What kind if course are you doing?
So glad you asked! I joined a performative historical swordfighting summercourse last week!
We learned longsword HEMA techniques and practiced how to do those safely on each other, because we're just doing them for show, not to actually hit each other, hehe. There were other workshops too like dagger, peasant stick, scottish broadsword, sword & shield, sword & buckler, archery, knife fighting, poleaxe, you name it! At the end of the week we had a show for an actual audience (family members and also regulars of the day care facilities) and we performed a fight for them that we'd choreographed ourselves in teams of two!
The setup for the show went something like this: We marched together, then split into two troops, then fanned out to make a line. One by one the duos stepped forward onto the field and did their little stage fight! After everyone's had their turn, we got back in line, marched to opposite sides of the field and were given the command to charge!! That's when we did the melee part, where everyone did their fights without any of the story, so just the fights, and after a couple minutes about half the people were playing dead on the ground and the other half was still standing victoriously lol
After being miraculously revived by being alive the whole time, we got back in line facing the audience from a distance, were told to 'armez!', 'avancez!' and 'CHAAAARGEEEEEZ!' as we charged the audience, hahahaha!
The people were really nice and caring, everybody is neurodivergent in one way or another and we all love to swing big swords around! Despite the heat wave, I had a lot of fun and would go again next year in a heartbeat!
Edit: forgot to mention we trained on a trainingsfield right across from a medieval castle!! And further down the road was our campsite with everyone's tents in the orchard in between ancient fruit trees!
