[Ansteorra] Results of Vambrace Poll

[Burke McCrory]

You know I have watched this from the sidelines now for over a month 
(on this list and others) and there is one thing that bothers me.  I 
understand the attempts to push the rules and see if we can add 
additional styles and approaches to our fighting, this has been done 
for years and is a good thing as it forces us to look at new things.

But why all of a sudden the want to make us good little clones of 
every other kingdom?

Ansteorra has had its little idiosyncrasies in our armor requirements 
and fighting styles for over a quarter of a century.  Yes, we use 
larger shields and require vambraces, we tend to offer a person a 
chance to yield when legged or armed and do not allow killing from 
behind because it is against our code of honor.  How does this hurt 
anyone?  I have never heard a single person complain that having 
vambraces is a burden on getting their armor together and know of a 
number of people that were very happy when they only got a mild 
bruise from a blow that would have otherwise blasted their arm.  I 
personally feel (based on my experience) that vambraces help to 
reduce long term accumulative injures to people's forearms caused by 
continuously getting them hit.   But the real question here is why 
the want to do away with our personal flavor?  I know that some will 
raise the specter that the changes are needed to make us more period 
in our fighting approach or that some obscure period fighting manual 
never showed fighting the way we do it.  Other will point out that we 
need to come exactly into line with the SCA standards because that is 
what everyone else has done.  Well I have a surprise for those 
people,  SCA fighting is not an attempt to reenact fighting in a 
purely historical approach.  Ever since the first tourneys with 
swords made from cut down brooms, shields from trash cans, and armor 
that included shag carpet and freon cans, SCA fighting has been about 
having fun. Whether we are in it for the thrill of the fight,the 
chance to do honor to out Lady (or Lord), or what ever the reason it 
is suppose to be fun.  Also SCA standards are the minimum level that 
we can drop down to not a defato complete standard.

As I said before testing the limits and pushing new ideas is a good 
thing but I do not want to do this at the expense of what we are.

Burke