Quote Originally Posted by Galloglaich View Post
I've seen naturally athletic people with a few months of training from very good instructors do well in tournaments, but in ten years I've yet to see anyone with zero training do well in international longsword tournaments or even informal sparring.
Well, this wasn't an international tournament. It was an internal for AMEK only, and specifically aimed at people with no tournament experience. I believe there were one or two people with some international experience, but still, for one of the least experienced people to win, was not something I expected. He also doesn't look terribly athletic. Somewhat overweight, in fact. I forgot how much instruction he got. I think a year, but I could be way off there. No sparring experience at all, though. He was pretty clear about that.

I think you can do ok right out the gate (i.e. no training) with Dusssack.
I just can't seem to get the hang of it without some instruction. A few guards are different and I have no idea what to do with them. We use dussacks for some sparring games, but don't get any real instruction in them. And there's a dussack tournament (again internal) coming up.