🚀 go-pugleaf

Greetings from Godfrey!

Aryk writes:
> In article <470-JNEWS-2.1@smylex.UUCP> Godfrey de Shipbrook <jlee@smylex.UUCP> writes:
> 
>>but the style in which
>>we fence more closely resembles the period rapier combat than modern
>>collegiate/Olympic fencing.
> 
> And a horse more closely resembles a cow than does an iguana.  Yet to
> the educated eye, the horse and the cow are easily distinguished.

This is true.  However, I (for one) would not like to take a thrust
from a rapier of the same thickness (and, more importantly,
*stiffness*) as those rapiers actually used in period.  For one thing,
I'd probably end up dead, or minus the use of a limb, or at the very
least, a bad case of peritonitis.

The weapons we use are a concession to safety, just as the rattan swords
we use in heavy combat are.  Similarly, the masks we wear are a
concession to safety.

The *forms* in which we fence, however, are to what I refer.  Did the
period rapier combattant fence only back and forth in a straight line,
limited to one weapon, abiding by the rules of right-of-way?  Certainly
not!

As to the `educated eye', the styles in which I personally fence come
straight out of the period fencing manuals.  *Every* *thing* *I* *do*
when fencing can be justified as either a period practise, or as a
concession to safety as part of the Trimarian and/or East Kingdom
fencing rules.

I *do*, however, have a couple of beefs about the rules for scoring (a
diagonal cut across the sternum will hardly kill someone immediately,
for example), but I admit there must be *some* way of determining a
victor...


+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Net:  Jeff Lee / jlee@smylex.uucp / jlee%smylex.uucp@tscs.tscs.com     |
| SCA:  Lord Godfrey de Shipbrook / Wyvernwood, Trimaris                 |
|       Per pale azure and argent, a clarion counterchanged or and gules |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
    "The only thing that helps me maintain my slender grip on reality
    is the friendship I share with my collection of singing potatoes."