OK, I played your game, next time we play mine.
Double short stick.
Friggin bastard. The rest of my scars work for impressing chicks, but I can’t exactly score points with “a ninja broke my finger”…
Well what is LARPing first off? I’ve always defined it as acting out a method of combat with the primary focus being either historical authenticity or recreational fun. Anything trained with the focus being battlefield survival being just that, combat training.
Can some forms of swordsmanship be RL relevant? sure, cops use batons and the like all the time. Serious practice of anything doesnt make or break whether or not its larping. You can seriously engage in larping like most re-enactors do. They practice their art to the extreme for painstaking detail and realism but that doesnt make it any less than what it is at its core. Pretend.
Yeah…I need to re-calibrate my sarcasmometer. Work has drained me of a sense of humor.
Awesome.
Can we hug now?:love3:
Your definition is too broad and therefore sucks.
Live Action Role Play. You don’t to expand the definition any more than it literally is.
Koryu practitioners do not believe they are doing anything relevant to modern combat.
LARPers are more interested in how many orcs they can kill.
You’ve missed the point.
Koryu practitioners are not re-enactors.
Learning to use a katana is hardly “pretending”. If you learn to use a katana through instruction in a legitimate kenjutsu ryuha, you HAVE ACTUALLY LEARNED TO USE A KATANA. You have not just pretended to, or imagined it. The fact that you have never killed anyone with what you have learned does not mean you have not learned to.
Learning to use a English broadsword so you can re-enact the battle of Culloden is LARPing, and that is where the difference lies.
I’ll just say this now, but I practiced Kendo because I wanted to be a badass neosamurai. The rest of you are just in denial.
Bullshit …
sure, cops use batons and the like all the time.
We never used them, but when I was a CO we had a cache of 36 inch batons and plexiglass shields. Medieval combat FTW.
Errant, what’s your view on groups like ARMA? LARP or not?
Maybe I’m just phrasing it wrong…
“So yeah, there I was…sword fighting this ninjew, I mean ninja! And the worst he could do was break my pinky…silly ninja…”:ohyeah:
Emphasis mine, I think you agree that that is the important bit? It’s hard to tell when the dander gets up. There are lots of reasons to learn to use a broadsword, not all of them are larping. And larping doesn’t necessarily suck.
Again, if you have fun, if you find moving meditation spiritually fulfilling, if you are interested in the history, in the living archaeology, it’s all good. The nice thing about archaic weapons is that the consumer products safety issues that people bring up about self defense really don’t matter.
With those PVC pipe swords, it a wonder it even bruised. We can try again with bokken…
not to sidetrack my own thread here , but since we’re bringing up issues about archiac weapons, try this on for size, http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/37421.html
the article’s a few montsh old and from what I know, at this point in time odds are there’s going to be some kind of law.
Sorry, when happyoldguy said “safety issues” and “archiac weapons” in the same post. This immediately came to mind.
Just in case anyone here is thinking their hallucinating, nope that sword ban is a serious piece of possible legislation, though ofcourse by now I think they’ve amended it alittle so the martial arts community would be so hard hit by it. Ofcourse I haven’t been following this piece of news religiously so I might be wrong on some accounts.
But back to the topic, Happyoldguy, as said about your earlier post, your right on this aswell. If it’s fun then do it, but I just can’t quite get over this feeling of being insulted when I see people calling any kind of sword art LARPing, and I don’t even practice an art, yet. So I made this thread to understand what made such a number of Bullshido forumites think of it LARPing. I’m glad to see though that there are those who think of it in a more serious way. You know I lurked on this site for a good six months before actually registering
and one thing I noticed is the large amount of MMAers who frequent this site. I’m starting to wonder if that has anything to do with it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knockin MMA. I understand why so many people do, I mean there have been times where I just wanted to say fuck it and join the local MMA gym instead waiting to find a school for what I wanted. MMA is good shit, I love watching the UFC. Also the only reality show I will ever watch is the Ultimate Fighter.
Well enough with my rambling.
They are not as clear cut as the koryu or certain other systems. The koryu represent a tradition that has continued to be handed down, and while the techniques of koryu have not changed, the motivation for doing them has.
If you’re familiar with the study of hoplology, you know that many hoplologists are not content to merely learn about the combative practices of the cultures they study, but rather to actually engage in them in order to better understand the culture and the practices themselves, be it Greek battlefield formations and tactics, or koryu sword arts.
Done for a completely intellectual and scholarly interests, it is not LARPing. Even a degree of being enamored with a culture or historical period is not LARPing. I may take up ARMA or Koryu because I’ve always been fascinated by swords or the samurai. However, it is an intellectual curiosity or fascination that motivates me to learn what they learned.
