Thundering at each other with lances while dressed in full armour, modern-day knights still practice the ancient sporting tradition of jousting at historic sites in the United Kingdom, following in the centuries-old hoof prints of their predecessors.
"It's not pretend. This is the real thing," says Dominic Sewell, one of the UK's best known jousters and trainers.
"It's not pretend. This is the real thing," says Dominic Sewell, one of the UK's best known jousters and trainers.
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00:00 This is not a movie set or dress up. It's a centuries old sport of jousting, once practised
00:07 by knights but in modern Britain. Like their predecessors, the knights in full armour charge
00:14 at each other with lances that splinter on impact. The aim is to score points rather
00:20 than unseat the other rider, but the risk is real.
00:25 We aim at each other's heads. You don't get that in most other types of sport, using real
00:30 weapons to deliberately hit a head. So there's an extra element of risk that people appreciate
00:37 and certainly find exciting.
00:39 Initially a form of military training, knights also tended jousts between battles in the
00:45 hope of winning tournament prizes. It was hugely popular in medieval times, but had
00:50 largely died out by the early 17th century.
00:54 A revival in recent decades has seen recreation jousts take place at historic sites across
01:00 England and even calls for it to be made an Olympic sport. The battles draw crowds of
01:06 fans eager to cheer on a modern day lancelot of a wild man.
01:11 I thought it was very exciting, fast paced action. You can tell they were actually really
01:16 doing it as opposed to it being scripted. So yes, I really enjoyed it.
01:19 It's still a great actual sport to actually watch. It is really competitive when you see
01:23 them doing it. It takes a lot of skill. So yes, it's really good to come along and support
01:29 and keep these things alive because it's our history for the country.
01:33 Dominic Sowell is one of Britain's best known competitors and an expert on the sport. A
01:39 veteran of more than 20 years, he also trains others in the sport at his stables.
01:45 A helmet, weighing probably about 6 kilos, 7 kilos. It's physically demanding to weigh
01:51 30 kilograms of armour on the back of a horse moving at 20 to 25 miles an hour and then
01:57 accepting an impact from somebody else moving at the same speed with the same equipment.
02:01 So yes, it's very demanding, doing it day after day after day can be very draining as
02:05 is in any sport. It's not pretend.
02:09 The modern jousters base their equipment on what was traditionally used. True to its elitist
02:15 roots, a suit of armour today costs around 20,000 euros.
02:20 One modern change has been the sport opening to women, like Lisa Dixon. For her, it's
02:27 an equal playing field that comes down to the relationship between horse and rider.
02:33 There's no feeling quite like it, being able to get onto these venues and knowing that
02:39 at some point somewhere around that venue people did joust on there and you are literally
02:45 following in their hoof prints. I've always said it's a very, very special feeling to
02:50 be recreating history on history.
02:56 Jousting has been dubbed England's first national sport. And the tradition appears
03:00 set to keep galloping into the future.
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