@jasonbaldwin2171 hah thanks. And I should say for anyone looking on: I am perfectly happy and thoroughly enjoy fencing with newer fencers. But tournaments are not a good place for that. When fencing someone less experienced I'll normally not exploit any major errors they're making more than a few times to see if they self correct. If it's a gap in their fencing I'll move on and tell them about it if they ask for feedback. I'm much more likely to try and find their strength areas and deliberately set up situations they can use it - that's good practice for both of us as I'll be trying to counter something they are doing well. But a tournament format encourages/,rewards me to find their biggest weakness and exploit it until the cows come home. That's not fun for either of us, and not a great way to get decent feedback about your fencing as a whole. I'd much rather just spar with someone newer so we can both relax and not worry about the numbers

The Beginners division last year was a bit of a learning experience for us - it was a pretty last minute addition because we realised that a lot of the hall was empty during the women's+ competitions. Defining what a "beginner" is in HEMA can be really hard. We had some people