Ouch.

[Sir Edward]

Spotted this in a thread on myArmoury:

As for historic kidney protection...well by SCA rules, a lot of armor that cover that area is adequate. However some fighters who do that end up urinating blood the next day sometimes and a weight belt pretty much elimates that level of damage to your kindney (rememer the SCA uses wraps...and a lot of times, they land on your kidney)...and historical or not, why would you NOT wear one under everything for that added safe guard? I mean it can just serve as a 20 dollar don't wanna piss blood armor piece...

(--P. Cha http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=151684#151684)

Ouch, that seems kind of... excessive. In terms of the abuse taken by the fighters. The SCA combat looks like a lot of fun, but I have a hard time justifying in my head the emphasis that's always placed on power.

I thought it was telling when I read a message on another forum that was quoting an SCA tournament report from 1970:

Also, the insistence on a “solid blow,” is steadily escalating us towards someone getting killed on the field. Fighters are repeatedly having an opponent not call a blow because, “it wasn’t hard enough,” and then not calling blows upon themselves, for the same reason. This, I think, puts us in the same boat as the controversy between “tussling on the ground” and “weapon-work only.”  I feel more and more that, if we are truly concentrating on style, then solidness of blow should be discounted in favor of cleanness. The sharp, precise, blow and block of good sword and shield work is beautiful to watch. When people have to put roundhouses into every blow, they don’t have time to be precise.  As things are, Sir Frederic of the WestTower has a shoulder muscle which may or may not recover (it hadn’t fully recovered when I saw him Sunday night), and Kevin Peregrine may have the nerve trunk to his right arm permanently damaged (I haven’t heard anything on this since the Tourney). Something has to be done, I don’t think armor for all is the answer.

(http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1278414#1278414)

Anyway, not intending to criticize, but I continue to be surprised (or not) when I read some of these things, and it makes me glad I'm doing something else.

[Sir Wolf]

hehe lets get some historical looking foam boffers and beat the living hell out of each other

[Dragonlover]

That's another one of the issues I started seriously thinking about Sir Edward.
It was getting to be a sport of swinging a round-house axehandle, instead of
improving on your form and being honest with calling a blow. To me, even if a shot
was light to my helm or face, I obviously didn't see it coming and would therefore
call the shot. Bugged a lot of marshalls would would say it was light, and I explained
the situation. Another reason why I liked fighters in Meridies, their rules forced a
fighter to not get hit period.....

[Sir William]

Sounds like this goes hand in hand with the 'rhino' aspect of SCA fighting that I've heard about.  Some injury is going to occur at some point in a sport like this; I think it is up to the participants to decide whether or not they really want to participate in the event.

[SirNathanQ]

The justification of the SCA demanding a "solid blow" is (someone correct me if I'm wrong) they only count blows that would kill. By that logic, historically you wouldn't have anything like ridiculous wind-ups, and piss blood strikes (with the exception of warriors using maces, warhammers, flails, and some types of pole-weapons). If the goal is martial effectiveness (which is what the logic seems to be getting at) the rules should specify against windups and roundhousers! Doing that in a real fight, especially a mass battle, would have got you killed historically. Even if you were wearing the nicest plate harness around, a windup smiler to whats seen in SCA would result in getting taken down to grapple with any opponent with his wits about him! Also, you don't need overly powerful blows to kill. It's more about edge alignment and technique than anything. In fact, if they wished to approximate history closer in the calling of shots, they should be judged on martial effectiveness, technique, and cleanness. In fact, a draw cut, which requires no "power" at all is a viable and effective way of killing someone (although just like all the rest of the strikes, obviously not so effective against armour).

[Sir Edward]

Yep, they neglect the need for technique, and they disallow blows that would be very effective (shots to the knee or foot). The rules count "kill" blows as blows to the head and chest, even though they assume everyone is wearing armor in-persona aside from what they're actually wearing, and these are the sorts of blows that the armor is designed to stop. So it's a bit of a paradox.

[Sir James A]

I haven't seen any period techniques I can remember that involve wraps (as done in SCA), and SCA combat is HUUUGE on "get in, hug him, and keep throwing wraps". I've heard it called stick tag, and after having done it for a season, that's about all it seems to be. No draw cuts, of course, not much blade-to-blade technique. It's very much like movie combat where they trade clumsy blows back and forth most of the time. Not much in the way of historical recreation, despite the name, unless you think of the late period club tournaments. Also odd is that you can theoretically lose both legs and an arm yet still continue fighting. The whole of SCA combat doesn't make much sense to me.

