There is a chuck, but he's not a part of this. ;)

This is more in line with the types of impacts in football, MMA, or judo for sure.

Injuries are relatively rare in my experience, the armor generally does an effective job.

Common injuries are similar to football. Sprains, tweaks etc.

There are dueling formats, such as longsword and shield and sword which are far more tame. They're more like fencing.

The melee recreates medieval tournament fighting where, essentially if you go down you may as well be dead hence the lack of much ground fighting. (Similar to an ancient battlefield where going down to the ground likely means death).

We do train limited ground grappling. But nothing as deep as something like bjj.

No. Joint locks are not allowed for safety reasons. They also don't work well (or at all depending) against articulated armor.

We do have loaner armor for people to try out. In general most of the training we do isn't even in armor. We practice striking, grappling, weapons and tactics in 1 v 1 and group fighting. Usually people train with us for some time before they buy their own. (A few of our fighters trained for a year.)

A full set of armor with the proper construction and thickness from head to toe, custom made will run 1500-2000$ give or take. Usually paid to armorers half down and the rest when it's done (in a few months). Or, equipment can be purchased piece by piece over whatever period of time.

But we don't recommend anyone buy any equipment until they've come to some practices and checked things out. And even then come for awhile to make sure before you commit to buying any equipment. Again, we do have some loaner armor.

This is full contact. Striking with weapons, knees, fists, kicks etc are legal. There is no stabbing allowed, strikes to the base of the skull, back of the knees and groin are illegal. No joint locks are allowed.

In melee, last team standing wins. In the 1 v 1 formats there are various styles. The most popular are called knight fights or pro fights. They are similar to MMA as there's rounds, scoring etc. Ground fighting is usually legal in that format.

Melee and armored MMA fights are the most popular formats.

Here's a link to a clip of a 1 v 1 fight I did in the fall in the Pittsburgh waterfront

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRv3Rv1o/