Injuries happen. More armour just means you get hurt in new places
. Safety is a combination of training, personal discipline, armour, environment, and sound offence (if you hit the other guy, he won't hit you, ergo you are safe). We have a girl in our club who used to fear fighting with staves. She worried that her fingers would get mashed. All she had ever been taught was to use centre grip. As soon as she learnt about quarter and end grips, she started to enjoyed using staves. Bit of a bugger for your former instructor. Hopefully it encouraged him to put greater focus on safety.
15 years ago I belonged to a school of defence (Wellington Swords & Shields), for a year. I was a teenager at the time. Back then, welding gloves were considered sufficient protection. Oddly enough the worst injury I got was when I tried to kick a girl with a dagger. I still have a scar on my shin. Now the minimum protection for sparring, in many NZ clubs, is welding gloves and a steel helm with a nasal. New people are encouraged to wear any modern plastic armour they can, but it's optional. Probably the riskiest person I know is someone who used to wear a 14th century harness, and now fights with just a gambeson. People who know him constantly forget he doesn't have plate on, and whack him quite hard! The benefit to low armour requirements is that it encourages a healthy respect of weapons, despite them being rebated. It's that respect which does the most for making tourneying safe. On the flip side I've had people refuse to take shots when I use a staff. They think it should be shod with iron before it can do real damage. Easily solved though, hit them harder, and harder, until they take their hits.
Training with a pell is helpful. It can help to understand what you can do with your weapon, and what you can't. I've learnt that there is little power in a shot that starts from a high guard and ends in a hanging guard, targeted at the lower leg.
Ergo if an opponent blocks a low shot, or is wearing plate on their lower leg, it is unlikely that I can power through to harm them. "Little power" is a relative term, I'm comparing the strike with one launched from the same guard that descends upon the head or upper body.
I've also learnt that pool queue thrusts are only valid for striking the face, or unarmoured hands. A two handed thrust is necessary on other parts of the body. See the two photos below showing the end result of thrusts launched from the same stance.
A full two handed thrust.
A pool queue thrust.
Ivan your video is showing you doing rattan fighting yes? A member of my club went to an SCA event earlier in the year. He came back raving about how much fun he had with rattans. I'd like to add that style of sparring to our club. What I like about it is that it is possible to hit with power, and still be safe. I think it'd complement the training we do with rebated steel weapons. There is a tendency to 'take turns' at hitting each other, and resting in guards - instead of constant movement. I believe that soft wasters, like rattans, would encourage continual movement.
Have you, or anyone else reading, tried out the wasters designed by Rawlings in the UK? See
http://www.theknightshop.co.uk/catalog/rawlings-synthetic-sparring-longsword-p-2472.html) for their longsword waster and an old sparring video. They have two models of wasters, their standard, and their Xtreme. The Xtreme is 2nd generation, taking into account complaints about the originals being a little too bendy on thrusting. The video shows the older model. I think the older model would be perfect for noobs, and the newer one would suit more experienced fighters.
