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| Receiving the tabard... photo by Tadea Isabette Di Bruno |
Here's my first ever guest post. These are all people who were "Unbelt Wives"... those who stood next to us, helped us along, and put up with the craziness on the road to The Fight, and cheered us through victory or comforted us in defeat. Wives, in this case, include spouses, girlfriends, or boyfriends. It is meant to be gender neutral.
A couple asked to remain anonymous, and I have respected that.
Mathilde DeCadenet:
Being an Unbelt wife.
It is joy. It is angst and fear. It is immeasurable Pride. It is pushing and cheering on your love to strive for something for King and Kingdom and self. It is picking them up and calming them down. It is the agony in sending them off to a practice to do their best to fight against friends and brothers for a spot on the team. It is the agony of the wait for the damnable list to finally be published. The held breath in court to hear his name. Then the hard part comes. The day of The Fight. The handing out of the tabards that prove he is part of the team. That tangible proof. The singing of Forsaken All Others. The entire morning is your breath held and hands clenched. Sending him off to fight and standing there with our sons watching their father be part of such an important part of the War. Willing him to fight the best he has ever fought while everyone EVERYONE is watching. This event, such an important part of our Kingdom tradition. And then in less than a minute it’s over and you exhale …and it begins anew.
Tadea Isabetta Di Bruno
Not part of the brotherhood we stand just outside. Our souls burn that of a warrior. Never a fighter
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| photo by Tadea Isabette Di Bruno |
Mistress Aneleda Falconbridge
I've seen almost entirely bad and very little good come out of the competition. I've watched many of my friends get so filled with stress and performance anxiety over it that they get physically ill. I'm sure they'd say it was worth it. The loss and sense of low self-worth that comes from trying their best and falling short, either in the competition itself or in wanting to achieve the dream and not making the cut. In the discouragement of being on the team one year--or worse many years--and not the next. The deep social ramifications that those perceived failures have for those individuals.
Two things strike me as strange about the cult of the Unbelts. Unlike mainstream sports, there is no season of games, no playoffs to get psyched about, there is only the Stanley Cup or the Super Bowl, or whatever the end game is in other sports. There are plenty of practices, but only one game at the end of all the preparation. Also unlike other sports, the Big Game is not hours long with many opportunities to prove oneself, but it is short and brutal. This puts an enormous amount of pressure on the team members and candidates. At the end of a full year of preparation and anxiety, a fighter might only be in the game for 10 seconds. One mistake, and they're done. And then they have a full year to agonize about those 10 seconds and what they could have done differently. As I write this, I realize that the life of a sniper is a better analogy than any modern sports team. They work with a unit, have countless hours of preparation, but it all comes down to split seconds of decision making to determine whether their preparation was adequate. The second thing that strikes me as odd, if you try to use the modern sports analogy, is that there is no long-term recognition. There is no plaque on the wall or silver cup engraved with team members' names. There is no Super Bowl ring to commemorate which year they were Champions. There is nothing beyond the memories of individuals. There are people working to change that now. Again, more apt for the sniper analogy--they know how many kills they have. They know the score, and so do their close associates. There's no ticker tape parade for being, as Olaf said, a killer.
So in conclusion, I'm glad I wrote this. Because now I get it. I've been thinking about the Unbelts as the big game and it just never made sense to me. But if I think about them like snipers, then I get the thrill of selection, the anticipation, the pressure, and how the stress can be a good thing.
I Fight for You
Originally posted on February 4, 2013 at http://mbouchard.com/aneleda/i-fight-for-you
The Queen’s Meadhall in Carolingia was where this song was first publicly performed. It was written after a conversation with Aneleda’s noble cousin and friend Gryffyn Dunham, who was on the unbelted team at the time, about what inspires us do do what we do on the field (and elsewhere.) Since I had no song that really fit that theme, I wrote this one.
This song is featured on the CD “I Am of the North” available for purchase online at: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/aneledafalconbridge/
I Fight for You
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| photo by Tadea Isabette Di Bruno |
I fight for you,
my one, my love, my own
You who give more strength to me
than I would know alone.
While my arms are bound in linen
and my legs are wrapped in steel
nothing brings me to my knees
as the way you make me feel.
I fight for you.
Many are the days and nights
when I have left you behind;
deep within a warrior’s trance
seemed to push you from my mind.
But know that you are all to me
no matter what I show
for I don the armor to protect
what I hold safely below.
I fight for you...etc.
The miles, they leave me lonesome
for the warrior’s road is long.
I miss your laughter ‘round the fire
And your voice raised soft in song.
As I look up to the star’s light
that I know above you shine,
I pray that my thoughts carry
to the love I know is mine.
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| photo by Tadea Isabette Di Bruno |
I fight for you...etc.
Each buckle and each lacing
Marks the rituals of war,
Knowing solidly and firmly
that for you I would do more.
