What made this Longpoint the best yet, though, really wasn’t how super smart and handsome/beautiful/clever Jake and Ben and Emma and Mike and company are (though we totally are, if you can't tell). What made this Longpoint the best was the family that we have become over the years. Even as it grows, it grows like a family reunion and not some soulless corporate event.

Longpoint 2016 was special because, for the first time ever, I got to fence in the open longsword...which I was neither running, director, staffing, nor managing in any way. And I got to get obliterated, out-schielhau-ed (TWICE!) by the mighty Eric Wiggins.

Longpoint 2016 was special because, in the Open Longsword finals, after Kristian Ruokonen defeated his close friend Tim Kaufman for first place, they broke out cans of Coors Light in front of two thousand people. Kristian also went on to win the Triathlon which is significant for many reasons, not the least of which being it's the first time a European has done so. Based on Kristian's performance and that of guys like Arto Fama and Ties Kool, I expect we'll see more of this in the future.

Longpoint 2016 was special because we said goodbye to Turf Valley after four years of fencing, family, and old-fashioned growth to the point of just not fitting in the space anymore.

Longpoint 2016 was special because one club sent its instructor a giant, pink and black knitted sword cozy with fuzzy blue balls...and had me present it to said instructor (Joe Brassey, a Longpoint first-timer) in front of 280 dinner guests and who knows how many live stream watchers.

Longpoint 2016 was special because one of our family, Bill Frisbee, suffered some major losses this year only to have the bulk of his $9,000 harness stolen from his car while driving to Longpoint. He missed competing in the Passage at Arms and had told me that he was giving up harnischfechten altogether as replacing the lost armor just wasn’t achievable...and we, the Longpoint family, pulled together and presented him, through the Armor Fairy Danya Rowden, with $7,000 collected that weekend to get our own “Chief Ironskin” back into his iron skin. I’ve never seen so many grown men (and women) crying all at once. I have never been so blown away by the love that our HEMA family has for its own.