ARMA Appleton had the pleasure to do two demonstrations for regional Cub Scout Packs in recent months and I would like to share our experience.
The first was in Stoughton, WI, which is about two hours away, and the other was local here in Appleton, WI. For both we were scheduled to have ninety minutes for the demo and given free reign to cover what we thought appropriate. We started out with an introduction and explained who we are, what we do, and how we do it. Since the theme for both demos were “Scouts in Shining Armor”, we started with what a knight was, what were things a knight would have, and so on. We covered different types of armor, their cost and their effectiveness. Next we moved on to swords and various different types and their different strengths. We used a break apart sword that we made to show how swords were made, the parts of a sword, and divisions of the blade. The kids really liked this part and thought it was neat that we could “build” a sword in front of them. From there we moved into how to hold a sword, stance, basic guards, cuts, and ended that with small florysh.
Next, we demonstrated the mastercuts, and ended with some techniques utilizing half swording, versetzen, and Ringen. For this part of the demo we kept very interactive by asking them a lot of question so they could answer and ask more questions. After that we had a hands on portion for the scouts. We had helms and chainmail coifs to try on, as well as wasters, daggers, bucklers, warhammers, blunts to look at and hold (supervised of course). We had some copies of manuals and pictures from a rest cutting to look at also. We had a wavemaster and some smaller wasters set up and let the scouts come in and after showing them how to hold, and swing a sword, let them hit the bag. We also had some dowel rapiers that we did the toe touch game with. We have received nothing but positive feedback and even gave us a commemorative patch. Many parents have commented on not only have they never seen the kids sit still for that long, but that they learned a lot as well. The scoutmaster said they had some SCA guys come in last year and our demo was “ten times better”. He said they came in, talked for an hour, hardly answered any questions, and would not let the kids touch or get close to anything, and left. We even had one parent ask to try the wavemaster and after a few strikes he walked away with a huge smile.
These demos were my first experience in scheduling, setting up, planning, and running a demo and I can honestly say that I learned a lot and had a great time doing both of them. I could not have done them without the help of Eric Winkler, and he did a great job. We have another scout demo scheduled for April and it looks like we will be going back and doing these again next year for the same packs. The photos that we posted really show how much fun the scouts had these demos rank very high on my list of ARMA activities that I have done. To be able to take what I know and a little time and to see their reactions is an amazing feeling.
The photos are posted here:
http://studygroups.thearma.org/~appleton/Multimedia.htm
Kevin Peterson
ARMA Appleton
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