I found this story on msn:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16846870/
It reminds me of some of the ninjer fanboys I knew in high school…
I hope beeing deranged and mentally unstable isn’t part of the LARP defenition:spanky:
Haven’t you ever seen the idiots that LARP? I think that is the only defenition.
Well, that’s the debate, isn’t it? At what point does LARPing become neurotic/psychotic?
Beeing a LARPer myself makes me hope you’re wrong… It’s like saying that any golfer would smack their family with their clubs just because I find golfing stupid:viking:
No no no no no no. I don’t mean that LARPing, in the context of living history or even a happy hobby, leads one to commit violent acts. I mean that this story reminded me of kids I knew in high school, who for some reason or another preferred to believe in some BS mythology about ninjutsu or whatever. These were kids who had a tenuous grasp on reality in the first place, which drove them to LARP. I suspect this psychotic kid had the same sort of tenuous grasp on reality.
I am not saying that people who LARP with full understanding of their activities have a propensity toward irrational violence. Not at all. Rather, it seems that kids who are trying to hide from reality (and some have very good reasons for hidning from reality - or at least, good reasons for a teenager) are drawn to LARPing, but not every person who LARPs is such a person.
I would say the danger of such LARPing schools or instructors isn’t that they are teaching people ineffective self-defense - I mean, take a look at Phil Elmore. He can’t even be bothered to train hard (if ineffectively) in a martial art he allegedely cofounded. Does he work his cardio? Obviously not. If he took boxing, for example, does anyone here think he would train consistently or with enough dedication to actually a difference in a fight anyway?*
No, I think a greater danger of LARPing is the fact that no one is trying to filter out the unstables. Those guys I knew in high school shouldn’t have been allowed to play with swords, and certainly not under the guise of a martial art, no matter how bullshido it was.
*Now, those who do work hard are getting robbed of effective self defense if the MA is unrealistic, and in that case, they are being done a dangerous disservice by their instructors.
The moment a person puts on a costume and says to themselves: “hmm, this is a really good idea!”
Teaching an unstable person how to effectively use a weapon is dangerous, I’ll grant you that. As an instructor, I’m kind of careful in the beginning when meeting newbees joining my classes. A friend of mine once got nazies in his class. It took him some hours to figure it out, and he kicked them out imediatly. Personally, when I get new people, I try to tell them what they won’t learn in my classes, which is:
-learning realistic knife defence for the modern street
-learning self defence for a modern setting in general
This usually makes the most lunatic inclined loose interrest.
The ones left, I teach medieval dagger and longsword
The part of weraring a costume and liking it, well, I do, and I haven’t killed anybody yet.
I also think we need to take the time to define our terms: Live Action Role Playing, or LARPing, is a pasttime many enjoy. I am not talking about the people who LARP for LARPings sake. I am talking about the MA version of LARPing, where people believe that enough training will allow them to basically defy physics with inner energy, like the yellow bamboo, or that 37 moves delivered to the air in under five seconds would let them win in a fight against an opponent who is moving, resisting, and trying to hit back. That’s who I am talking about - people whose personalities are subsumed by the characters they play. If you know the difference between the two, I’m not knocking you.
I don’t see what this news story has to do with MA-LARPING. The youth delivered multiple cuts to an officer and this victims and failed to kill them. What kind of crap swordsmanship was that? Seriously. I figure a competent swordsman should be able to butcher anyone whom is unarmed and whom he simultaneously has the drop on.
Nothing explicitly or, well, I guess nothing at all, except it reminds me of a similar crime committed in my home town of Sturgeon Bay by a middle aged Ninjutsu LARPer. He got in an argument with a dude, went and got his sword, and stabbed the guy.
Except he did it in only one thrust. So I guess it has nothing to do with nothing.
…Am I going to get pwned for this?
Agreed! I’ve cut pig-thighs clean through with a 1h.sword, and most TMA-katanaists (shinten ryu kenjutsu, etc. etc.) here in norway would never dream of staining their precipus blades on a filthy commoner:laughing5
So as this dude bangs his family with a blade without beeing capable of actually killing them, makes this person a Wannabee-LARPER; the ones that believe what the Mc.Dojos, Hollywood and Hong Konghave teaches, but have never had the wits to actually get their asses out of the sofa and attending a MC-dojo, rather buying a wallhanger for $50 that couldn’t sharpen even a pencil, hanging it on the walls and telling all his friends that he’s the ultimate:ninjadanc
Hmmm, this got my brain spinning… Do Bullshido have a term for people that believe they are people that believe they are something they aren’t?