[Namron] Fighter Floor Mats

[Miles Grey]

Epperson, Sheryl wrote:
> But I don't think we'd need to entirely cover a basketball court.  A 30 x
> 30 area would take 225 squares.  At $12 each, that would be about $2,700.
> A 20 x 20 area would only take 100 squares, and would be about $1,200.
> Still a little expensive for something we wouldn't use that often, in my
> opinion, but certainly something to look into.  Especially if someone was
> willing to do a special-purpose fundraiser for at least part of the cost.
>
> However, we would also have to consider storage, transportation, and
> maintenance.
>

That's where the "every fighter has a couple of them."  I can't remember
if they had 2 or 4 or something.  Everyone who shows up at practice - or
an indoor tourney - adds his or her squares of padding.  The Barony would
have a number of them, but probably not enough to pad a single list field.
 There's always the option of borrowing padding squares from your
neighboring Baronies and Shires if you wanted to hold an indoor
tournament.  While our fighter community might not like slinking off
indoors during the summer, they may well embrace the idea of being able to
hold a tournament in mid-January without having to worry about sleet
falling horizontally forcing cancellation (assuming the weather wasn't so
bad that no one could reach the site).

But then, Baronies usually have two events each year.  The events with
tournaments crowd the calendar throughout spring and fall, and  - an event
with tournaments, with Yule Revel, Twelfth Night, Candlemass, and other
non-tournament events filling the winter.  Indeed, it seems the breaks in
the calendar are only those dictated by four major items:  Thanksgiving,
Christmas, Gulf Wars, and Pennsic.  Our winters are shorter and less
severe than those in much of Calontir, so the ability to have tourneys
indoors is probably almost a necessity for them; far more so than it is
for us.

I do recall that the Barony of Three Rivers in Calontir used an indoor gym
for fighter practice.  They had a *large* carpet with pad (can't recall if
it was single piece) that they were able to store on site.  I can't
remember exactly (didn't participate in the practices back then), but it
seemed big enough for only two bouts at once.

At the Coronation of King Anton and Queen Isabeau in Calontir two years
ago, they had an indoor tourney in a gym at the site and the single list
field was covered with the puzzle-piece squares of padding, most of which
were brought by the fighters who were participating.  Even with that
single list field in the middle of the standard HS basketball court, the
gym was quite crowded.

Unless the site was held at a venue rather larger than the typical
one-court basketball gym, there really wouldn't be room for more than one
list field.  After all, you have to be able to provide space for the
fighters, their consorts, family, friends, assorted royalty, peers, and
nobility, and spectators as well.  With but a single list field, there's
the very real possibility of an almost-interminable tournament dragging on
well into the evening, with fighters cooling down a bit too much between
matches.

Just my assorted ruminations on indoor tourneys.

  Miles Grey