Midlands Army Survival Techniques

	Midlands Army Survival Techniques

Drink plenty of liquids.
Fighting in the hot Pennsic sun can use up your body's liquid reserve at an astonishing rate. Please make sure you stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water/gatorade when you're on the field. Eating dill pickle wedges or orange segments is a good idea too. This goes for marshals, water bearers, and other support staff as well. For purposes of this discussion, any beverage containing caffeine or alcohol does not count as liquid. Both of these substances will cause dehydration. If you do consume any, you'll need to drink extra water (in about a 1 to 5 ratio) to make up for it.
Keep your body cooled.
The armor on a fighter's body has a nasty tendency to hold in body heat. This means the temperature inside of your armor, not to mention inside of you, will be even hotter than it is outside. Do what you can to reduce it. Stay out of the sun if you can, put a damp cold cloth on the back of your neck, and drink plenty of liquids. If your body will tolerate the shock, pour water (room temperature water, not ice water) over yourself. Be careful of this last one - for some people it does more harm than good.
Keep your helmet out of the sun.
The place you least want the heat to build up, is inside your head. Imagine what happens when you put on a nice black painted helmet that's been sitting in the sun absorbing heat for an hour. This is not a good thing. If you're a shieldman, keep your hat under your shield. If you don't have a shield, find a friend that does. You can fit a lot of helmets under a BFS (big effing shield).
Do not overheat.
Every year, several people, fighters and non-combatants alike, take a trip to the hospital with heat exhaustion. You don't want to be one of them. All three of the preceeding items are meant to help keep your internal balance under control. If you start to overheat; stop whatever you are doing, sit down (in the shade if possible), and drink something. If you have armor on, take it off - you're done for a while. If you don't have much experience fighting outside, overheating can sneak up on you. There are usually a couple of danger signs though. If you suddenly feel an icy shiver that starts at the base of your neck and shoots down your spine, it's time to stop. If you find yourself feeling light-headed, same thing. Different people have different reactions. These are all signals from your body that its time to sit down - now, because falling down is imminent. Ignore them at your peril.
Die defensively.
If and when you are killed in battle, try and die defensively. Fall to the ground on your sword side and turtle up under your shield. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll keep this document much shorter by showing you this.

Rest on the field when you can.
Despite planning and good intentions, the battle will start late. Don't stand around waiting - it uses up a lot of energy. Do what you can to relax and conserve your strength. We in the Midlands have developed a scientifically researched method to accomplish this, known as 'slacking'. Below are two examples of a two way slack. Four way slacking, while possible, is considered to be an advanced technique.

John Inchingham (on the right), Master of the Laurel, and
therefore of all arts and sciences, demonstates his mastery
of this particular technique.

Commander Dietrich, or at least the back of his head, is a
highly accomplished slacker. See him for instruction in this
most useful of sciences. On the other hand, if you want to learn
to use yourt helmet for a pillow while breathing through a kazoo,
talk to Avery.

Get plenty of sleep.
Yeah, right. None of us are going to be getting enough sleep - it *is* Pennsic after all. Still, it would be far more sensible to get plenty of rest the night before a battle (not that running around with a steel pot on your head in a hundred degree heat-index is exactly what one would call sensible). Still, at least try and get some rest.
Remember to eat.
Now you'd think this one would be easy, but... If you haven't been to Pennsic before, you're in for an incredible experience. There's so much to do and so much to see (and so little time to do it all in), it really is possible to forget about eating. You've been warned.
Get enough salt.
You're going to do an enourmous amount of sweating this week. This will cause you to use far more salt than you're likely accustomed to. Make sure you get enough salt in your diet to replace it.
Keep your hands clean.
Another one that should be fairly obvious. There's soap by that port-a-castle for an extremely good reason. You will be a much happier camper if you use it. Note the word "camper" in the preceeding sentence. Unless you want a case of 'Montezuma's Revenge' to seem fun by comparison, please - use the soap.
Hangovers are not fun.
You will see, and some will consume, a hugely vast and varied amount of potable liquids while at Pennsic. If you choose to sample some of this cornucopia, please do so responsibly. Remember that bit at the top of the page about alcohol dehydrating you? It still very much applies. You may want to alternate fermented drinks with water. After a night's imbibing, a large glass of water before bed may be your best friend. While a hangover might give you a great incentive not to get hit in the head - any time you wake up and find the wind in the grass is too loud, it's going to be a long day.
Beware of drinks that glow.
This goes hand in hand with the previous point. If someone offers you a drink that flames, fizzes, smokes, or glows in the dark (and they will) - it might be better to let such a cup pass by. If they won't tell you what's in the drink, don't touch it. And for God's sake stay away from anything called 'Strawberry Surprise'.
Don't drink the water - maybe.

If you visit American city,
You will find it very pretty.
Just two things of which you must beware:
Don't drink the water, and don't breathe the air.

-- Tom Lehrer
OK, how can I say such a thing after preaching at you to drink plenty of water throughout the entire page? It's not water in general I'm warning you about, but Pennsic water in particular. Pennsic's water is well water, and it gives some people problems. If you've got a cranky digestive system, you may want to stick to bottled water instead. Leave a bottle of Pennsic water out overnight, and it magically turns to, not wine, but rust. Both the water and its' container will now be a peculiar shade of orange. The well water has an extremely high iron content (it contains other chemicals too) - if you normally take iron supplements, you can probably leave them on the shelf this week.
Have fun.
At the end of the day, the reason we all came here was to have fun. In the hurly-burly of Pennsic week, you can some times lose sight of that. You can find yourself over-hot, over-tired, and over-crowded. It's all too easy for tempers to flare sometimes. If you find yourself getting to this point; it's time to kick back, relax, and go do something fun. A lot of people will be working extremely hard to make these two magical weeks happen - but remember, they're on vacation too. Be safe, be sane (in moderation), and enjoy yourself. Make some memories, then come home with new tales to tell and songs to sing.

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Last updated: 2005-06-13

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