[Ansteorra-rapier] Pros and Cons of change

[Chris Zakes]

At 10:50 AM 10/15/2012, you wrote:


>>Let's turn this around for a moment. There aren't all that many Cut 
>>& Thrust-authorized fighters, so maybe we shoud drop C&T, too. 
>>After all, If I'm not interested in it, nobody else should be either.
>>
>>         -Tivar Moondragon


>Tivar,
>
>That isn't at all a fair comparison.

It wasn't intended to be. I was pointing out the fallacy of banning 
something *solely* because only a few people use it, or because some 
people aren't interested in it.  You said earlier that we have over 
500 authorized rapier fighters. But only 34 of them are Cut and 
Thrust authorized? That's a pretty small percentage.


>You are comparing a dying art form to one that is being born.

Being born? Well... sort of. C&T has been legal for almost seven 
years (plus a few years before that as an experimental "sidesword" 
program.) I did a survey a few years ago, and most other kingdoms had 
numbers similar to Ansteorra's. As best I can tell, C&T is a fairly 
small part of SCA rapier combat, and seems destined to remain so.



>But for the sake of fact checking, there are twice the number of 
>*active* C&T fighters than there are F/E (34 in fact) and regularly 
>schedules tourneys for C&T as well as bouts being fought at the 
>request of TRMs.
>
>--Dena

All this being said, I don't really have a problem with dropping foil 
and epee *if* nobody is using these blades. But if they are still 
being used, even if it's in relatively out-of-the-way corners of the 
kingdom (does Elfsea qualify as out-of-the-way?) then I think we're 
doing people a disservice to drop these blades.

Maybe the folks who are so adamantly in favor of getting rid of the 
lighter blades should sponsor some beginners tournments in the 
smaller groups, with a brand-new heavy blade as the prize.

         -Tivar Moondragon
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