Crossing the line into LARPing occurs when you begin to identify too much with your subject of study. Being interested in the samurai is very different from wanting to be a samurai. This is where the distinction between ARMA and LARPers can blur, as both are re-creating something. If you want to recreate the techniques of a given combative system to satisfy intellectual curiosity, that is one thing. Wanting to be something that you are not is when it become LARPing.
The problem is motivation. Unfortunately, many at Bullshido label anything that is not pragmatic for modern day self-defence as being LARPing. That being the case, I wonder how many of them regularly attend seminars on the legal use of force in their juristiction, have trained in first aid and basic survival skills, or know the laws of concealed carry in their juristiction. All of these things have more applicability to modern self-defense than anything I saw on the last episode of TUF. Hand to hand combat training is definitely a necessity for self-defense, but if you have found yourself in a situation where you need to use it, hopefully you haven’t ignored everything you could have done beforehand to avoid it. This is the problem with defining anything not “pragmatic” as LARPing.
I think you nailed it. If you are learning to use a sword because you want to know how to actually use a sword, you’re not LARPing. You’re learning to use a weapon.
If your intent is to be able to go to a LARP and boffer fight better. Or for acting purposes, or for any reason other than learning to use a weapon, then your LARPing.
I say this as someone who studies the use of a rapier (And to a lesser extent other swords and archaic weapons). Will I likely ever be challeneged to a duel? No. Nor is it practical to carry a rapier. However I am doing it to learn to be able to use a weapon.
So yes, if you’re learning to use a broadsword because you want to reenact the battle of culloden, sure you’re a LARPer. If you’re learning a broadsword because you want to learn to use a weapon and carry on a tradition of sword-use, then you’re not a LARPer. You just know a highly impractical martial art :happy7:
They are not as clear cut as the koryu or certain other systems. The koryu represent a tradition that has continued to be handed down, and while the techniques of koryu have not changed, the motivation for doing them has.
If you’re familiar with the study of hoplology, you know that many hoplologists are not content to merely learn about the combative practices of the cultures they study, but rather to actually engage in them in order to better understand the culture and the practices themselves, be it Greek battlefield formations and tactics, or koryu sword arts.
Done for a completely intellectual and scholarly interests, it is not LARPing. Even a degree of being enamored with a culture or historical period is not LARPing. I may take up ARMA or Koryu because I’ve always been fascinated by swords or the samurai. However, it is an intellectual curiosity or fascination that motivates me to learn what they learned.
Crossing the line into LARPing occurs when you begin to identify too much with your subject of study. Being interested in the samurai is very different from wanting to be a samurai. This is where the distinction between ARMA and LARPers can blur, as both are re-creating something. If you want to recreate the techniques of a given combative system to satisfy intellectual curiosity, that is one thing. Wanting to be something that you are not is when it become LARPing.
The problem is motivation. Unfortunately, many at Bullshido label anything that is not pragmatic for modern day self-defence as being LARPing. That being the case, I wonder how many of them regularly attend seminars on the legal use of force in their juristiction, have trained in first aid and basic survival skills, or know the laws of concealed carry in their juristiction. All of these things have more applicability to modern self-defense than anything I saw on the last episode of TUF. Hand to hand combat training is definitely a necessity for self-defense, but if you have found yourself in a situation where you need to use it, hopefully you haven’t ignored everything you could have done beforehand to avoid it. This is the problem with defining anything not “pragmatic” as LARPing.
If there is no element of roleplay then it’s not larping.
Not that I’d feel bad about LARPing because it’s fun.
Lady Katherine Elizabeth, Baroness of Atlantia
Cool Suff,
Hey Anatrocity, since you studied longsword in ARMA I’m wondering if you’ve ever met John Clements, I hear he’s a hell of a fencer but the not most likable guy.
Yes, I’ve met John, and he gave me a souvenir:
He’s an amazing fencer. My instructor is generally considered the number 2 guy in ARMA as far as ability goes and John would completely whip him. Me? I was no slouch but I couldnt touch John.
His likability is a matter of debate I suppose. I like him and his no bullshit attitude. People that want to be coddled as far as their abilities go will not enjoy his company.
John Clements is the bullshido.net of the (modern) medieval/rennaissance combat world. And ARMA is the UFC.
Isn’t fencing an Olympic sport? How could that be LARPing? Is football also LARPing?
I see, well too bad no ARMA groups exist in Iowa.
Maybe you could fill me in on something concerning the internal politics of the HEMA/WMA community. I've also heard various stories concerning poor sportmsanship on J.C.'s part. Don't know if it's true or not, but I heard he went to a seminar and tried on technique on someone. This technique he claimed couldn't be countered. Then when the person he did it on countered it, he attempted to stick his thumb in their eye. Like I said, don't know if it's true or not. Also not talking smack about the founder of ARMA. But I was hoping if you knew the truth on it or not.