Martial Arts

Starfall

New member
Originally posted by sebrushworth
No, we used sticks made of some kind of bamboo wood. In Swedish it\'s called \"rotting\", don\'t know what the English word is. But those sticks are damn hard (and if you don\'t hit someone hard enough it doesn\'t count as a hit ;) )

It can be very expensive, but most people get away with spending around 500 dollars, by making most of the armour themselves. You only really need steel for the helmet, neck, elbows and knees. The rest of the armour can be leather and cloth. The most expensive part of my armour is the helmet, which cost 300 USD, and now decorates one of my bookshelves :)

Cool, so you\'re also able to make an armour. Not too bad, isn\'t it? That bamboo thing kinda sounds Japanese. Didn\'t medieval priests and monks (and ninja) fight with bamboo sticks and swords in Japan?
Is there kind of a club for this fighting or did you organize your tournaments privately?
 
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sebrushworth

Guest
It\'s organized through an organisation called the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), which has local groups in most corners of the world. The web site is www.sca.org. Apart from the people who are in to the fighting, there are others who just spend their time sewing clothes, cooking food, doing calligraphy, researching history etc.
 

pitynoman

Member
Originally posted by Evil Dave
Injuries:
All knuckles in each hand broken at least once some twice.
both arms broken
collar bone broken and pinned
at least 3 concussions
too many stitches to count

and in each case the other guy was much worse off.

When I was in elementary school I was smaller than pretty much everyone else, so I was the bullies target, they soon came to realize that bullying me wasn\'t worth the pain they were going to recieve.
What\'s really funny is that my reputation carried right into high school and beyond.
When my little brother got to high school he became a target and all he had to do was mention my name and they\'d steer clear.
Sounds like my high school experience.I got expelled for stabbing a guy with a pencil in the stomach,buried it about half-way in.
Later when my brother had problems I showed up at the school an put the offending partys head through the cafeteria table.The table is still there.
It\'s a miracle I survived being such a retard as a teenager.
Martial arts,working out and sports are great tools for anger management.
 

Itchy

New member
Evil Dave - i broke my collar bone skateboarding... never had it pinned though and it healed funny, so now i can pop my collar bone out of it\'s socket (or whatever\'s in there) if i move my right arm the wrong way.

As for hockey... they make us chil\'ren wear face cages so i\'ve never lost teeth or an eye. i LOVE to get hit though. Most guys go out of their way to avoid it... i just see it as a past of the game. You hit me, it gets me more in the game and makes me hungry for that next goal to let them know that check ment NOTHING to me. Have to play with that warrior ideal. Probably have had some minor concussions, but nothing that\'d keep me off the ice.

Back in elementary i was tiny (even in high school the biggest i ever got was 5\'9\" 115lbs) and a target of bullies and took my fair share of beatings. Was raised to turn the other check and have never been a complainer, so i\'d be shocked if anybody other than my classmates ever knew about it. Bullies kind of lost interest in me around middle school and now i\'m just a touch kid. Still tiny though, 5\'10\" 135lbs (15 of those put on in the last month... Navy will bulk you up fast!)
 

minimaker

New member
I\'ve done a couple of things. Several years of Judo as a kid, Wu-shu, Pu-ka-lan (<sp?> - Indonesian), ASP (somewhere between Kick boxing and Ju-jitsu), Ju-jitsu and in the last years I\'ve done Tai-chi (not jsut the movements but also the application in fighting). Not doing anything right now and I\'ve definitely lost my edge. I intend to start training again when my life is a bit more settled.

Injuries? Nothing worth mentioning.

Pitynoman, what is Krav Maga like? I\'ve seen it in a documentary but there are no schools for it in my region. It looks interesting.
 

vincegamer

Active member
Starfall,
In case you missed it, I also mentioned doing SCA fighting.
While the armor rules vary a bit from region to region, I\'m pretty sure the helmet is the only thing that must be steel. I bought steel gauntlest, though they aren\'t required. My neck, elbows and knees are all protected by boiled leather (cuirboille if you want to use the Medieval term). My helmet cost me $75 back in 1993 and was made by one of the most respected armorers in the country. A guy I knew at the time wore a full set of shiny plate armor which cost him a few thousand dollars.