Except that it's fun. I'll admit, it was quite fun. Mostly to be able to put on armor, grab a SLO, and smack away at each other. As long as it's taken for something done more for fun than historical accuracy, it's enjoyable. It was much more engrossing than classes in loose fitting modern clothes, to be in harness, and actually swinging at an opponent you can make contact with.

Any "Great" weapons, 2 handed swords, etc, are supposed to be banned from any attack requiring more than 90* to swing. So there's no baseball swings or "wind ups", though of course enforcement is another issue. I tried sword & board as well as great sword, so they gave me a brief rundown. I had bruises aplenty after most of the practices, but I think half of them were self-inflicted from the loaner gear that was a bit too large and pinching when I would try to cross my arms too much.

However, I never broke a bone, never peed blood, never missed work the next day; I was no more sore than a really rough day at the gym / playing basketball/football all day. I did wear a full plate harness though; the popular armor seems to be transitional for weight vs protection compromise, and indeed I took far more blows than I landed, but I was in it for nothing more than fun and learning.

It was a group of 4-8 "usuals" for the entire season, so we got to know each other and didn't have much fear that we would wallop each other. I'd imagine fighting other people in tournaments who are out to "prove something", or doing the big events, chance of injury is probably higher.

[Sir William]

Sounds like it could be a fun time for all involved...so they use SLOs?  Would never have guessed that...unless you just mean sword like object, but not in the usual negative connotation (stainless steel wallhangers for instance).

[Sir Edward]

Right, the SCA uses rattan sticks with basket-hilts, or large cross-guards on the "great swords". The rattan makes them essentially cudgels, so it's more like cudgel fighting than sword fighting. It looks like fun, for sure, I just prefer to learn about actual sword combat and play to that.

[Sir James A]

Right, the SCA uses rattan sticks with basket-hilts, or large cross-guards on the "great swords". The rattan makes them essentially cudgels, so it's more like cudgel fighting than sword fighting. It looks like fun, for sure, I just prefer to learn about actual sword combat and play to that.

Ah, yes, that's what I meant by SLO. Roughly the same length, covered in duct tape, with a cross guard. The thickness requirement is somewhere along 1 1/2" so that it can't fit through helm visors (which must have gaps less than 1 1/2").

There are some european groups that use rebated blades, though I've heard injuries are more frequent (based on headcount) and I've seen mutterings of deaths, but never found any confirming "official" articles.

[Sir William]

As with any sport, once the blood's up- only the truly disciplined could adhere to a force policy...everyone else will be swinging for the fences after a time I'd think.  Sounds like fun for a day!

Those euro groups you allude to sound like what they do is more dangerous and more fun as well.  No stabbing though, I should think.

[Sir Edward]

Fighting with rebated steel requires everyone to be on the same page about not using full force, or else severe injuries are more than possible. Recently a lot of the WMA/HEMA groups have started investigating the plastic trainers, since they can be relatively safe compared to wood (more flex and more bounce). But any simulator will have its share of drawbacks.

When it comes to a choice between wood and steel, there are different opinions out there on the safety of each. Some feel steel is much safer. It bends and can be made light. Wooden wasters have no give to them, and can hit like baseball bats.

Personally I like doing the drills with steel, and some light sparring. If we're going to go faster/heavier, shinai can still work well, as can the newer plastic trainers.

[SirNathanQ]

I find that if all involved have good control and trust, one can use steel to have some fairly vigourous sparring. Although I do plan to get my hands on some synthetic foam (not LARP stuff) wasters, for going full contact. (But you must be ready for some bruises if using steel, but it's mainly from landing on the sword after being thrown and such)

[Sir William]

I've seen some of those new plastic trainers in MRL's catalog...might give them a go and see how I like it.  We may all have to get one for sparring sessions initially until we're all in a trusting frame of mind. 

[SirNathanQ]

While I love sparring w/ steel, if I had the resources I would make all sparring w/ foam. Never know what can happen. (However, when it's me and my trusted friend whom I've been friends with for over 2/3 of my life, the steel comes out  )