Just on the off-chance that anyone is interested in the saga of a
tiny group of sparring enthusiasts groping their way toward legitimacy
as a martial arts group, I've written up this descriptions of the
tribulations of what is currently called the "slum fu stompers"
I was part of an old sparring group in New Orleans which did stick and
padded club sparring from the mid 1980's until the mid 90's. We did
full contact, full force sparring with a mixture of wood, metal, and
pvc weapons (though none with edge geometry) wearing helmets and
light sports pads or other light "armor". We had almost no rules.
As far as we knew we were the only people who did what we called then
"sham battles". There were some local SCA groups active in the nearby
suburbs but our encounters with them were not particularly friendly.
When we did spar with them and beat them (almost always), they would
tell us "good kill man, but way too freestyle" or "too much kinetic energy
on that one pal!" "Or that worked, this time, but you did it wrong!"
Once we even got in a brawl with some of them at a Rennaisance fair in
the nearby wretched suburb of Kenner when they tried to prevent us from
sparring. Generally they considered us 'thugs' or 'punks' (most of our
group were punk rockers) and a lot our group members felt that they
were 'geeks' and overly obsessed with phony rules, a bureaucrtaic
culture, and a really wierdly upbeat slant on medieval history (some
members of our group wanted to start a "Dark Ages" fair to rival the
Rennaisance festivals but it never took off the ground...)
Our sparring group peaked in activity in the late 80's, but began to
dwindle in the 90's as a lot of members of our group fled the local
recession and crime wave in New Orleans at that time, and it pretty
much broke up when I moved out of town in 1993. But I always kept a
few weapons in the closet and when members of the old group were around,
or anyone with an interest in sparring (rare!) we would break out the
weapons and go a few rounds.
When Martial Arts of Rennaisance Europe came out, it generated a lot
of interest among my old group of friends. We discussed it on the phone
and on the internet. We were also interested in what was then called
HACA and in John Clements whole sparring - intensive approach which
seemed very refreshing compared to Eastern Martial Arts groups, sport
fencing, and the SCA. When I moved back to New Orleans in 1999, I got
together with a couple of other people from the old group who were in
town, and we started sparring more regularly and trying out some of the
techniques we could decifer from that book and from short translated
bits we found around the internet.
In 2001 I met some former LARP and SCA people, and we sparred with
them with some mixed results, but we learned all about that whole
phenomenon a lot more, especially LARP which I had never even heard of
and was a lot bigger than I'd imagined.
By the end of 2002 we had started a small informal sparring group
with some old guys from my "slum fu stompers", some former LARP and
SCA folks, a couple trained in Eastern Martial Arts, and a few new
people. The core of the group was me and one other guy with a
background in LARP. We would spar every sunday, sometimes just the
two of us, sometimes with as many as seven or eight people.
At first there were a some difficulties. The biggest problem was a
lack of a budget. New Orleans has a very depressed economy, people
live here because they enjoy living here, but it's a lousy place for a
career. Basically it's third world, you probably earn 40% in New
Orleans what you would anywhere else. I personally took a huge
pay cut to move back here, but what can I say, (New Orleans Jingoism on)
I hate wasteland suburbs strip malls and and industrial parks, I'd rather
live in a real city with some history no matter how depressed the economy.
(/New Orleans Jingoism off>)
Anwyay, a lot of our group are working class guys in their late 20's to
mid 30's, with kids, mortgages etc., in this economy there simply isn't
a lot of extra money for hobbies of any kind. In fact one of the ways
I lured people into the group was pointing out that it was cheaper way
to get exercise than going to the gym!
So the budget was a problem, we could barely afford enough helmets and
weapons for everybody. There were also cultural and personality
conflicts. The LARP people had a hard time getting used to full force,
full contact sparring, and were especially unused to head-shots. It
really was amazing to see how hard it was for even some very skilled
fighters among them to learn to protect their head and to strike at
their opponents head, they were worse than rank amateurs in this sense.
Certainly an object lesson in how bad, unrealistic 'training' can
actually mentally cripple you.
We also didn't have an indoor practice area. We did our practice in a
wonderful park where there was a roofed structure (a fantastic fake
greek temple made of concrete, wonderful background) but it was somewhat
exposed on frequent rainy days, and as summer approached, the heat and
humidity were just too much for a lot of people.
On the other hand, the combination of the skill and experience of the
'old salts' and the innovative "new" tricks and techniques we gleaned
from the Fechtbooks (a lot which I printed out from the ARMA site)
made the sessions interesting and fun to watch and participate in,
and gradually more and more people got interested and started to show
up, and a positive word of mouth buzz spread around town about the
activity ("sham battles" still had a certain amount of notoriety).
Finally the summer heat and the cultural conflicts however, combined
with the budgetary strain especially as more people got involved than
we had equipment for, finally led to a decision to halt practice for
the rest of the summer.
One of the things we debated about was how to make new weapons. My
partner Jeff, the LARP guy, surprisingly wanted to make our weapons
based on the ARMA / HACA method. Our weapons were already counterwighted
and much heavier than traditinonal boffers, but we all were interested
in the idea of edge geometry especially. Unfortunately, we did not
have the money to buy the materials needed, especially the special
foam that y'all use. Significantly, Jeff himself hadn't put up any
money or made many of the weapons. He ended up leaving the group
shortly after this debate.
