Anyone ever done MA weapons in the SCA?

Sorry perhaps I should have been a little clearer but maybe you could steer this away from you and fencing? Or any other combat sport.

I'm not interested in that and to be honest it's getting a bit tiresome you dragging it into every other post just because you have a bee in your bonnet.

Not being familiar with SCA I was wondering where the LARP elements and competition elements cross over or remain separate. Is the LARP side used to enhance, from their point of view, the competition aspects or is the LARP the main focus with the competition used to add some flavour.

Rather than settling an "in character" disagreement with a quick game of rock, paper, scissors they get the boffers, rattan out and have at it.

 

I'm comparing to other combat sports because discussion of this combat sport has been banned from the weapons section by a moderator of MAP, and other combat sports are not. I'll answer your question without any reference to anything else, but for the greater question of whether we should be banning discussion of one art from MAP or from the weapons subforum, we have to make comparisons to non-banned arts.

You admit you're not familiar with the SCA. I am. Most of my high school friends were part of Caer Galen in one respect or another and so I know a whole heck of a lot about the SCA by osmosis. How better than to try to explain what it is than to make comparisons to things you are familiar with? You're acting like I'm trying to muddy the waters when in fact, making comparisons is one of the most efficient ways of explaining an activity to someone who doesn't know anything about that activity.

No no no, it's not like that at all. The Pennsic War is a seventeen-day festival. As part of the festival, there are crafts shows, choir performances, theater, archery competitions, fencing competitions, and heavy fighting competitions. These are formalized competitions run as a competition that are part of the greater festival (like if there was a taekwondo turnament on day three of Burning Man...I know you hate comparisons, but they're just so darned useful). It's not like you're drinking mead and someone challenges you to a duel and you "have it out" and then go fight a dragon. That's not it at all. You sign up to go to Pennsic, and if your SCA group has dancers they might sign up for the dance performance, and if you do archery you sign up for the archery tournament, and if you do heavy fighting you sign up for the heavy fighting tournament. The martial sport competitions are one of the structured activities during a two-week festival.

The role-playing elements are for when you're walking around. When you're competing in archery or fencing or heavy weapons, you're part of a formalized tournament hosted at Pennsic.

 

I concur.

You know, I normally have a snappy comeback for corrupt behavior from moderators. But sometimes one's behavior has done such a good job of making any point about them you might make redundant.

A total lack of professionalism and a black mark for MAP. That's too bad.

 

He is not the person who had a bee in their bonnet. I would of put that honor on the person who drug what was a fun and constructive conversation to the level it is now.

It always annoys me when people refuse to confront the troublemaker and instead go off on the person who is legit griping about said troublemaker that everyone is trying to ignore because it's politically easier.

 

Agreed.

I would also point out that the "role playing" is not in the spirit of LARP but closer to the role playing you see at historical re-enactments for the Civil War, WW2, etc.

 

Very well. Sorry about that. Late coming back to the conversation.

 

I would agree with that entirely. LARP and D&D-style roleplaying is active storytelling with conflict, adventuring, climax, etc. Each person plays the role (by narrating what they're doing with around-the-table role-playing or by playing the role) and takes part in the adventure.

SCA role-playing is much like a renaissance festival or historical re-enactment. You have a "persona" you put on, but it's not like you're a character in a story and a dungeon-master is narrating the story. The persona is just part of participating in the hobby, whether your focus in the SCA is hand-made-clothes-making or heavy weapons fighting.

Candidly, I don't see a huge difference between the SCA style of role-playing and a bunch of caucasian Americans putting on gis, reciting the dojo kun in Japanese, counting to ten while doing push-ups in Japanese, and calling each other "Sensei" and "Sempai." Both is trying to get into the historical tradition of your hobby by adopting certain arbitrary cultural trappings, but neither is "role-playing" in the Dungeons & Dragons or Vampire: The Masquerade sense.

 

Absolutely. They take the historical part very seriously. There are oodles of people there who don't even do the combat. They compete in contests for their crafts that are judged based on historical accuracy. They spend hours researching their persona to be sure every aspect of their costume is accurate to the last stitch. Yeah it's not for everyone but to compare it to kids throwing tennis balls and saying "lightning bolt" is not fair.

(Not that LARPing is bad either. But it's not the same thing. At all.)

 

What level is it at now?

Generally there's been some productive chat today.

 

I wonder why they decided to do the whole hopping around on one leg thing?

Are there different rule sets or is it pretty standardised?

 

There is one standardized rule set used worldwide for SCA heavy fighting.

The "why" of any combat sport's rules are hard. Why does competitive foil have right-of-way but competitive epee does not? Why does a pin win the bout in wrestling but not BJJ? Someone decided that for SCA heavy fighting, a strike to a limb would cost you the use of that limb but not the bout. Those are the rules for this particular sport.

That said, from what I've seen in my own life of SCA heavy fighting, if you get hit in the leg, you go down to your knees. People who choose to stand and hop instead...never saw anyone do that in real life.

 

Sorry, I thought someone had mentioned them doing that.

It just seems a little odd them kneeling down etc, I suppose it helps keep the action going.

 

Other than keikogi, you don't see any of that at my gaff.

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAgS9PcqfFE"]SCA 10 30 2012 - YouTube[/ame]

Start at 3:45 to see what it's like in practice. It's very difficult to generate the power for a recordable "hit" from your knees, not to mention the opponent has complete control of distance, so it's a major disadvantage. But it doesn't completely end the bout, so you've still got a chance to come from behind and win if they're good (or lucky) enough.

I know you hate comparisons to other sports, but to me, it's like having a 15-touch direct elimination bout in fencing instead of one-touch (which would more properly simulate dueling). It's just a different way of structuring the sport so that the bouts last for a little while, so that people can come from behind, etc.

 

Not all dojos do, of course. But some do, and they're still "martial arts." Two of the three Shotokan karate dojos I trained at recited the dojo kun every practice, often in Japanese (even though none of us actually spoke Japanese...people memorized it phonetically). At all three dojos, we were barefoot and wore gis and counted in Japanese and bowed as we entered and exited the room.

Six of one, half-dozen of the other if you ask me. That was part of doing karate and the SCA persona stuff is part of doing SCA stuff. Some like it, some don't, but it doesn't change whether the karate or SCA heavy is considered a "martial art."

 

The cultural trappings associated with some MA have a deep significance to the art.

The reiho can serve as a psychological switch to put you in the correct mindset and methods of movement and rituals can all have links to the actual techniques and teachings of the school.

Even the specific terminology can tell you a great deal about a school and can also contain specific teachings themselves.

So as far as a lot of that is concerned it can be rather important to the study of the system.

It's not simply a case of indulging in something exotic that doesn't relate to practice.

 

In some cases they do, in some cases they don't. I thought a bunch of grown men and women reciting the Dojo Kun was a farce:

Seek perfection of character!
Be Faithful!
Endeavor!
Respect others!
Refrain from violent behaviour!

But some may enjoy it and find that it helps get them in the mindset for training. Likewise, some may like the role-play aspect of the SCA as a whole and find that it gets them in the mood for everything from hand-making clothes to competing in heavy weapons competition, whereas others may find the role-play aspect a farce. I wasn't into it, which is why even though most of my high school friends were Caer Galen members, I was instead competing on the US Fencing Association's national circuit. But to each their own. I definitely respect it.

 

You'll probably find that those MA that you think don't in fact do, it's that those running the Dojo don't have the depth of study required to pass on such things to their students.

So it becomes nothing but empty noise.