Re: Acknowledgement

[blackbow@mindspring.com]

Poster: blackbow@mindspring.com

[as usual]
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Susan and Frank Downs <sfdowns@pinn.net>
    To: sirlogan@mail.clt.bellsouth.net <sirlogan@mail.clt.bellsouth.net>
    Cc: merry rose <atlantia@atlantia.sca.org>
    Date: Tuesday, February 09, 1999 5:35 PM
    Subject: Re: Acknowledgement


    Your Grace,

    What on earth do you mean by "lowering the standard?"  When have I said
anything about "lowering the standard?"  What I'm saying is that victory on
the list should be a matter of skill at arms rather than "threshhold of
pain."  Because you think of fighting as a sport, you seem to make no
distinction between boffer weapons and heavy fighting.  Everyone gets a
chance to play, if only for the J.V.  That's absurd on the face of it.
People don't make steel plate armor to fight with boffer weapons, and when's
the next boffer crown or Emerald Joust?  Who's the latest boffer knight?  We
don't confer anything like the prestige of heavy weapons on boffer weapons.
    [But, Takenoshita, His Grace didn't say ANYTHING about the *value*
system placed on heavy fighting vs. the value system placed on boffer
fighting.  I thought along the same lines you did right after I read your
message, and realized later today that very fact.  The fact that the value
of boffer fighting is not placed as high as the value of heavy fighting
isn't the fault of the heavy fighter.  Similarly, combat archery for years
experienced a downward trend in its "value" in this kingdom and has recently
seen an upsurge.  Fencing has experienced a steady upward trend in its
"value" since its inception.  Personally, I place a higher "value" on boffer
fighting than fencing, since I don't fence.  But I place a higher "value" on
using combat archery WITH fencing because I DO arch.  Likewise, an 8-yr. old
child isn't going to place as much "value" on heavy fighting as he/she would
on boffer fighting, simply because boffer fighting is something that they
can DO vs. having to watch the heavies.

    The SCA similarly places a higher "value" on safety, fun, and
participation than the "value" of realism.    While it would be quite "fun"
for me to be able to use our SCA-weapon analogues the way they were used in
real life, you'll note that I don't, and neither does anyone else.  But if
there are people in the SCA that place more "value" on the POWER behind a
shot rather than the TECHNIQUE behind the shot (which Duke Logan isn't,
BTW...he takes one of the lightest shots of anybody I know), or better yet,
more "value" on a combination of both, how is that wrong?  ]
    Your pretending that we do, along with your vague cries of "lowering the
standard," and telling people that if they can't match your "threshhold for
pain" or "don't want to get hurt" they should get out are what I'm
condemning as elitist.  It's also what I was referring to as "might makes
right."
    [It isn't so much "might makes right" as the fact that this is, in spite
of all its safeguards, a fairly rough sport.  But that sport isn't going to
apologize (and neither will anyone that plays it, I suspect) for the fact
that it IS rough.  If it wasn't rough, we wouldn't have armor.  If football
wasn't rough, nobody would watch it.  I suspect your viewpoint and mine on
heavy fighting differ in the fact that I came into it *expecting* to get
hit, and get hit hard.  How many demos have you been at or heard about where
the demo-crat (!! gotta find a better word) said to the crowd that "these
fighters are NOT choreographing, they are NOT pulling their shots..."
        ..It would be odd in the extreme to expect heavy fighting to hit as
gently as boffer weapons.  Look at the equipment used in each one.
        If you really want heavy fighting to start hitting more gently,
you're going to have to take away their helmets.  If you give them equipment
that's designed to get clobbered, they're going to use it.]
        Regards,
        Ld. Jonathan Blackbow
        Clan O'Shannon
    In service,

    Takenoshita Naro (m.k.a. Frank Downs)
    ----------


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