We also talked about possibly forming an ARMA group, and some other
guys wanted to start an SCA faction, as a peasant mob, a bandit gang,
or a group of anti-aristocratic Swiss Mercenaries. Fact was we lacked
the budget for joining either group! Personally I really didn't want
to get involved in the SCA. Everyone also wanted to acquire more of
the fechtbuchks, more and better equipment especially helmets, and
more different types of weapons.
Clearly the budget was a big problem, so in our last meeting, we
resolved to A) find a way to raise some money, and B) purchase more
fechtbooks, C) aquire more and better gear, and D) try to locate an
indoor training facility, and E) figure out the best types of weapons
to use. We decided to start the group up again in October, as the
fall (hopefully) began to improve the climate.
Faced with this crisis, I decided to kill two birds with one stone.
I started experimenting with new materials, including mouse pads
and camping pads, and made some new weapons. For a lark, I put a
couple of my older ones on Ebay to see if I could raise money to buy
some new materials. To my amazement, I sold two weapons. I got
some more materials, and soon established a new basic method.
My new weapons started selling regularly on Ebay and I set up a
website. As I sold more swords I bought some books from Chivalry
Press and four copies of John Clements Medieval Combat book which
I passed around to some of the other members of my group. The
latter in particular was incredibly useful and really amazing
(and will be the subject of a review I'm doing which I'll post a
link to here)
The weapons I make wouldn't be ARMA legal, but I think they are very
good. I'd like to send one to John to evaluate. I'm making them with
pvc pipe, a large carriage bolt for counterbalance, spiral wrapping the
core with electrical tape to reach the right weight and to improve
stiffness, and three layers of blue foam camping pads. I find that
if I adjust the thickness of the pvc sufficiently, the weapons don't
'whip' at all. My arming swords and shorter long swords (44" and under)
are very good and don't flex at all. I'm still tinkering with the
larger weapons (I don't sell many of the larger ones on ebay because
they are very expensive to ship over 45") but I think with larger core
sizes and possibly, heavier guage (Sch 80) pvc I can keep them
realistic without resorting to aluminum or wood stiffeners.
At any rate, I've now got a small business established of selling
sparring weapons on Ebay and through my website, and I may soon become
the main supplier for a couple of small fencing schools. I'm looking
into expanding into shields for Roman Reenactors and crossbows, among
other things. The bottom line: now we have a budget.
As long as this trend keeps up, we should have a full library of
fechtbuchs and sparring equipment by the time we start up again in the
fall. I'm particularly looking forward to the I33 translation coming
out. I've been buying old Lacrosse helmets and sports pads to replace
our old 'home made' composite helmets and light armor made of pieces
of this and that, and I now have a fantastic arsenal of padded weapons.
There is a lot of excitement about the new weapons, and a steady buzz of
discussion, reading, and activity from the springs now somewhat infamous
sparring sessions. Based on the people I've been talking to, we should
have about ten regular members, of which four including myself (with all
due humilty) are hard core "old salts" from the original group who are
extremely good fighters. Two of these guys, Eric and Damen, may also be
entering martial arts competitions during the winter which is another thing
we'll have to pay for from the budget.
There are also fourteen other people who are interested but who's
schedueles only permit intermittant attendance, such as people who live
out of town but in neighboring states only a few hours drive away, who
sometimes come in on weekends. Among these are another 6 of the
"old salts". I expect a lot of these people will get more involved as
they participate in a few sessions. That was the trend in the spring
anyway.
When we restart, I'm going to try to use my influence try to steer
the group toward a membership in ARMA. We have checked out several of
the other fencing schools around the country but I think ARMA has the
most genuinely open interest in histrory and the most real drive to
learn and advance the 'cause' of Western Martial Arts, as opposed to
just making money or acting important.
Some of the the other fencing schools seem to be really snotty, and to
be trying to do WMA the way EMA used to be done. After sparring for 20
years I'm not going to sit there and have some guy who can't beat me in a
sword fight or a fist fight put me through tedious katas for several
high dues paying months before he will even let me touch a waster.
I personally have a feeling the real fechschules were a lot more open,
rowdy, and sparring oriented, more like the way we do it, or the way
ARMA does it, than they were like EMA. We all admire ARMA's emphasis
on sparring above everything else. I mean, I understand the need for
discipline and for thigns like learning footwork, guards, and stances and
the rest of it, but if you don't regularly put it to the test, you aren't
going to be doing it right in the long run. Anyway, I want to join ARMA
and will be doing so personally probably by the end of the month. Some
of the older salts still have to be convinced about changing any of the
ways we do things, but the fechtbooks continue to impress and the
various resources of the ARMA website have been so valuable to research
in the field.
Anyway, thats the goal to join ARMA by winter either as a group, or at
least as individuals, and after that, to start buying wasters, then
some steel weapons and some real steel armor. I'll have to sell a hell
of a lot of swords to get that together though!
Thats about it at this point. Advice and commentary would be
appreciated.
JR
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