Heroes.

Throughout my time participating in medieval fighting, both re-enactment and now more pertinently full contact HMB, I've felt overwhelmed at times by the amount of skill required, the sometimes constant defeats and the more demoralising days where training is an abject failure and no progress seems to be made whatsoever. This comes in many forms- running around the track for cardio and feeling unwell and/or unable to complete the circuit without stopping; failing to block punches at training; running out of time, feeling too tired during a fight, etc. Or simply seeing the skill of other fighters- fighters who in time, I will have to fight against and aim to beat.

I thought recently about the people I've either long admired or recently have come to hear about and straight away felt an urge to emulate their characters. I look to these people, some who have passed away and others who are alive and actively participating in their chosen sport or field; some who are athletes, pushing the boundaries of what they ever thought their capabilities would be and others wartime heroes, engaged in a life and death battle for survival against multiple unrelenting and unforgiving enemies, at times against people with heavy personal grudges against them.

Fighting broken bones and the clock; dodging gunfire, chasing Olympic gold and carrying the hopes of a nation with a broken body, fighting a shattered mind through murky depths, fighting for life day in and day out; and burning at the stake after following her faith and fighting for a country and her people, these people stand to inspire me to keep fighting, keep the faith and never give up:

Ronda Rousey

In the 2007 Judo World Championships semi final for women against Edith Bosch of The Netherlands, Rousey dislocated her left elbow at the hands of Bosch. In excruciating pain, Rousey refused to forfeit, popping her own elbow back into place while on the mat and kept fighting, defeating Bosch with 30 seconds left on the clock. Rousey went on to become the first American to win an Olympic medal in Judo, taking out bronze at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and after retiring from Judo and turning to Mixed Martial Arts, is now the current and undefeated UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion.

Simo Häyhä

Sniper for the Finnish Army. During the Winter War between Finland from 1939 to 1940, in temperatures between -40 and -20 degrees Celsius, Häyhä single-handedly stared down the might of the Soviet Army to defend Finland. He killed over 500 Soviet snipers, including squads of snipers sent specifically to hunt him down. The Soviets threw everything at him- including artillery strikes, all of which he survived. In March 1940, half his lower face was blown off when he was hit by an explosive. He regained consciousness a week later, was promoted to Second Lieutenant and lived a long and happy life,  passing away in 2002, aged 96. He remains, 75 years later, the world's deadliest sniper.

Kerri Strug

While competing in the finals of the artistic gymnastics group all-round competition as part of the US women's artistic gymnastics team at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games,  Strug was the last of her team to attempt the vault. Due to an under-rotation, she landed awkwardly and looked to badly roll her ankle. At this stage, the US team was coming first- in front of Russia by a mere 0.897 points- and about to make history by winning the first gold medal in the history of the event for the US and break the decades-long Russian stranglehold on the event. Strug chose not to forfeit. Barely able to walk, she made her second and final attempt at the vault. She stuck the landing with one foot, thus completing the vault and sealing USA's gold medal, then collapsed onto her knees, visibly in excruciating pain. Strug was lifted from the mat by her coach, Bela Karolyi, and with assistance, stood on the medal dais, before being taken to hospital. She had suffered from more than a simple sprained ankle- she had completed the final vault while suffering a third degree lateral sprain and severe tendon damage.

Chloe McCardel

Chloe McCardel is a 30 year old Australian ultra marathon swimmer. Among McCardel's feats are a world record 124.4km swim off the Bahamas coast, an uninterrupted triple crossing of the English Channel, and an attempted crossing of the Straits of Florida from Cuba to Florida, which had to be forfeited after 11 hours due to hypothermia and jellyfish stings. During her last attempt at a triple crossing of the English Channel, one of McCardel's arms stopped working. She was pulled from the water by her support crew and due to the severe mental effects of hypothermia, was incoherent and  unaware her arm was no longer functioning. She continues to train for future marathon swims.

