Anyone ever done MA weapons in the SCA?

I think this topic has run it's course.

The OP has had his question answered and belittled to death.

 

Really - so you would carry a shied about with you. Just in case.
Then when using that where would you put your pole arm? Of course with a shield war you would need a longer secondary weapon than your short sword, messer or hand axe, you are hardly going to mannage to handle a shield and a pike or parizan. So you have to carry that as well, but that's OK as infantry just love carrying extra kit.

 

Yes, but was it done in an historically accurate way?

 

So,

I get that some folks can find Bears's bluntness a tad, well blunt really, I think the issue of difference of perspective is being missed here. Whilke the accusation of macho posturing has been bandied about, I think it is a lot more true to say that he is just extraordinarily committed to the idea of realism in training.

Seriously, who DOESN"T think that the way he is doing things is closer to how they were actually done when swords were a living breathing part of combat. If you were likely to get killed or seriously injured (or even a bit hurt, in an era prior to infection control...) as a consequence of slipping up you would train very, very hard, or be an entry into the medieval version of the Darwin Awards. At the risk of pre-supposing his motivations, I have a feeling that the lack of a continuous tradition of sword teaching may be a part of this, Bear is probably trying, in as far as it is possible, re-create the kinds of pressures that led to authentic working sword technique. Given the amount of passion, blood , and sweat involved in that sort of approach it really shouldn't be surprising that suggesting a system involving people powering through having a limb destroyed by just not using it might cause a bit of a reaction.

I totally get the attitude to protective gear that people have been expressing, I am a musician, I love my hands, and wear gloves doing sparring at arnis because of that. But here is the thing, I also know that this instantly changes the game, and I am suffering a 'realism consequence' as a result, because belting the hell out someones hands and arms would be high on the list if the gloves weren't there. I think we should be grateful that people like Bear are willing to go to places a whole lot of us are unwilling to.

It helps keep the rest of us honest, and hopefully a little more humble about the reality of what we are practicing.

paul

 

I couldn't disagree more. In the unarmed context, MMA competitors don't need "no protective gear, no rules" underground fight clubs to "keep them honest." Some arts are more realistic (MMA and Swordfish-style HEMA); some are less realistic (Olympic TKD and SCA heavy), and everyone understands that. But in the unarmed context, we don't applaud no-rules fight clubs with minimal free sparring (two bouts per week) and high injury rates during the no-rules sparring as "keeping us honest." I don't see it's any different once we add weapons to the mix.

Also, without any video of what we're actually talking about (Polar Bear refuses to post video of his club, despite talking about it at length in threads related to other arts, not based on any legal issues according to him, but instead because he says his club is big enough and he doesn't want to advertise), I don't see that whatever happens at his 12-person club is keeping anyone "honest" outside of that club.