical question that people don’t really want an answer too.  Because you really don’t want to know how bad somebody’s life is, but you want to be polite.  Well, when I hear someone ask this question, it is all an can do to keep from telling people how wonderful my life is.

And it is.

There is much that I have to be pleased with.  There are a great many reasons why I can shout from the mountain tops that life is indeed good.  Chief among those reasons is my family.  I have a wonderful, caring, beautiful wife.  She adores me.  I know this because she tells me and shows me in immeasurable ways every day.  She has given me two amazing and beautiful children.  The three of them together are right there at the center of my universe. 

I have a steady job that I enjoy.  I am valued by my coworkers and management and I enjoy the work I do.  Five years ago I was working at a call center doing technical support.  Which is not what I signed up to do.  Near the end of that employment, I would get off of every single call and say the same thing: “I need a new fucking job!”  I don’t say that anymore.  I went from that job to this job and my life has steadily improved every since.

This part may be a bit self-indulgent, but it is part of my great life.  I am currently in a position within the SCA, my chosen hobby, where I am able to make significant contributions to the organization as a whole.  And by this I mean besides being Crown Prince.  I love being King.  No doubt about that.  But, being able to share my knowledge of the fighting arts is truly exciting to me.  As I have made my way across the Known World this year I have been able to see the direct impact of what I teach.  People are excited about training for our sport.  And I am consumed with a great deal of pride in knowing that I have had some influence on that.  I don’t presume to share in the glories of those who I have trained or trained with.  Their accomplishments are theirs alone.  But, there is an enormous amount of satisfaction and a great feeling of accomplishment to know that people are making good use out of the experiences that I have shared.  It just feels good to know that people place some significant value on what I teach.  And who wouldn't want to feel valued in such a way?

And what would life be without friendship?  I can not tell you how incredibly blessed I am with the priceless gift of friendship.  Coast-to-coast and around the world.  I am constantly reminded of the great number of people who I have come in contact with over the years who I am genuinely pleased to hear from and talk to.  Who likewise, seem genuinely pleased to be in my company as well.  I miss you more than you can possibly imagine.  And if you have ever thought to yourself “I wonder how Sean is doing?”, I say thank you.  If you think you would be glad to hear me call, then you should know that I do value your friendship and the impact you have had in my life.  Sadly, I don’t have the time to write or call all of those people who have enriched my life.  So, I will have to ask you to be content with this shout out.  Know that you are missed and that my life is better for your presence in it.

Now, while my life is pretty wonderful, it wouldn’t be fair if it were all peaches and cream for me all the time.  As part of my semi-annual reflection time, I am indeed considering the ways in which I can improve certain aspects of my life.  Don’t think for a moment that I do not have to make the tough decisions in life.  I certainly do.  But, my prototypical Cancerian self says that *those* reflections are none of your damn business.  And if you try to corner me about it, I will crawl into my little shell and snap at you with my claws.  So, I won’t be sharing those reflections with you.  But, you’re my friend.  And it’s Ok.

This Sunday is my first wedding anniversary withsilvermoonwlf .  I just wanted to take this opportunity to let the world know how happy I am to be married.

After being divorced once already, I really had no need or desire to be married again.  Even though the end of my first marriage should be listed in the ‘Amicable Divorce Hall of Fame’, it was still very hard.  And it was still a divorce. 

When Christina and I first started dating seriously, we had planned on having kids and not being married.  And so it went for nearly three years while our parents kept dropping those hints about when we would get married.  They never said ‘Living in sin’, but they clearly would prefer us to be married.  Again, not really so much of a priority for either of us. 

As time went by, getting married became more of a distant ‘When’ and not so much an ‘If’.  Until finally, one year ago today, we got married.  Surrounded by some of our best friends in the entire world (and with some others absent) we were married at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in fabulous Las Vegas, NV.  It was the cheesy, Old Vegas Strip wedding that we had planned on from the time we had even considered getting married.  Complete with a trip to the strip club resulting a massive hangover during the nuptials.  We even had our ‘Reception’ at the buffet at Main Street station downtown.  It was an amazing weekend all the way around. 

And one year later, I can still look at the ring on my finger and smile.  I fiddle with my ring endlessly, but she lets it go because she knows how happy I am to be married to her.  She often forgets to put her rings back on after washing her hands and whatnot.  And it bothers me not one bit.

I think one of the reasons that I am so happy being married is because our life together is just really easy.  This is something that she and I talk about all the time.  But, it is true.  Our relationship is just easy.  We certainly have our moments.  But, those moments are much fewer, much shorter and much further apart than they are for so many of the people I know.

