Stilt fights, German gymnastics, and a little bit of folk dancing.

Right, so in my last post I said something about a nice quiet Sunday, well for half the day I achieved just that, I sat around, read a book (on my Kindle, Thank you Papa) and was overall lazy. But I had already decided weeks ago that I was going to check out the Combat de l'Échasse d'Or (Fight for the Golden Stilt). This is a time honored tradition that has been happening in Belgium for a very long time. Wiser, more learned men could tell you how long exactly..... But I am not one of them, and a Google search would take a bit of effort on my part. All you need to know is that the fight is between 50 Echasseurs (Stilt Fighters), 25 on stilts colored Black and Yellow, half on what I affectionately dub candy canes (or Candystripers), but in reality are white and red colored stilts. All fifty of these Echasseurs march in to much applause, drums, trumpets and a variety of festive sounds, they mill about for a few minutes displaying their stilt skills and then separate to the different sides of the square in which they are fighting. They face off, for a moment its very quiet, then the drums start again and that is the cue for the attack, and all of a sudden the fight has begun!! The fight is a very interesting thing to experience, I am not sure what to compare it too. The Echasseurs stay in close knit groups, never straying from the pack, because if they do, they are isolated and by the opposite team, cornered, and put to the ground. It is fascinating to watch, the Echasseurs shuffle around a large part of the time but when the moment comes to strike they move with astonishing speed and take down the unfortunate bloke who got separated. I want to show you some pictures I took of the fight:

Here you can see all the fighters filing in

Here (below) you can see the youngest Echasseurs, they have their own fight away from the rest and are left alone till they knock each other over.

 


Below the fighters are lining up on opposite sides of the square

Here you can see the two kids going at it, with an older fighter keeping watch.

Most of the fighting looked like the picture below, all huddled up waiting for an opportunity to strike and take down.

The falls were a little brutal, everyone went down hard, right on cement, without any padding, can't say I'm jealous.

These two black and golds attempted to take down a candystriper but he defended and ended up knocking the man on the left off balance.

A disappointed fighter on the ground 

Below is an example of some of the viscous swipes the fighters would take at each other.

This was a very common take down "move", one fighter would wrap a stilt around the other and attempt to force them down, if they are successful they put down the other fighter and walk away, if not, they both go down, which is what usually happened.

Some falls were really really bad, this poor soul twisted a foot on the way down, luckily paramedics were on site.

After about 45 minutes of fighting, the Echasseurs who had been downed created a barrier and shrunk the combat area.

 Here you can see the last Black and Gold fighter battling against 7 Candycanes!!

He survived for over 15 minutes! All by himself, it was very impressive.

Finally a Candycane took him down, the fighters celebrated for a moment and then after a few moments the remaining "Teammates" turned against each other and started battling to decide the last man standing.

These two below ended up knocking each other over and leaving the two who were hanging back to finish the fight.

And finally, the last two combatants facing off. 

Below the victor is shown being awarded with the Golden stilt, the last fighter from the Black and Gold team was also awarded with a stilt, I didn't get a picture of that one though.

There were quite a few other things going on that day besides the stilt fights, quite a bit of dancing actually, traditional dance and also some German gymnastic type dancers.

I even got some video for you!

I believe I said traditional dance:

There were also some very gaudily dressed fellas that had some fun with flags.

They had some pretty cool moves, definitely made me rethink my position on flag bearers.

Well, my Sunday definitely went different from what I planned, but I didn't mind too much, this cultural side of the Wallonie celebration was eye opening to say the least! I hope everyone enjoyed the post, keep checking back!