The weapons are made of rattan. Usually it\'s used to make furniture. It differs greatly from bamboo, in that it is made of tons of tiny hollow fibres instead of being one big hollow tube. The reason rattan is used is that if you used wood, and it broke, it would break along the grain and most likely leave a very sharp point/edge.
Bamboo would break similarly.
If rattan breaks it crushes and you end up with something like a bristle broom that can\'t hurt anyone.

Yes, it hits hard and hurts. I\'ve seen stars. That\'s also how I broke my wrist described above.

If I recall, you are in Germany, yes?
I don\'t know the chapters in Germany, but while it\'s an international group (Europe is called Drachenwald) the chapters abroad tend to center around US army bases.

The group started in the 1960s with fantasy writer Marion Zimmer Bradley and a bunch of her college pals and has grown to where now there is an annual event in Pennsylvania where more than 10,000 people camp for a week or 2 and a couple thousand of those don armor and fight in huge battles.

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Avicenna

New member
Done a few things in my time... 7 years of karate, 3 years ninjutsu, bit of judo and Aikido... but most recently (until I dislocated my shoulder) I have been training a very traditional Kung-fu (Chow Gar Tong Long Pai) which when trained with the right masters (not many) is neither hard nor soft but both at the same time. Trained my tendons a lot with this and a lot of old/ancient techniques which have been lost in most western-taught martial arts - the sort of stuff that makes micro-fractures pretty redundant. Very nice indeed.

As for injuries, mainly a number of broken noses and toes (all mine)... my greatest moment was kicking an enormous bloke (i\'m only 177cm tall) in the balls whils wearing my steal toecapped boots! Hoo-yah!

And damn Vince! That looks fantastic!!
 

Evil Dave

New member
Originally posted by Modderrhu
Originally posted by darkartminiatures
Breaking your wrist bones on purpose sounds a little extreme but it all depends on far you want to go i suppose ...ouch
From what I\'ve heard, it\'s done by hitting the insides of one\'s wrists together to create microfractures, or something like that. Rather than actually snapping the bones. The repaired fractures make the bones far stronger. Whew!

I do know that from all the breaks in my knuckles that the areas broken tend to grow more bone around the breaks making it almost impossible to break in exactly the same place again. I have been told by people I\'ve punched that it felt like getting hit with a brick.
 

Starfall

New member
Sorry, vince, looks like I really missed your post!
But I have got two excuses:
1. I was overwhelmed by the mass of responses (It\'s great to see so many martial arts practising painters around here!)
2. I don\'t know half of the terms and styles mentionned

This SCA thing looks good but also dangerous - I don\'t know if I had fun doing this. Though I\'d surely like to watch.

Do you also practise authentic, medieval techniques and stuff or is it just the equipment and the fighting?
 

vincegamer

Active member
Well, that depends on who you ask.

Some people are all about authenticity, others don\'t give a damn.
I fall in the middle. I have a degree in Medieval History
so I realize that this is just a game and not truly a scholarly group,
but there are scholarly people in the group. Some have
gone into a great deal of detail researching the styles,
particularly the fencers (I don\'t think I mentioned there is also
unarmored fencing in the SCA
), particularly because
there are more books on fencing styles - typical knights in armor
didn\'t actually tend to do much writing; a lot of the period lit
about combat was written by monks who didn\'t participate.

Safety takes precedence of course. Certain weapons or
methods are banned as too dangerous. One simple example
is that your hands must be covered. Most people have steel wire
or solid steel basket hilts on their swords. Since the
basket hilt was not invented in the time period I recreate, I
use a cross-hilt and bought steel gauntlets.
But then, I wear mostly leather armor but will probably get plastic
armor because it\'s cheaper and lighter. Of course I cover it
up with a tunic because to look authentic is more important than
to be authentic for me.

