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Thoughts regarding the SCA.

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Sir Ulrich:
As a living historian, SCA fighting is NOT accurate at all and I can speak for this word for word. When I went to an SCA meeting I actually got INSULTED for having riveted maille as they referred to it as "ugly" and told me to make butted maille. When I did the fighting I got mocked for being of a rather thin build by people who were obviously bigger and out of shape, making me quite self conscious about being thin for a while. I also got quite annoyed when they told me to wear aluminum armor and plastic armor because of my size. They literally used hockey gloves as gauntlets and hid plastic body armor under tabards. To be honest I didnt like anything about the SCA when I went there. To me it's just a fancy form of LARP with a very sportish attitude as opposed to actually being a historical reenacting group. I think SCA only would be fun if you had a group of people who did everything accurately and stuck within that group and avoided the negative parts of it that I encountered. I had a really negative experience with the SCA so I wont be going back there again. Might work for some of you guys but for my own interests I dont really have much positive stuff to say about it. I would much rather do HEMA or stuff like that for fighting, it's much more historical and I have a feeling I'd probably enjoy it more.

Henrik Granlid:
I am incredibly sorry for your experience Ulrich, I can only say that there truly are asshats like that around, although I have never met any one quite that asshatty. There are the "Ditch plate and maille for plastic" stick-jocks here in Sweden as well, but never on that level, especially since we have people who also do encourage historical looks and we even have people going up for Crown tourneys in maille. Although, there aren't a lot of us. But we are out there.

Seriously, bugger those guys to hell and back, that is not the way to welcome new people.

And no, SCA isn't historical, just like IMCF/BOTN and even HEMA, there are different aspects. They are all modern sports that focus on different things or aspects. You don't get the battlefield in HEMA, you don't get the violence in SCA, you don't get the thrusts in BOTN. You will find sword-taggers in HEMA, stick-jocks in SCA and steel clubs in BOTN. But you also get the historical studies in HEMA, the clothes, camps and battlefield tactics in the SCA and the violence (although subdued) in the BOTN along with a higher standard of armour.

Not even living history reenactment with ultra-high standards such as the Company of St George will get eeeverything, because, to have everything, even with blunted weapons, people would lose eyes and break fingers and limbs.

Beware thinking anything is more historical than anything else, you'd need to find the hardest of corest of reenactment groups for that, for everything else is still modern sports with different types of historical focus.

And unfortunately, there will always be asshats wherever you go.

I really hope you do find something that speaks to you on a personal level and that you love and care for above all things. Personally, I love both HEMA and the SCA, I like watching IMCF and BOTN on stream and munching popcorn. I love having the daily updates from the Swedish HEMA championship that I couldn't attend by other people in the club. And there's so much more I wanna do. If I had a horse, I'd be down in Germany for the yearly, massive tournaments, if I had the car and the kit, I would be at Agincourt this year. Ours is an absolutely grand hobby, all of it, every aspect of it, and any one dedicating himself to even a single part should never, ever be derided as a nerd or stupid for wanting to add more historicity.

Sir James A:
Speaking outside of just the combat aspect, there are parts of the SCA that are more historical in nature, such as the arts and crafts (Order of the Pelican I think?) and things such as Laurels. It's been 15 years since I've interacted with SCA, but if you take away the combat aspect, there are some pretty neat things, and I know a number of people who had a great time with the SCA and never fought once.

Lord Dane:
SCA is not just combat fighting. It has something for everyone looking to share their skills, enhance their knowledge, or practice new things in all areas medieval. Great bunch of people. The organization offers something for everyone who seek to be medieval or rennaissance.

Sir William:
I had a similar experience much like Ulrich's only mine occurred on a yahoo message board as I was interested in checking out the local practices in the area.  The DC Metro area falls under the Barony of Storvik.  Had some hussy tell me that "this is our game we don't need you in it"; I'd only asked about innocuous things regarding heavy combat and the requirements.  If that were the only instance I had to draw from w/regard to that sort of attitude, I probably would have paid a visit anyway as they practiced in a church not too far from where I live.  But I didn't go, ultimately unsure of how I'd react if I were met with that sort of hostility face to face.  It is hardly an isolated incident, I've read of more instances of this sort of behavior from others- and I'm aware there are probably more people who are not assholes, but the assholes tend to be most visible.

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