There is so much that we agree on.  And the things that we disagree about are negligible at best.  Enough so that we are comfortable in disagreeing with each other.  There is an enormous comfort in knowing that you can have a difference of opinion with someone without the assumption that those differences amount to some sort of character assault. 

I will ask you to spare me a moment of pride here as I say that I believe that we are good parents together.  Again with the whole ‘Balance’ thing.  We do balance each other remarkably well through the strains of dealing with the antics of the 4 year old Qman.  I think we have both learned a lot our children and ourselves throughout this process.  I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to be a parent with someone else or on my own.  But, given some of the parental and relational dynamics that I have had the misfortune to witness in my lifetime, I am very well aware of how lucky I am.

I am also reminded of something that was first mentioned by atensibilla, and has been mentioned countless times since:  We breed pretty.  This woman who I feel blessed to call my wife has made me the Daddy of two beautiful children.  It took me a long time to get comfortable with the idea of being a Daddy.  Timing certainly had a lot to do with it.  But, I am very glad to be a Daddy with her.

At this point I am compelled to mention, even if briefly, that we also happen to have a fantastic sex life.  Do not underestimate the value of a healthy sex life in direct relation to a happy relationship.  I won’t go into detail, but I will say that what we have works for us.

This has been, by far, one of the easiest years I have ever had.  It has gone by in a flash and I am really kind of surprised that our first anniversary is now here.  The future is a mystery.  The past is history.  Today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present.  We can not predict the future.  But, today I am grateful for the gift of this love and companionship.  I am looking forward to many more wonderful and easy years yet to come.

I Love You!!

Hello Sports Fans,

What an amazing weekend of training. 

In some small effort to help out master_jamal in his effort to become a better fighter, I decided to give him what has become known as the ‘Chipendale Treatment’.  This is in reference to my good friend, Sean of the Chipendales who asked to come out to Salt Lake last year for some individualized training.  We got my household together for two days of intense training with Sean as the primary subject matter.

I’ve been working with Jamal for some time now and I have witnessed the fact that he is actually doing the kind of work that needs to be done to become a fighter of considerable skill.  There is still work to be done, but he is DOING that work.  So, we worked up a #6 on him (refer to Blazing Saddles lexicon).  We found a weekend, and I told him ‘I’ll call a couple of guys I know’.  Well long story short, the training the past weekend included but was not limited to the following people:

HRM Michael (Artemisia)

HRH Sean

Duke Lorrell (Calontir), Duke Eduard (Aten), Duke Timmur(Artemisia)

Count Ralph (Artemisia)

Sir Jamal (Caid), Sir Gregory, Sir Tearlach, Sir William Kyle, Sir Raven, Sir Thorvald, Sir Raoukinn (An Tir)

HL Jamuhka, HL Sean Chipendale (Calontir),

Logan, Lochlan, Dunkr, Torin (Caid), Ungst(Caid), Fagan, Vaclav, Sieg, Kai, Tamar.

I’m sure there were more.  My apologies to anyone I may have forgotten, but….DAMN!  For those of you keeping score at home, that is five Kingdoms, six Royal Peers, seven Knights and some seriously top notch unbelted fighters.  Above all else, we had the complete range of fighting abilities at this practice.  And I mean from the very top of the SCA fighting food chain, to a guy who has be fighting less than a month.  You could pick a number between 1 and 20, and we could give you that grade of fighter.

If this seems like bragging, that’s because it is.

I am so unbelievably blessed.  Not charmed mind you.  But, blessed.  I feel incredibly fortunate to count all of these people, among many others of similar caliber as my friends and family.  I am consumed with pride at the thought of being able to provide training of such magnitude to such a stellar group.  They are the type of student who are actually going to use the information that has been made available to them. 

As much as I love the non-martial aspects of the SCA, and I do, it is really nice to be able to focus on nothing but the fighting for a couple of days.  No court.  No garb.  No ceremony.  Just sticks.  And beyond that, being able to spend some quality time with fabulous people talking about a wide variety of subjects related, and un-related to the SCA.  Having such a wide variety of Kingdoms and experience levels makes for an interesting study in Inter-Kingdom Anthropology.

On Saturday night, we reserved a banquet room at the Golden Corral.  Can’t beat a meat-based buffet.  That room was supposed to hold 40 people.  We had trouble squeezing everybody in.  There were some people who came who were not at practice.  But, there were a lot more who were at practice who didn’t come to dinner.  It was just really awesome hanging out with all those great people.

All in all, it was a weekend completely fabricated of nothing but WIN.  I have to extend my considerable thanks to my dear frienddamethea

for helping arrange food stuffs for the weekend.  I want to thankamerican_knight for teaching and his passion to learn whatever he can from fighters of all skill levels.  Thanks to Jamal for giving me a reason to assemble such amazing group of teachers and students.