With my life I will protect you
and would keep you from all harm,
each time I step upon the field
I wear that knowledge as a charm.
I fight for you...etc.
When I have the time I watch you
‘neath the shadow of my helm.
But I do not do it often
lest my feelings overwhelm.
With all the honor in my being
I take every day for you
I swear that your belief in me
I shall never make you rue.
I fight for you...etc.
Anonymous
Being an unbelt wife is blood, sweat, and sacrifice. Squeezing every minute out of the day to
spend time with your fighter when they're home, keeping the family stable when they're not.
Wringing every dollar out of the budget, for travel, equipment, and kit my car can run rough, as
long as my fighter can get to events. A replacement demi or a set of vambraces takes
precedence over new work clothes. Every vacation is an event. It's worry, over the broken
bones, the contusions, the concussions that come with fighting at this level. Its jealousy, over the
camaraderie with others you dont know, whose company your mate so often seeks. It's dealing
with the manic highs when things go well, the dark, withdrawn bleakness after a bad practice or a
bad fight. It's a subsuming of ego we stand behind, to support our fighters when they come back,
having left it all on the field. To tend stress, and injury, contend with bravado and selfdoubt. We
bolster them, while carefully staying out of the limelight. But mostly it's pride, at seeing our
fighters beat back everything thrown at them, on the field and off, to achieve their dreams. To join
their Brothers on the field, as one unit, one weapon, one force. Pride in their work, their sacrifice,
their stubborness, pushing past every barrier, over every obstacle, through every foe. For us, as
for them, this team, this battle, is the allconsuming goal because we, too, are of the North.
Anonymous
Being an unbelt wife is blood, sweat, and sacrifice. Squeezing every minute out of the day to
spend time with your fighter when they're home, keeping the family stable when they're not.
Wringing every dollar out of the budget, for travel, equipment, and kit my car can run rough, as
long as my fighter can get to events. A replacement demi or a set of vambraces takes
precedence over new work clothes. Every vacation is an event. It's worry, over the broken
bones, the contusions, the concussions that come with fighting at this level. Its jealousy, over the
camaraderie with others you dont know, whose company your mate so often seeks. It's dealing
with the manic highs when things go well, the dark, withdrawn bleakness after a bad practice or a
bad fight. It's a subsuming of ego we stand behind, to support our fighters when they come back,
having left it all on the field. To tend stress, and injury, contend with bravado and selfdoubt. We
bolster them, while carefully staying out of the limelight. But mostly it's pride, at seeing our
fighters beat back everything thrown at them, on the field and off, to achieve their dreams. To join
their Brothers on the field, as one unit, one weapon, one force. Pride in their work, their sacrifice,
their stubborness, pushing past every barrier, over every obstacle, through every foe. For us, as
for them, this team, this battle, is the allconsuming goal because we, too, are of the North.
Anonymous
I was really hesitant to say anything, because couldn’t see what good could come from casting the Unbelt Battle in an negative light, but at your insistence I'll share a few thoughts. I've seen almost entirely bad and very little good come out of the competition. I've watched many of my friends get so filled with stress and performance anxiety over it that they get physically ill. I'm sure they'd say it was worth it. The loss and sense of low self-worth that comes from trying their best and falling short, either in the competition itself or in wanting to achieve the dream and not making the cut. In the discouragement of being on the team one year--or worse many years--and not the next. The deep social ramifications that those perceived failures have for those individuals.
Two things strike me as strange about the cult of the Unbelts. Unlike mainstream sports, there is no season of games, no playoffs to get psyched about, there is only the Stanley Cup or the Super Bowl, or whatever the end game is in other sports. There are plenty of practices, but only one game at the end of all the preparation. Also unlike other sports, the Big Game is not hours long with many opportunities to prove oneself, but it is short and brutal. This puts an enormous amount of pressure on the team members and candidates. At the end of a full year of preparation and anxiety, a fighter might only be in the game for 10 seconds. One mistake, and they're done. And then they have a full year to agonize about those 10 seconds and what they could have done differently. As I write this, I realize that the life of a sniper is a better analogy than any modern sports team. They work with a unit, have countless hours of preparation, but it all comes down to split seconds of decision making to determine whether their preparation was adequate. The second thing that strikes me as odd, if you try to use the modern sports analogy, is that there is no long-term recognition. There is no plaque on the wall or silver cup engraved with team members' names. There is no Super Bowl ring to commemorate which year they were Champions. There is nothing beyond the memories of individuals. There are people working to change that now. Again, more apt for the sniper analogy--they know how many kills they have. They know the score, and so do their close associates. There's no ticker tape parade for being, as Olaf said, a killer.
So in conclusion, I'm glad I wrote this. Because now I get it. I've been thinking about the Unbelts as the big game and it just never made sense to me. But if I think about them like snipers, then I get the thrill of selection, the anticipation, the pressure, and how the stress can be a good thing.
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