Louis Zamperini

A former Olympian in track and field, while serving as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army Air Corps in 1943, at the height of World War 2, the B-24 hornet Zamperini and his crewmates were flying crashed into the ocean, 1,370 kilometres south of the Hawaiian island Oahu, which killed 8 out of the 11 men on board. Zamperini and the two other survivors of the crash spent an incredible 47 days adrift, enduring attempted shark attacks, a storm which nearly caused their life raft to capsize and multiple strike attempts by a Japanese bomber on their raft. One attack punctured it but the raft remained afloat. They survived on captured rain water, raw fish and two albatross which they caught and killed themselves. Unfortunately, one of the survivors, Francis MacNamara, did not survive.

On their 47th day at sea, their raft washed up on the Marshall Islands and Zamperini and the other survivor, Russell Phillips, were captured immediately by the Japanese Army and held in various prisoner of war camps until WW2 ended in 1945. Most of Zamperini's time was spent in the infamous Naoetsu POW camp, where he was singled out for relentless physical torture by the sadistic Imperial Japanese Army Sergeant Mutsuhiro Watanabe. Watanabe was notorious for taking perverse pleasure in torturing prisoners. Accounts are as such:

"The worst part I think about being in the cell was [Japanese] submarines," Louie revealed in a CBN interview. "A submarine came in and of course, they never see prisoners. So, they can't wait, so they line up in front of your cell, 75, 80 men lined up like going to a movie premiere. And every one of them is either swearing at ya, throwing rocks at ya, or jabbing ya with sticks, spitting on ya. You know, and here you are 65 pounds, you got constant diarrhea, you're starved, they throw a rice ball, they don't give it to ya. It falls on the floor. You have to spend hours picking up every grain of rice mixed in with the dirt. It just seemed like that line would never end."

On three occasions, Louie was injected and used as a guinea pig for medical experiments. He had to describe to his captors what the injection was doing to his body. Louie said that he experienced dizziness and prickly spots all over his body. They only stopped when he told them that he was on the verge of passing out. -CBN

"Watanabe beat POWs every day, fracturing their windpipes, rupturing their eardrums, shattering their teeth, tearing one man's ear half off, leaving men unconscious. ... He ordered one man to report to him to be punched in the face every night for three weeks. He practiced judo on an appendectomy patient." As he unleashed his madness, Watanabe would howl, drool and sometimes cry. Just before he went into a violent rage, his right eyelid would sag.

 In real life, the Japanese clubbed Fitzgerald, stuck penknives under his fingernails, and tore his fingernails off. They also performed the "water cure" method of torture, whereby a prisoner is tipped backwards and water is poured up his nose as his mouth is held shut, causing him to eventually pass out. Like in the movie, Fitzgerald never gave up any information. -Unbroken book

Mutsuhiro Watanabe (aka "The Bird"), who gave Louie daily beatings. Louie was eventually knocked down by The Bird, but only because, as depicted in the movie, The Bird cracked Louie so hard in the left temple with a belt buckle that Louie's legs collapsed underneath him. The beatings left Louie deaf in his left ear for several weeks. -Unbroken book

Zamperini, when released from the camp, weighed around 30kg.

After the war, he married his fiancé, and after suffering nightmares and turning to alcohol in response to the torture he endured, turned to Christianity. He embraced the theme of forgiveness and travelled back to Japan in 1950 to meet with some of his guards and tell them he forgave them. The guards who recognised him stepped forward and he embraced them.

In 1998, Zamperini ran with the Olympic Torch in the Japanese city of Nagano, for the Winter Olympics. His run took him near where he had been held prisoner under Watanabe. He attempted to meet with Watanabe but was turned down.

Zamperini passed away in July 2014, at age of 97.

Joan of Arc

Born in 1412 in Domremy, France, Joan claimed at the age of 12 to have received visions of the angels St Catherine of Alexandria, St Margaret of Antioch and the Archangel Michael - who, in 1422, was declared the patron saint of the French Royal Army. Following these visions, from which she gained inspiration to take a vow of chastity and aid in the expulsion of the British and install Charles of Valois as the rightful king, at the age of 17 in 1429, she was presented to the man who would become Charles the Seventh, offering her aid.

