NK - Light Weapons Question

[Kevin Mayfield]

Being a blade merchant and dealing with not only the manufactures but
also the distributors and those who use the blades in both the Sca and
olympic styles it has come to my attintion that there have been a few
schlaggers break. They were manufactures defects and sheared upon the
first steal to steal stike. This would never have happened if the
marshals had bothered to inspect the blades at the beginning of the
bout.

The real concearn here should not be the blades but the marshals
actually doing their jobs.All rapier marshals should inspect the blades
as the combatants take the field in addition to the initial armor
inspection. I personally inspect every blade that takes the field when I
marshal because I am very safty concious and will do every thing in my
power to insure the combatants and the spectators are as safe as I can
make it.As a marshal THAT'S MY JOB.

If one what's to make an arguement about an unsafe blade then look at
the foil.The quality and the thickness of the foil has gone downhill for
the last seven to ten years.I personnaly will not use a foil unless it
is a maraging foil the same blade the pro's use they are heavily quality
controled and if the blade does not meet very exacting standards it is
broke and discarded at the manufactures.Every maraging blade is
inspected by by the FIE officials upon the completion of the temporing
process.

The only concern about th use of a schlagger is the training of the
combatant so as not to have wild sweeps of the blade. I have had many
shin bruses from those new to schlagger.This directly reflects on those
who were training them with epees as to the do's and dont's.

If those of us who play rapier do what we are suppose to do in both
marshalling and training then there should not be a concern.

Ld. Yoshiie 
Cadet to Don Navarre 




merle at webzone.net wrote:
> 
> Recently I became concerned about a number of schlager breakages.
> I have asked around and found out that those blades were defective
> and have been banned. I've also held discussions with others about
> deaths in fencing vs. the potential for death or serious injury
> with rapier combat in the SCA.
> 
> So far no deaths have been caused by broken blades in SCA rapier
> combat. I believe that it is only a matter of time before a death
> or serious injury happens. There have been deaths in Olympic style
> fencing in this century but have been very, very few. (Sorry, I
> don't have the vital stats on this). My fencing instructor at OSU
> witnessed a person being stabbed in the thigh with a broken foil.
> 
> Everyone I have asked so far agrees with me when I ask "Do you
> think that rapier combat in the SCA would be terminated if their
> was ever a death caused by a broken blade?" The answer was yes.
> And they also agree that if a death is ever caused by heavy weapons
> fighting that it would not be the end of heavy weapons combat in
> the SCA.
> 
> If that were to happen I can see one of two things happen.
> The SCA would split into a medieval group and a renaissance group,
> because I do not believe that the rapier community would simply
> hang up their baldrics and play heavy. The other alternative
> would be to create new standards for armor and weapons to continue
> with rapier combat. I have heard of accidental deaths in Civil War
> reenactment but I have only hearsay on those.
> 
> I realize their are a lot of legal issues that would be raised
> (not to mention the bad press) involved here. I know the rapier
> community is fairly conscientous about their safety but I don't
> know how prepared they are or the SCA at large is for a death
> or serious injury in light weapons. I have heard of two SCAers
> unintentionally stabbing each other in the leg on their own time
> playing with real rapiers in a park.
> 
> Opinions? Discussion? Do you agree with me? Is the SCA prepared
> legally for such an incident?
> 
> Ld. Konstantin Drozd