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Re: Acknowledgement
Poster: "Susan and Frank Downs" <sfdowns@pinn.net>
My Good Lord,
It seems to me that those who confer the value on heavy weapon fighting are
the kings and queens who are: heavy weapon fighters and those for whom they
have fought. If you want to argue that the kings and queens aren't the ones
who made it so, I'd say you have to go back pretty far to begin to make your
case. Also, may I reiterate that I'm not worried about being hit hard?
I've been hit pretty hard by some pretty big boys, and it doesn't bother me.
I don't want to have to try to cream someone else to fight them
successfully. I also think that the game is better when 'most anyone can
play regardless of their pain threshhold. Finally, when I started fighting
blows were not typically thrown as hard, but we did, in fact, wear armor. My
helm and my breastplate, both of which date from the early eighties, are
both made of fourteen gauge steel. I still feel quite safe in them. So, we
did wear armor, we simply took lighter blows. It seems like it's still that
way in some other kingdoms. It just seems like a few highly influential
people started taking blows harder, and everyone else, mostly in
frustration, followed suit. Now it seems like his Grace is trying to
justify this migration, which he may not even be aware of. Well, it's bad
enough that it's happened, but I'm not just going to sit by and let anyone
say it's right or appropriate.
In weary but determined service,
Takenoshita Naro (m.k.a. Frank Downs)
----------
>From: blackbow@mindspring.com
>To: "merry rose" <atlantia@atlantia.sca.org>
>Subject: Re: Acknowledgement
>Date: Tue, Feb 9, 1999, 6:04 PM
>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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