After passing tests by theologians, she was provided with a suit of armour and a banner depicting the fleurs-de-lis and Jesus Christ flanked by two angels. She is claimed to have set about reforming the soldiers in the army battalion in Blois, by "expelling the prostitutes from the camp (sometimes at sword point, according to several eyewitnesses) and requiring the soldiers to go to church and confession, give up swearing, and refrain from looting or harassing the civilian population. One astonished eyewitness reported that she succeeded in forcing a mercenary commander named Lord Etienne de Vignolles, known as "La Hire" (meaning "anger" or "ire", a reflection of his inability to maintain an aristocratic calm) to confess his sins to a priest.
Her arrival had another valuable effect on the army: men who would otherwise have refused to serve Charles' defeated cause now began to volunteer for the campaign, as word that a saint was now at the head of the army began to change minds. "

The accounts of her campaigns into English-held areas include:

The surviving accounts say that the position was carried after Joan rode up with her banner, encouraging the troops up and over the ramparts. The English casualties totaled 114 dead and 40 captured. Her role in this engagement would become typical: sources from both factions quote her as saying that she preferred to carry her banner into battle (rather than a weapon, as is sometimes supposed), since, as she explained, she didn't want to harm anyone; and there are many eyewitness accounts which repeatedly describe her encouraging the troops to greater efforts by placing herself in the same danger that they themselves faced.  

Joan's biggest victory came in 1429 at Orleans, a town under siege from the British. Leading French assaults against them, they retreated across the Loire River.

In July 1429, the coronation of Charles VII took place after forces led by Joan had taken several towns in enemy territory. In 1430, Joan was captured by the Burgundians, an ancient tribe with Scandinavian heritage, and brought to the English commander at Rouen. She was put to trial, accused of witchcraft, dressing like a man and heresy, with 70 charges in total held against her. Charles VII made no attempt to come to her defence as he wanted to distance himself against her due to the charges of witchcraft. Joan was held for a year and threatened with death to the point where she yielded and signed a coerced confession denying she had received divine guidance, but after wearing men's clothing several days later, she was handed a death sentence. At the age of 19, Joan was publicly burnt at the stake in Rouen.

20 years after her death, due to her increasing popularity, a new post-humous trial was ordered by Charles VII and her name was cleared. She was canonised by Pope Benedict XV in 1920. She is revered in France- her image was carried by Allied troops into battle with them in World War 1 in France and is the patron saint of France.

While training with the aim of competing at Battle of the Nations next year, during the good and bad times, I keep these people's amazing feats of endurance and strength so I can hopefully-


Fight fearlessly in the lists like Ronda Rousey

"My first injury ever was a broken toe, and my mother made me run laps around the mat for the rest of the night. She said she wanted me to know that even if I was hurt, I was still fine."

With the deadly aim of Simo Häyhä



"I did my duty and what I was told to do as well as I could."

To bring home the prize like Kerri Strug

"It's important to push yourself further than you think you can go each and every day- as that is what separates the good from the great."


Keep diving into training like Chloe McCardel



"Firstly there isn't any specific mental training you can do but doing cold water swims for 6 hours or more is very challenging for your body because it's so cold your mind has to become strong and has to become determined to complete your training swims. Your body wants to get out of the water and your mind has to say no. That's kind of the way to do mental training. When things are tough in the English Channel, e.g if the tide turns against you and you're being swept away from land it can be very demoralising as you can be swimming on the spot for hours on end. That's when most people fail the single crossings when they are only 1km or 2km from touching French shore. It can be very hard when your muscles are in pain or if you vomit or your body gets cold or your feet aren't going too well. That's when your mental toughness has to kick in and you rely on your support crew more."


With the ability to forgive and endure seemingly insurmountable physical obstacles like Louis Zamperini:



"To persevere, I think, is important for everybody. Don't give up, don't give in. There is always an answer to everything"

And to hold faith in God through unrelenting adversity like Joan d'Arc

"If I am not, may God put me there; if I am, may God so keep me."

