Extreme Jousting: Like A Head-On Collision With No Seat Belt

Jouster Charlie Andrews in action. (The Knight Of Mayhem/Facebook)

Some people would call getting rammed in the chest with a block of wood torture. But Charlie Andrews loves it, and he wants it to be a professional sport.

Andrews is a jouster, which consists of mounting a horse wearing 100 pounds of armor and slamming a solid wood lance at an opponent, trying to knock him or her to the ground.

Jousting has long been a staple of renaissance fairs. But it’s now the subject of a National Geographic show called, “Knights of Mayhem,” which Andrews jousts on.

Andrews says that getting hit in the chest with a solid wooden lance, “feels like a head-on collision with another car and you don’t have your seat belt on.”

Andrews has broken ribs and fingers and once suffered a near-fatal pulmonary embolism. But as he tells Here & Now‘s Robin Young, he does jousting “for the love of the game.”

“I love going out there and jousting, I don’t care if I get hit, I don’t care if I get knocked off, I always want to get back on, I always want one more pass,” he said.

• YouTube: Charlie Andrews Explains Extreme Jousting
• National Geographic: Knights Of Mayhem

Guest:

• Charlie Andrews, an extreme jouster