ARN - Ansteorran Queen's Champion (was Re: RN- Fighting indoors

[Theron Bretz]

Ansgar,

Though I've already expressed my opinion on ARN, I had a chance to further
refine my arguments last night at fighter practice while talking to Iago
(he's good for that sort of thing).  Essentially, my feelings come down to
this.

While fighting on concrete is far from ideal for those with bad knees, there
is no guarantee that fighting on concrete will result in new injuries or the
exacerbation of old ones.  For the most part, people might end up limping a
bit, but their overall enjoyment of the event will not be significantly
curtailed.

On the other hand, fighting outdoors at the Canton site in July will
guarantee cases of heat prostration or worse.  It's just that simple.  In
such cases (I speak from personal experience here - lots of personal
experience), the victim's event is effectively over.  Proper recovery from
heat prostration takes several hours, longer still if the victim can't
completely get away from the heat during the recovery period.

Consider this:  the the majority of Ansteorran fencers get in their primary
practice time at night (Steppes, Stargate/Loch Sollier, Bryn Gwlad, and
Bjornsborg all predominantly practice this way).  As a result, there is a
definite lack of the sort of conditioning needed to stand up to the sort of
day we can be almost guaranteed at Queens.  Having lived through the swelter
that was Alisha's second tournament, I swore never to put myself at that
sort of risk again (and I did pretty well that day, health-wise).

One possible solution might involve the dreaded investment of Kingdom funds,
but may make for an effective compromise.  It shouldn't be too difficult to
rent gymnastic/wrestling floor mats like we all dealt with in high school
gym class.  Putting them down on the list area would enable those with knee
injuries to fight with less trepidation and still allow for indoor fighting.
There would still be some issues to overcome, but this seems like one way to
solve this dillemma.

Thank you for your consideration,

Etienne

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