David Cranswick grabs his big hockey bag from his truck. He carries it to the field behind Midnapore school where the rest of the group is decked out and ready to go. Greeting everybody, he places his bag on the ground and pulls out a pair of fencing pants. He will put his headgear on later when training becomes more serious. As he pulls out his steel longsword, Cranswick is ready for his long sword study group at Calgary Fellowship of the Sword.
Lauren Shaw (left) and David Cranswick (right) demonstrate a move with the help of David Lawless (centre).
He warms up, swinging his sword around his body with a relaxed grip and straight face showing that he is no beginner. Cranswick sports an official Calgary Fellowship of the Sword shirt with a black and white cap sitting snugly on his head.
Calgary Fellowship of the Sword is a Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) group practicing different medieval martial arts. According to Lauren Shaw, one of the instructors, the long sword is the most popular sword that beginners like to start with.
Lauren Shaw sports her teal green HEMA jacket while handling her steel longsword.
Shaw is at the study group early, having just finished teaching the long sword introductory class. She has dirty blonde hair and wears a teal green HEMA jacket with a patch that represents women in HEMA.
She stresses that learning long sword is not like the movies with exaggerated swings and going for the gusto almost immediately. Agility and speed are important, but many other aspects go into longsword.
“Physics, geometry, biology, metallurgy history. There's a lot more to it than just what people think,” said Shaw.
David Cranswick (foreground) relaxes with his synthetic longsword as he listens to David Lawless (background)
Today’s practice is more relaxed as many of the club members have recently returned from a synthetic (plastic) longsword tournament. It was special for the club as all the members competed in their first tournament. A normal three-hour session has been cut in half today.
Lauren Shaw (left) and David Lawless (right) demonstrate a longsword move to the class.
Jason Lacroix (yellow) and Matt Cardall (black) engage in a friendly duel.
Shaw considers the study group as a group of friends rather than competitors. “People really need to be there to help one another as opposed to be there to hit and hurt one another.”
Jason Lacroix was one member that was able to bring home some hardware. He won silver in the tournament.
Jason Lacroix was one member that was able to bring home some hardware. He won silver in the tournament.
Jason Lacroix (yellow) follows along with his instructors with his sister Alexa Lacroix next to him and Matt Cardall at the back.
“I wasn’t expecting to get up to that point. I was just showing up to support the group. So, it’s a great honour and I’m glad I competed,” said Lacroix.
Matt and Sheri Cardall, husband and wife, participated in the tournament too.
“I went in with the singular goal of not to cry, not to get so emotional,” said Sheri. “I was able to stay focused and engaged in the fight and cheer everyone on. It didn’t matter if they were our team or not,” said Sheri.
Sheri (left) and Matt (right) Cardall pose in the field near Midnapore School.
The couple originally joined the club when Sheri signed Matt up as a birthday present.
“I’ve always enjoyed playing around with swords, lightsabers or stuff like that. So going through the course seeing what it had to offer opened my eyes to what there was potential there for,” said Matt.
After a while, Sheri started helping Lauren teach the introductory class.
“It was really hard because I was dealing with a sore shoulder so stepping into helping with the intro class was really good.”
Sheri also found that helping run the intro class was a great refresher in terms of getting back to the basics. “When you are doing high level trigonometry, you don’t talk about one plus one equals two. You believe you don’t need to, but sometimes reviewing the basics helps.”
The rest of the group started to arrive, including David Lawless, the second instructor. The class started with members imitating Lawless and Shaw with their synthetic (plastic) longswords.
The instructors start with warmups, moving their swords up and down and side to side. It was reminiscent of the start of a youth soccer practice when the coach would tell his players to stretch. Afterwards, they move into teaching time, reflecting on the moves taught last lesson and showing a new move this week.
Jason Lacroix (left) and David Lawless (right) demonstrate a move for the class.
Lawless calls on Jason Lacroix to help him demonstrate a few moves. Later in the lesson, he brings out a Muay Thai belly pad to help members practice integrating kicks into combat. Lessons aren’t all lecturing though, as the members partner up several times to practice while Lawless and Shaw walk around, correcting any mistakes and answering any questions.
David Lawless (left), wearing a Muay Thai belly pad, takes a kick from Alexa Lacroix (right) outside of Midnapore School.
Lawless spoke about the evolution of HEMA equipment after the lesson “If you look at a video of 1990s HEMA practitioners, what you see is a collection of hockey and lacrosse equipment. So, you see people with JOFA mitts and hockey shoulder pads and baseball catcher’s mitts and so on,” said Lawless.
David Lawless with his synthetic longswords.
Members are planning to attend another longsword tournament in Edmonton in the future and look forward to returning to the same longsword tournament in Calgary.
