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ousting is the most spectacular and potentially the most dangerous activity that we engage in.

Jousting is a specialist activity where two armoured riders engage each other at speed with lances. This tests a rider's horsemanship, lance skills and courage under the real pressure of a modern, full contact, competition.

Unlike other martial sports there is no defensive aspect - you are going to get hit. Points are awarded on how well you strike your opponent with maximum points being awarded for shattering your lance. This style of joust, known as the joust of peace became common from the 14th century onwards. We also use real armour because a solid hit to an unprotected person even in this style of joust will deliver more than enough force to kill.

Whilst historically the head and torso were considered to be legitimate targets with a strike to the head being regarded as being the most difficult, the objective of our style of jousting is to shatter a lance on the torso of the opponent while he or she is trying to do the same to you.

We also do not try to dismount the opposing rider because this will lead to real injuries - either to the horse or to the rider. However our hits are hard enough to cause unplanned dismounts and these do happen especially during competitions. But we award no additional points for this. Most of our injuries are the result of unplanned dismounts.

A modern day competition jousting match consists of a number of contacting passes where the riders attempt to hit each other’s shields at either the canter or the gallop. Points are awarded for each pass depending upon the quality of the hits scored. The winner being the person who scored the most points during the match. We have also made some concessions in the interests of safety in the use of a barrier and counter-lists. These did not start to appear until the early 15th century. Before they were introduced it was difficult to maintain a correct line and this resulted in many head-on collisions and other accidents.

The risk of injury is always there despite our best efforts to minimise the chance of a severe injury. Correct armour, regular training and risk management practices developed from on-going experience go a long way to managing the risk to an acceptable level and in over 10 years of jousting we have never had a horse injured in any way or a rider seriously injured.

All our training is done under the guidelines of the International Jousting Association that promotes horse welfare, jousting and international competition.