Jousting troupe at Sarasota Medieval Fair goes full-contact every time

Three bearded men in cowboy hats sat just outside the Sarasota Medieval Fair’s horse trailers when I approached them. I told them I was looking for the jousters, and they told me they were the jousters, and I tried to conceal my surprise at this turn of events, but I’m fairly sure I failed. The hats threw me off, but in retrospect make perfect sense.

Soon after, another man approached. He didn’t have a cowboy hat, but he had the fullest beard and knowing eyes, so I correctly inferred this was the person in charge. Shane Adams, he of 25 years of jousting experience and his own show, “Full Metal Jousting,” on the History Channel, led me and the three men to a table among the trailers.

“They gave us the best view,” Adams said, pointing to a trash bin on the other side of a fence, across from the trailers. He then introduced me to the men who greeted me: Samson Miller, Kyran Fairchild and Larry Dupler. They’re all part of the Knights of Valour, a 16-man, full-contact jousting troupe. They aren’t all together here in Sarasota. The knights travel the country performing at medieval fairs such as Sarasota’s, but also non-era-specific fairs. They performed at the Orange County Fair in California over the summer, as mainstream as it gets. That’s what they want, Adams said. The TV show helped them gain that audience, the people who watch NASCAR or motocross but don’t get the appeal of traveling back in time. The Knights have another show, called “Tilt,” coming straight to DVD at the end of the year that Adams hopes amplifies their reach even more.

When not working the circuit, they compete in tournaments. The troupe still likes performing at era fairs like this one, though, Miller said. He and Fairchild grew up together in Tuscon, Arizona, and had planned to work together doing … something … after high school. Miller thought it might be something to do with horses, which he’s loved riding all his life. Neither dreamed it would be this, but one day, Miller caught “Full Metal Jousting” on TV, inquired with the Knights of Valour about training clinics, quit his job at a feed store and joined the troupe. That was three years ago. Fairchild joined him just over a year later. Dupler, from Hebron, Ohio, is the newest knight, joining eight months ago after seeing a Facebook advertisement for the troupe.

One thing they each want you to know: The jousting they do is 100% real. No punches, or lances in this case, are pulled. This isn’t Medieval Times-esque theater, which has its place but isn’t what the Knights of Valour want to be or conflated with, at all, they said. KOV is the only troupe in the world to perform full-contact jousting every show, Adams said. If you don’t believe the Knights, you don’t have to wait for the fair to be proved wrong. They have videos of past performances online. At a recent show, Dupler said, Adams told the crowd how to replicate the force of getting struck by one of the Knight’s lances: Dress in full hockey goaltender gear, stand in the street and get hit by a 25 mph car. Then do it again four more times; each jousting match contains five passes.

Dupler’s first-ever match was against Fairchild. He got unhorsed, which means what you think it does. When he got to his feet, Adams asked him how he felt.

“I could do this every weekend,” he replied, getting back on his horse. For the most part, he has.

It’s the getting up part of the experience that defines what a champion is, Adams said. Not winning or losing. It takes a certain type of person to do what jousters do, and not just perform it but enjoy it, revel in it, need it.

It’s a transformative space, the jousting arena. Fairchild is a mild-mannered man most of the time, he said (as everyone else nodded). He’s not one to seek attention at a bar or party, but when he puts on his 125-pound (or thereabouts) armor, he becomes the Ric Flair of the jousting affair, hollering at the crowd and showing off his best moves.

To put it another way, as Adams said, Fairchild becomes the embodiment of the name of the horse he rides: Superman.

The feeling of breaking a lance on someone (which, in addition to looking cool, is a good thing within the sport; it nets you five points), Fairchild said, is indescribable. It’s a classically masculine phenomenon, wanting to overpower an opponent. It plays well with the classically romantic elements of the performance. Miller gives a rose to someone in the crowd each show. He gave one to an older woman in a wheelchair last weekend. She fired back a line more or less stating her attraction to him. Everyone laughed. On some level, we all want a proverbial knight in shining armor to save us from something, even if that thing is a boring weekend afternoon.

The ambiance, the visuals, the chivalry: They all add up to the closest replication of a 10th-century jousting tournament in existence.

“If anyone has any doubts or questions, we’re right here,” Adams said. “Come, and prepare to be a fan for life.”