On the weekend of 12th July, a small group from MCG attended MesserFest in York, a day-long mix of workshops, lectures, freeplay, and fechtschule style tournament, all dedicated to the use of the messer. The event was hosted in the regular training venue of York School of Defence, and organised by Lauren Ireland of York School of Defence and Jo York of Hotspur School of Defence.
We had an excellent time at the event; some useful food for thought from the workshops, and we got to fence some absolutely lovely technical messer fencers in the fechtschule and in the general freeplay. Last but not least, James Elmslie‘s lecture on messer construction was excellent and it was great to see a messer design taking shape in real time with feedback from the attendees.
Needless to say, we’re already looking forward to the next one. Messer is one of our favourite weapons, we’re lucky enough to have an instructor and assistant instructor who are very much dedicated to the messer, and it’s great to see a dedicated messer event in the UK!
