[Ansteorra] Vambrace Poll

[Sue Delk]

    Unfortunately, some of this comes down to the litigiousness of our society these days.  If people are willing to sue the SCA over little bitty things, they are sure more than willing to sue over a broken arm during a bout.  Yes, that's why we sign waivers and all that, but your insurance company will sue to try and recover their losses.  We are grown adults who legally can make our own decisions (even silly ones like hitting each other with big sticks), but some lawyers will find any opening to use to their advantage.
    One way they might look at it is this...if Ansteorra required vambraces once, and discontinued the practice, lawyers may look at that as creating a liability where there was none before.  As some have discussed, it's not always the new fighter who will get hurt.  Sir Morgan is a perfect example of this.  I think he'd fought a few fights before he got hurt last spring....  Yes he was wearing vambraces, but he admits it wasn't as rigid as it maybe should have been.
    My opinion, for what it's worth, is keep the vambraces.  I wasn't a chirurgeon before vambraces were required, so I didn't see the injuries that occurred as a result.  I'm looking from a chirurgeon standpoint and the fact that it is fairly easy to do some major damage in the forearm and injure major nerves that go to the hand.  Just my opinion....

In service,
HL Genevieve
Kingdom Chirurgeon
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Marc Carlson 
  To: ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org 
  Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 2:56 PM
  Subject: [Ansteorra] Vambrace Poll


  Let me state clearly, I do not fight in the SCA, and while it is possible 
  that I might someday give in to temptation and actually get involved at 
  fighter practices, I am successfully resisting that urge, so really anything 
  I have to say is from the view point of an interested observer, not as a 
  participant.

  I am curious, at what point do we want to stop trying to protect people from 
  their own poor choices?  I mean, we're talking about a hobby where grown 
  adults are actually hitting each other with sticks.  One would assume that 
  most people actually understand that there are certain inherent dangers and 
  choose to protect themselves.  We shouldn't have to legislate it, should we?

  I am learning 15th century Longsword, and when we bout, I occasional come 
  home with some pretty unpleasant bruises, and such.  And you know what, 
  those are my own stupid fault because I'm putting myself in a position where 
  someone with a stick might be able to hit me.  I need to either be 
  protecting myself better, or not be there.  This past weekend I finally 
  bought some of my first real armor, mostly because I keep getting whacked in 
  the same place, and while a compression fracture at the junction of my right 
  captitate and scaphoid might sound like fun, I'm thinking it will make some 
  things less pleasant in the long run.  No one has to tell me to do this.  
  Personally, I'd rather not, but since I haven't been able to learn not to do 
  whatever it is that would keep me from getting hit there, maybe some armor's 
  a good idea.

  Do I wear forearm protection?  Sure, but it's not up to Ansteorran 
  standards.  I manage to deflect most shots there, but not all, so while I'm 
  not without risk, that's really my choice.  If I break something, I don't 
  have a lot of room to whine about it since I put myself out there in the 
  first place.

  So, back to my actual question - if we want to protect people from all harm, 
  how far do we want to go with it?  How much further do we need to go to 
  duplicate 16th century tournament armor standards?  When do we figure out 
  that actually hitting people with rattan can hurt you and prohibit that in 
  favor of something softer?  I know it's a bit of stretch, and fair enough.  
  But I am really curious.

  Marc/Diarmaid