The Virtues of Jogging and Blogging

This morning was chilly. I actually wore a scarf. I grabbed the first one I could find, one of my Harry Potter scarves, and it was a Ravenclaw scarf. Which confirmed what I've long questioned- that I HAS THE BIG TIME SMARTS!

Last night was even chillier- it got down to 8 degrees Celsius in Sydney. Normal people hurried straight home from work, dashed inside and warmed up. Not me- I went for a jog. Courtesy perhaps of my Nordic genes, I wore running pants, a dance top, a t-shirt so thin I question whether I'll put my fingernail through it when I touch it, and a thin hoodie, and started to feel warm as soon as I'd left my street. (My body receives my Nordic genes loud and clear except when they start demanding I wear sandals with socks, something so synonymous with Scandinavians that I seriously think it's a genetic trait).

I walked roughly a kilometre to the park where I jog, jogged 1.7km and clocked a time of 6 minutes and then walked the kilometre back home, in a fair bit of pain. What hurt, you ask? Legs, feet, core? None of the above. My ears, however, were burning with the force of a thousand suns. Not my inner or middle ear either, but my outer ear. The fleshy parts shaped like satellite dishes which insulate and funnel sound waves and provide a place to dangle pretty earrings. The pain seared through them  for a solid ten minutes.

It occurred to me the best things about night time jogging are the ability to see right into people's houses and units (and realise the obsession some folk have for lacy curtains) and the lack of heat from sunlight. You also get a lot of thinking time.

I was inspired to start a blog through my friend, I shall call her Ms Z. Ms Z is a very close friend of mine and she was the one to encourage me to start one just before I left for Prague. I did start one but as I mentioned in my previous post, didn't write a single post.

I met Ms Z at my previous job at a law firm. One particular morning, it was discovered by two unfortunate colleagues that 4 Olympic-sized swimming pool's worth of water had flooded from the roof into one end of the office and mixed with sewerage from the men's toilets where it had also flooded, and had gone through the cement slab underneath the floor and was dripping through the ceiling lights into the law firm on the floor underneath us ("Good morning!! Here's a gift from us to you! Don't forget your umbrellas!"). This was the same end of the office where my desk was now about to set sail, along with the desks of several others. Fortunately my belongings were saved, unfortunately so was my work, and I was moved down the opposite end of the office to share a desk with a colleague I shall name Tee-Dub. Tee-Dub and I did not get along. After a few days of desk-sharing, it became apparent to the office manager, Bill, that if we shared a desk any longer only one of us would emerge alive so in his wisdom, Bill put me in an empty office for the day and the following Monday, I would move to an empty desk down just past the now cordoned-off end of the office. Enjoying my first and last day in my own office, I read an office-wide email which said: 

"On Monday we have a new employee starting at *our law firm*. Her name is Ms Z and she will be replacing Jessica D. in working for [solicitor] JA. Please make her feel welcome."

My initial thoughts were "Hmm I think I'm getting a cold", immediately followed by "Now would be a PERFECT time to sneeze all over Tee-Dub's desk!". Biological warfare, right there.

Come Monday, with a nose set like concrete and a forehead you could cook bacon and eggs on, I moved my things and saw Ms Z was my desk buddy, at a separate desk but right next to me. From then on, we were constantly in trouble from our former office manager for talking too much (presumably because she had nothing else to do after having been unceremoniously unseated from her position and was now eavesdropping to pass the hours, in addition to jealously guarding her secret stash of cheap biscuits which people would steal when she wasn't around) and the solicitor Ms Z worked for, also due to talking too much. The straw which broke the camel's back a few months later and tested our former office manager's patience that one time-too-many was when we were busted for laughing too loudly and a complaint was lodged. So I was moved back to my old desk, since the floor had been dried out from the flood, and if anyone thought altered geography would stop Ms Z and me communicating, they had another think coming because EMAIL, PEOPLE! It's a thing!