If you get the chance, try it. It\'s much safer than say
American Football (or Rugby from what I hear).

And if you don\'t want to do that, they also recreate the
non-martial arts. I\'ve done choral music, leather detailing;
others do weaving, brewing etc.
 
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sebrushworth

Guest
Starfall, you practice techniques, and learn how to use your weapon of choice effectively (I prefered sword and shield fighting), so I guess it\'s probably pretty similar to how they did it back then.
 

Modderrhu

New member
Ok, Starfall, you started all this, and I\'ve not seen what you do. Come now, spill the beans. Are you looking into taking a martial art?

By the way, it seems my mate was successful. Tai Chi starts on Monday. lol
 
P
A 10 y/o boy just killed himself accidentally with a pair of nunchucks 2 days ago in my hometown. Total freak accident. He actually strangled on the rope after stunning himself by a whack in the head the police figured. His mom found him, how horrible. The chucks must have been homemade- the chain is not long enough you\'d think to do that??????
So sad. Uusually why they don\'t like to teach kids weapons, but who knows if he was just doing it on his own. He was in TKD I think and chucks are rare in that style, no?
 

Rodnik

New member
Sad...and yea..\"chucks\" aren\'t part of that style at all (traditionally speaking). They\'re a Kobudo weapon...from Okinawa. TKD is Korean.
 

vincegamer

Active member
Odd. I think I just posted this on a different forum a couple days ago.
I\'ll shorten it here.

Bruce Lee was known for his skill with the \"chucks\" but when asked if he would ever use them to defend himself in a real fight he said something like \"first think I would do is throw them away because it\'s too easy to hit yourself with the damn things.\"
 

supervike

Super Moderator
this is an extremlely interesting topic...

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It is a little known fact that the Saxon army was defeated by the Normans because of the gallons of milk they drank before hand. lol
 

pitynoman

Member
Originally posted by minimaker
I\'ve done a couple of things. Several years of Judo as a kid, Wu-shu, Pu-ka-lan (<sp?> - Indonesian), ASP (somewhere between Kick boxing and Ju-jitsu), Ju-jitsu and in the last years I\'ve done Tai-chi (not jsut the movements but also the application in fighting). Not doing anything right now and I\'ve definitely lost my edge. I intend to start training again when my life is a bit more settled.

Injuries? Nothing worth mentioning.

Pitynoman, what is Krav Maga like? I\'ve seen it in a documentary but there are no schools for it in my region. It looks interesting.
Krav Maga is an Israeli MMA martial arts that was developed by the military.It combines aspects of military muay thai(lerd rit),sambo,judo,jiu-jitsu and penjak silat.It\'s not a sport,there are a lot of kill moves.I hear good stuff about systema too.
 

vincegamer

Active member
Originally posted by supervike
It is a little known fact that the Saxon army was defeated by the Normans because of the gallons of milk they drank before hand. lol
Funny Medieval milk story I heard in college whilst getting my degree in Medieval history - don\'t know the actual source.

Apparently some Scandinavians (call them Vikings if you will, though that\'s like calling people who bowl \"bowlings\") who came to the Americas and met with the natives.
Apparently the Scandinavians brought livestock on their boats for long trips and drank milk. At a meal to make friendly with the natives, they served milk.
As Native Americans all have a tendency towards lactose intollerance because drinking milk is not part of their cultural history, they all got very sick.
Thinking the newcomers had poisoned them, they attacked and chased the Scandinavians back into the sea.
 

minimaker

New member
Origineel geplaatst door pitynomanKrav Maga is an Israeli MMA martial arts that was developed by the military. It combines aspects of military muay thai(lerd rit),sambo,judo,jiu-jitsu and penjak silat.It\'s not a sport,there are a lot of kill moves.I hear good stuff about systema too.
Interesting. I already knew about the background and purpose but wasn\'t sure what it\'s like. Sounds good. Systema? I\'ll have a look for that. Thanks.
 
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