How safe should free-play be?

[Sam Nankivell]

I recently got into a discussion with a friend who advocated using wasters with full speed and full power as a "realistic" training tool. I stated that the injuries sustained from this practice would make it pointless as a training tool. However, I do want to know, how injured can one get from doing full-contact full-speed free play with wasters? Would the pain teach you anything? And what about sparring with steel blunts?

Personally, I have only ever sparred with padded contact weaponry and blunted rapiers, so I am curious to hear from those people who have sparred with wasters and thicker steel blunts.

[JeffGentry]

Hey Sam

We do quit abit of waster free play, very similar to sparring not quit the same though, free play is usualy done at 1/2, 3/4 speed depending on how much experince each person has and even this can leave nasty bruise's and break finger's if the hand's get hit, they should not be targeted in with waster's you will learn very quickly to use the cross gaurd to protect your digit's, I imagine that you could split open someone's scalp with a waster.

Sometime's it is hard to tell whether the practioner's are going full speed or not because of the experience level.

Jeff

[Brian Hunt]

The ability to safely spar with wasters and steel blunts comes down to one important criteria, control. If you do not have proper control, someone is going to get hurt. Remember, you can kill with a waster and a steel blunt is even more dangerous. With that said, I generally spar with either wasters or blunts. However, when I am unsure of someone's control or abilities (either due to being new or I just don't know them) I prefer to use padded weapons for freeplay.

hope this helps.

Brian Hunt
GFS

[Aaron Pynenberg]

Hello All!! After some time of being off the forums, I should be just about back to normal-

You cannot use wasters at full speed, as this is not only counter-productive to learning technique and timing, but just plain crazy. Wasters at full speed could out-right be deadly, and easily be capable of broken bones, orbitals, as well as other nasty, nastiness.

So, what are you looking for with wasters? As Brian said control, and skill. If these are lacking you will not learn, so much as just survive the encounter.

John C. is fond of saying that we are really not training to have to fight with REAL swords, as none of us will have to defend our lives with the tool, (bummer I know) but we are attempting to reconstruct, as best we can these techniques using an approximation of that tool.

I agree with this statement completely, we are learning a deadly art, in as non-deadly a way as we can. Intensity, focus, athleticism, control, discipline, accuracy, scholarship- all these adjectives should be used in association with ARMA. Use common sense, and avoid a pot. deadly injury during training, you will learn more, and have more fun doing it- AP

[Nathan Dexter]

Yeah, if you made a full speed strike to any spinal area they could easily be paralized corresponding to the location of the injury. I wouldn't advise it.

[Jason Taylor]

I recently got into a discussion with a friend who advocated using wasters with full speed and full power as a "realistic" training tool. I stated that the injuries sustained from this practice would make it pointless as a training tool. However, I do want to know, how injured can one get from doing full-contact full-speed free play with wasters? Would the pain teach you anything? And what about sparring with steel blunts?

Personally, I have only ever sparred with padded contact weaponry and blunted rapiers, so I am curious to hear from those people who have sparred with wasters and thicker steel blunts.

To me, people who advocate using full speed and power with what amounts to a club are just being macho. It's all well and good to brag about your injuries, but usually, the people advocating this stuff seem to think taking a chance of injury is morally superior.

Now, as was already mentioned, control can make that kind of thing workable--but that's not what I think of when I hear "full power." So I guess it's how you mean it--but if you do that stuff at full power, and someone will get a broken bone or worse.

[Shane Smith]

Remember, a waster may not be a real sword, but it is a real club! I'd bet nearly as many men have been clubbed to death over the years as have been hewn down with a sword.

Freeplay can never be wholely safe...it ain't knitting class after all. Still common sense is your most important piece of safety equipment. Freeplay should be just safe enough. There is no better answer I'm afraid.

[s_taillebois]

Assorted ARMA Gentry,
Quite right about the potential problems about full force sparring with either wasters or staffs.
And going 1/2 1/4 speed etc, provides the opportunity to test both guards and offense...and at a rate which provides some sense of why a particular combination did or did not work. And that, entails control and knowledge by both the 'active' and 'passive' agent. Simply machismo bashing away, provides little of value to learn the art, except perhaps for an empty form of bragging.
The vexation is, it's problematic to find sparring partners who take it seriously as an art. And too easy to find the people who get it all from bad movies (and often aren't much to learn from) or those who hold it's all some varient of ego (nothing to learn there). And not all that much to be learnt from hapless injuries (even those obtained whilst sparring properly), except it's a bloody nuisance-and little to boast about. And if obtained whilst engaging in stupid acts, nothing to boast about.
And looking back at the distant echos of this art, there were monks, priests, and laity who studied these arts within cloister...so it wasn't all about extreme violence.

[John_Clements]

I recently got into a discussion with a friend who advocated using wasters with full speed and full power as a "realistic" training tool. I stated that the injuries sustained from this practice would make it pointless as a training tool. However, I do want to know, how injured can one get from doing full-contact full-speed free play with wasters? Would the pain teach you anything? And what about sparring with steel blunts?

Personally, I have only ever sparred with padded contact weaponry and blunted rapiers, so I am curious to hear from those people who have sparred with wasters and thicker steel blunts.

Full speed and power? Nonsense. You'd kill someone easily. They are solid wooden sticks. Your friend is either fooling you or just stupendously naive. Bruises are an occasional hazard of waster free-play, but nothing else should occur.

JC

[Mike Sega]

Recently, I was attempting to perform a krump and was not moving correctly. My partner struck with a zornhau which caught me right on the elbow. this taught me immediatly that I was offline and not doing the move correctly. I quickly made adjustments to my movement and now better understand the krump.

Now we were moving at 1/2 to 3/4 speed with masks. the hit was my mistake but if my partner had struck without control, with an intent to cleave me stem to stern, I would probably have had a busted elbow. In my opinion, that would have been a complete waste of our time.

I learned what I was doing wrong and was able to go to work that night and to remember the hit for a few days. That was a learning experience. To go full force with wasters is unnecessary and confuses "intent" with deadly force in my opinion. If I want to cleave a horse's head off its shoulders, I use a zornhau executed properly and with complete follow through. I dont have to do that to strike one opponent across from me, and definitely not with a practice partner.