Ms Z left my work the following year for bigger and better gigs but we stayed in contact and had many adventures. Ms Z oversaw my first trip on a plane, something lesser beings had never attempted due to my being phobic of flying but with her good humour and wit, Ms Z had it down pat, pointed out the cockpit as we boarded the plane and with our other friend Amy, good-naturedly tolerated my gleeful enthusiasm at take off and landing. Were it not for her, I probably would never have ever considered going to Battle of the Nations (BOTN) in 2014, which was held in Croatia, or this BOTN just passed. So in light of that, and the fact this blog even exists, I thought a post to thank Ms Z for it all was fitting!

I just entered my running time into an online race/time conversion tool and my figures for the time and distance run last night indicate that if I were a male, I'd be in the top 67.5% of runners in the world! This sounds pie-in-the-sky to me but hey, who am I to argue! I haven't run since last winter and really need to amp up my cardio for full contact triathlon, about which I will explain soon, so I'll have to put up with sore ears in the meantime.

Until next time!

Willkommen to my first ever blog post!

The adage "write what you know" springs to mind when writing this first entry and while that would be fun, it has also occurred to me that writing entirely what I know may just get me arrested so with that in mind, I'll kick off this post with what the latest is in my attempts to procure armour for full-contact fighting.

This blog in its genesis was for the purposes of keeping in contact with friends while I was overseas at the world championships for medieval full contact fighting in Prague in May 2015. Unfortunately since this required a method of accessing the internet and typing large swathes of text on a computer as opposed to a smart phone, these lofty ambitions fell by the wayside and I reverted to messaging apps on my phone. I had a laptop with me but *effort*, and who wants to spend 10 days in Prague on a laptop?

So I'm picking up and introducing you to my world, on the first day of the second half of 2015, which is almost a month to the day since I flew out to Prague, and perhaps FINALLY putting my writing skills from my long-forgotten Journalism diploma from so many years ago to use (Mum would not be happy if she actually knew- "I sink all that money into your college diploma and you end up doing THIS!?!?!")...

And-here-we-go:

I've been a medieval re-enactor since one fateful day in January 2011 when, after around a year of hearing all about medieval fighting and how great it was from my friend's husband, I found myself on a Saturday with nothing do to and a desire to get out of the house and in a moment of either complete insanity or clarity of thought (depending on the mood I'm in during such nostalgic reflections), I agreed to go with him to training to check it out. Fast forward to July 2013 and in a plot twist no one (including myself) saw coming, I find myself simultaneously commencing training for full contact medieval combat and examining whether I have a subconscious death wish. But much more on that later!

This morning I received an email from an overseas company I had contacted three weeks ago in order to obtain some custom-made padding to go underneath my full contact armour, answering my request for information on what kind of padding they could provide. Except because they had taken so long to reply to my initial enquiry, I had since researched, found, ordered and paid for padding from another company and ordered my armour from an armourer in Ukraine whose permanent gig seems to be outfitting almost the entire Australian team with armour. Good timing right there.

On my way to court for work, I felt a twinge in the crook of my right elbow. My inner hypochondriac had a field day. "TENDONITIS!" she bellowed with great gusto. "And you'll never haul your suitcase full of kit down the stairs at the station again, let alone fight!!". Good times. Fortunately, by the time I'd returned to my desk, the twinge had gone and Miss H. Chondriac was twiddling her un-manicured thumbs and critically examining her new blouse. Tendonitis has plagued a few of the male fighters in the Australian full contact team and the issue flared up in Prague, so this plays on my mind at times.

The best part of the day came at lunch- I received a call saying my camera memory card, which had corrupted the night after I returned from Prague, was ready to be collected from the camera store I had taken it to in an effort to rescue the photos. The card was scanned and most of the photos have been rescued, THANKFULLY, because I'm not sure about you, but I certainly don't want to face up to a group of burly medieval fighters and tell them the photos I took of them have been lost. In all seriousness though, I was grateful because for obvious reasons, I can't just re-create the event and take the photos again. The guys are mostly historical re-enactors, but not to the extent they'd re-enact the event specifically so I could photograph it again!

That's all for today- and tonight's workout, should all go to plan, will be a 1.7k jog around a nearby park- to get my cardio up and to reminisce about primary school cross country carnivals run on the very same track many, many moons ago.