Hurtling towards someone on horseback, armed with a 10-foot lance, at speeds of up to 50 kilometres per hour may not be everyone's cup of tea, but that's how eight of the world's best knights spent their weekend.
About 8,000 people were transported to medieval times at the World Jousting Championships at Warragul in south-eastern Victoria to witness 15th-century-style jousting on a 21st century stage.
"The idea is to break the lance on the shield of your opponent and whoever scores the most points by breaking the most lances will be the winner of the tournament," event producer Andrew McKinnon explained.
"We have eight of the world's best knights coming from as far away as the Netherlands, Russia, Canada, France and Norway," Mr McKinnon said.
Defending world jousting champion Phillip Leitch of Kryal Castle, near Ballarat, fended off the fierce competition to again reign supreme.
After finishing on Saturday in third place, Mr Leitch spurred on to take out the grand final on Sunday 4 points to 3 over Russian, Andrei Kamin.
"Obviously, it's bit a difficult for competitors to bring horses internationally and it's the same when I travel overseas, you get loaned a horse from someone over there," Mr Leitch said.
"So myself and Kryal Castle have supplied quite a few of the horses for here … [and] we've had some other horses come down from Queensland for the event."
Mr Leitch tried not to put too much pressure on himself.
"Just make it count … every pass is a new chance to get some points, he said.
"Any hesitation or nervousness when you're going down there will just make you miss.
"You've just got to just be really confident in yourself and you just do it," he said.
Passion turned profession
On board his 'valiant' steed, Mr Leitch has been in the jousting circuit for more than a decade and is currently Australia's only full-time professional knight and jouster.
"I like what it feels like being in armour as a knight, looking through a visor at these fantastic knights coming towards me with their lances and it's just these little snapshots of time just before the impact that will be there forever.
"Valiant is my horse, he's 13 years old now and he's been with me since he was one year old.
"He's taught me just as much about riding and jousting as I've taught him with his training, so we're a real sort of unit and he's a very special boy to me.
"In nature horses will generally run together as a herd away from danger and what we're doing here is we're riding them past each other, which is quite different.
Mr Leitch said the whole historical energy of what he did was another drawcard to the sport.
"My armour is based on a 15th century English harness. It was made by Luke Binks who is an Australian professional armourer and it cost around $25,000 to put all this together."
And it weighs nearly half his body weight.
"When I've got it all on, I'm wearing about 36 kilos."
It may not be the sport of kings but for knights, jousting was a way to prove courage and skill.
One of the oldest, most brutal sports continues to live on — proving chivalry is far from dead.