I'm Wouter Nicolai, I'm jousting here at the Royal Armouries this weekend.
I was born in Delft and I now live in Leiden one of our smaller old towns in the the Netherlands, Holland.
I don't really have a specific way to prepare myself, usually it's putting armour on and taking a moment for myself, sit down and relax,
get my mind set ready for the joust which is usually being relaxed
I don't really think anything but I have a specific way of doing the run and jousting in general is doing the same all the time,
and the better you are at doing it the same the better you joust. So I have a very strict way of things that I do,
I sit straight facing the tilt on the horse and really focus on relaxing myself and deep breaths,
then present the lance like this and then couch it and go
and I'm totally focused then at hitting the opponents shield and I also try to end the run in a proper way like present the lance again
and stopping nice and quiet and standing still before handing the lance to the ground crew,
I'm very strict to myself in the whole discipline of the run.
I'm riding Aramis, I like a lot of the horses from Mark Atkinson but this one for me is a bit special, it feels very natural to ride him,
I can really understand the horse, he's also a very cool and funny horse, with very strange habits during a joust which are funny to watch,
unfortunately I can't see it when I'm riding but I'm told that he's actually screaming with joy when he runs down the tilt and actually waving his tale like a propeller!
I like it that he enjoys jousting, it's a good thing for a horse.
To be honest I'm not quite sure, as a child I was always interested in knights and stories about knights and at some point I saw a tournament in Holland
with one of the best Dutch joust groups and I thought I would like to do that, I didn't really think it would happen but at some point I got involved
and they asked if I wanted to work ground crew so I did that for a year then they asked me if I wanted to learn to ride as well
then there was a slot available for a jouster and I actually got to joust so that's what happened over an 8 year period.
Difficult one because there are a lot of fascinating periods in history, but I think for jousting the 1560's in Burgundy and Flanders is one of the periods where they did a lot of jousting,
the famous Golden Tree Tournament in Bruges was held in 68 which is one of the most important tournaments in the 15th century in the Low Countries.
It was made by Dave Hewitt at White Rose here in England.
One of the few surviving dutch effigies which is a very large monument in a church in Breda it's 3 old men one of them is St George
the other two are Engelbrecht van Nassou and John van Nassou and the armour I copied is the one worn by John van Nassou.
mostly bruises and broken/bruised fingers and one very serious one where a piece of balsa came through the visor
I was lucky there but it was also a bit shocking because the helmet is still considered to be one of the safest helmets to use in a joust
t was also a very indirect hit, not a mistake by the opponent just back luck that the balsa bent and went through.
It would be cheese fondue...