This August is the fifth anniversary of AVKdF. I Promised everyone we would hold a tournament to celebrate, but we live in the desert, and who wants to hold a tournament in the desert in August (quiet you crazy people!)? And so I had planned on doing it on May 22nd, then COVID hit. As things drew nearer I became convinced we could still do an outdoor tournament if we kept it very small. And so the AVKdF invitational was born! One of our members has a lovely property with plenty of room, and so we made a ring, bought a ton of water bottles, soaked some tatami. We had 11 members who wanted to compete, and I invited ten others from various nearby groups. Sadly, we had over 50% attrition with work, injuries, surgeries etc. In the end we had 8 competitors two from outside the club. I wasn't competing, but was looking forward to many pick up fight, then I sprained my wrist setting up the night before. :(
All that said, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we had a wonderful time with great weather! Kyle and Caleb Robinson, Claire Pahle, Brennen Long, Leif Hanson, Anthony Segovia, of AVKdF, Grant Parrinello of Einhorn, and Andrew Hall of Einhorn and Academy of European Fighting Arts, all fought with skill honor and grace. To accommodate everyone it was default synthetic, with the option to fight steel under mutual consent. The three finalists were Kyle Robinson Bronze, Brennen Long silver, and Andrew Hall Gold. Congratulations! We all learned a lot, and WILL do this again, probably larger, and better organized. :D Thank you all. Here is some video from Grant, and a couple pictures. More will roll in later. 1st Fight Grant and Kyle. 2nd Grant and Andrew, 3rd Grant and Claire. Well fought all of you! Thank you for the video Grant, looking forward to many more!
Da gang!

Kyle 3rd Place, Andrew 1st, and Brennen 2nd. Congratulations you guys!

And now I see that thrust you took Anthony! :D