There are many others to thank as well, but most of all I would like to thank my lovely and understanding wife,silvermoonwlf for letting me love what I do.  And for letting me do what I love.  The term ‘Understanding’ doesn’t even begin to convey what is necessary to deal with someone who is as passionate about something as I am about fighting.  The word ‘Tolerant’ also comes to mind.  Thank you honey.  I love you.

You must consider all this carefully.

What’s up Hero?

The fighting clinic in An Tir this past weekend was nothing short of awesome.  I’d dare say that american_knight would call it Action Awesome. 

I have been more incredibly blessed with the good fortune to travel quite a bit and teach what I know of the fighting arts of the SCA.  This group was, by far, both the largest and most advanced group of people I have had the pleasure of speaking with.  I believe the count was around 56 people in attendance.  Someone noted that half of the people there were members of the Chivalry.  And that half of those were Royal Peers.  Even among the unbelted fighters who I had a chance to fight, I found some really good fighting talent.  And above all I found a great attitude for learning our sport across a wide spectrum of skill levels. 

I would like to thank rauokinn and williedave  for hosting me this weekend.  It was really great to spend time with you both outside of all of the fighting stuff.

I would also like to thank Duke Sven andermine_knight for doing evaluations and trying to help people understand how some of my philosophies tie into some of the excellent training that is already happening in An Tir.

I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to fight everyone who showed up.  There is simply not enough time in a weekend to get them all.  However, on the trip home I scanned through the video to try to count as many as I could.  It turns out that over the weekend I fought no less than 30 different fighters.  And believe me, those people got more than just two minutes with some Duke. :D  As I recall, a vast majority of them were eager to learn, very attentive and active listeners.  I think most of them were happy to have something that they can go home and actually work on at practice.

Not just good times, Great Times.  I am always pleased to teach where I can.  But, I am honored beyond words to have such a large group, which included some amazingly talented fighters, allow me an opportunity to share my experiences with them. 

I don’t mean to carry on kissing a whole lot of ass here, but the people who showed up this weekend really are to be commended for their desire to learn our sport and their amazing attitude about fighting. 

What’s up Hero?

As you may already know, I travel the Known World extensively teaching SCA heavy weapons combat.  I try to let you know where I am going and when, so you can have a chance to get some training if you’d like.

One of the questions that I get a lot is “What would it take to get you to come out here to teach?”  The answer is shockingly simple:  A free weekend, Airfare and Beer.  The response that I usually get to these ridiculous demands is “DONE”.  Often followed by “Really?  That’s it?”

Here’s my philosophy on taking the Ludus Magnus on the road.  I love to teach.  If you stand still long enough, I am very likely going to teach you something.  I won’t force myself on you.  You have to show me that you want to learn.  But, I will teach anyone who wants to learn.  I would love to be able to afford to travel anywhere and everywhere I’d like to teach fighting.  Unfortunately, I have limited financial resources just like you. 

The fighting clinics that I do are not a money-making venture.  In fact, it usually costs me at least a day of vacation time to go to some of these places.  I could not, in good conscience, charge a fee for teaching you to do what I love.  If you are willing to pay for my basic expenses (gas or airfare, and lodging), I believe that I am morally obligated to find the time to come and teach.  If it doesn’t cost me anything but my time, I feel a great deal of responsibility to accommodate your request. 

So, yes.  Really.  That’s it.  But, you have to make sure there’s Beer.

One of the great difficulties in getting out to teach somewhere is finding a free weekend.  I prefer to not conflict with major events in other parts of your Kingdom.  Unfortunately, every weekend conflicts with *something*.  But, I will try to minimize those conflicts as much as possible. 

If you value enough what I have to teach about our sport, feel free to ask for a fighting clinic in your area.  I’ll start making arrangements. 

You must consider all this carefully.

What’s up Hero?

It turns out I’ve got a lot to say.

I am trying to gather a lot of concepts together so that I can store them here on the LJ.  I will have some generic concepts up publicly.  But, when I get to writing about technique and philosophy, most of that will be available to friends only.  If you are interested, send me a friend request.  If not, hopefully you will find some of the public writings amusing if nothing else.

There is likely to be a flood of postings put up here in the short term.  Much of this flood will be in no particular order of logic.  I keep thinking about things that I want to have available.  There is much.  And there I don’t have the time or energy to create some masterful flow-chart for getting it all out there. 

Bear with me.  There is a method to the madness.  As more stuff gets out, it will make more sense.   I hope.

You must consider all this carefully