Surely, You Joust
With an unforgiving lance and a sense of civic duty, a Palm Beach County
woman lowers the "kaboom!"

by T.M. Shine

Cynthia Morrison isn’t into the fantasy of Sir Lancelot and the Knights of the Round Table. She doesn’t care any more about King Arthur than she does about King Tut. She didn’t grow up dreaming of living in medieval times.

“Actually, I grew up on The Three Stooges,” she says. “I love them.” This medieval nonsense just happens to be attached to the big stick she likes to
ram people with.

“To be honest, I only try to learn about some of that Renaissance stuff because people like you ask me about it. But I’m not into the legends or the history at all,” Morrison says. “I’m into the ‘kaboom!’ Let’s see who can stay on — kaboom!”

The art of jousting isn’t an art in Morrison’s hands. “It’s just two horses
charging and the ultimate crash. That’s what blows my mind,” she says,
smiling.

Don’t confuse what Morrison does with Renaissance fair characters
role-playing in choreographed matches with balsa-tipped lances. For one, a
machinist she knows through her job with an auto-service business works on
her shield. Plus, she carries her 10-foot, solid-wood lance in a fishing pole
case in the back of her Camaro. “It’s the only thing it will fit in for
traveling,” Morrison says.

Since 1997, Morrison has spent much time traveling with her purple-and-black
lance and sunburst shield. About six years ago, she spotted an advertisement
in a Renaissance magazine advertising the American Jousting Alliance (AJA)
school in Frazier Park, Calif.

A graduate of Lake Worth High School, Morrison is a champion power-lifter and
the type of woman who would get in an alligator pit on a lark. She was
intrigued by three weeks of intensive kabooming on horseback and, with her
fearless nature and few women competing in battle, she quickly advanced in
the sport. In 1999, she won the AJA International Women’s Jousting
Championship and repeated the feat in 2000.

But now, at the age of 42, Morrison wants to cut down her travel and has
created South Florida’s first jousting club. “Almost all the competitions
are out West so if I wanted to continue to compete, I had to make it happen
on my own,” Morrison says.

The Palm Beach Jousting Club (PBJC) has been in existence for about five
months now and has already held its first demonstration, which took place at
a fundraiser. “I cracked a rib,” Morrison says matter-of-factly.

To scout out recruits, Morrison attended a monthly meeting of the Adrian
Empire, a medieval sword-fighting group, at Dreher Park in West Palm Beach.
The group has about 300 members. Three of them were interested in her club.

“A few of my friends had gone on the jousting circuit and the stories I heard
had really interested me, but I didn’t want to travel from fair to fair in a
tent,” says Adam Whiting of Loxahatchee, who’s known in the Adrian Empire as
Sir Krieg, Knight guardian to Baroness of Cambria. “So, I loved this idea and
she was happy to get someone with experience fighting in armor, even if it
was on foot.”

Knowing these guys could handle the physical strain was a plus, but Morrison
still needed horses. “Then, I heard about this woman who had three Fjords
from Norway. They’re the original Viking warhorse,” Morrison says.

“I thought it was a bit odd when they first came to me about jousting but the
experience has been great,” says Susan McGrath, who keeps her Fjords in
Calusa, a horse community in unincorporated Palm Beach Gardens.

A riding instructor, McGrath was also recruited to train jousting club
members on the horses while Morrison centered on the combat. “As far as the
riding goes, it is not unlike fence-jumping whereby you have to pick a target
to focus on,” she says.

Whiting says learning the mechanics of the sport was easier than he expected
but throwing the horse into the mix has been “exasperating.”

“The three men training are all expert swordsmen, but the weight of the
armor, positioning the lance, trying to see through the slits of the helmet
and attempting to handle a horse at the same time … well, that can be a
challenge,” Morrison says.

The Palm Beach club jousts 12th-century transition style, a bare-bones method
using leather apparel, a small breastplate and optional chain mail under the
helmet “so the lance doesn’t pierce the skull.”

“You use the 10-foot solid lance and you’re more dependent on your shield to
absorb the impact,” Morrison says. “A lot of what you see at fairs and in
movies is 15th century, with full plate armor, guards on the neck and
skinnier lances that break easy.”

Morrison pulls out a photo of a blow she took in the groin from a lance that
doesn’t break so easily. The black and blue marks extend over a third of her
body.

“During some periods, jousting was intended for sport, other times, it was
intended for death,” Morrison explains.

Under the AJA rules that the Palm Beach club abides by, “unhorsing” is
allowed but discouraged. Morrison doesn’t get off on unhorsing people. “It
receives low points anyway,” she says. “You get four passes, so you’ll
accumulate a lot more points if that person is still up and riding and you
can make direct hits.”

The PBJC is intended for extreme-sports athletes and she wants to keep it
small. “That’s why it’s called a club and not an alliance or an
association,” she says. “This is for small tournaments and demonstrations
for the community with no money involved. A true hobby.”

The club already has reached out and visited a local hospital to give
children honorary knight medals. “One of the requirements in joining the club
is that you be willing to participate in events beneficial to the community,”
Morrison says.

With that said, Morrison’s warrior face returns and she explains how the new
members were gallantly standing too tall in the saddle when they first
started their practice bouts. “You have to curl up behind the shield and
await that whiplash moment,” she says.

There’s a Moe, Larry and Curly gleam in Morrison’s eye every time she
delivers words like direct hit or whiplash. “And at the moment of impact,”
she says, “I’m smiling.”