That free-floating aggression might be useful for wearing armor and shield and swinging a wooden sword around--they also try to keep the obscure terminology to a minimum.

www.sca.org

SCA combat has no relation to what people actually did with swords, except possibly in very few cases with people who should probably be in an ARMA study group. Try the manuals of Liechtenauer or Fiore, the venerable I.33 manuscript, the later systems of Capo Ferro, Marozzo or Thibault. Historical fencing is an amazing family of arts, whether you prefer the sword and buckler, longsword, poleaxe or rapier, in armor or out of it, but you won't find it in the SCA and you will find it every bit as technically intricate and strategically demanding as anything done centuries later with a sabre or epee du combat. The "vicious brainiac" aspect has always been there.

For perspective, modern fencing is to historical fencing roughly what kendo is to the many schools of kenjutsu that still exist here and there. That is to say, a sport more than a true killing art, using only a rough approximation of a weapon. Nevertheless, what the SCA does tends to be more along the lines of play fighting, lacking the corpus of literature or variety of technique found in either sport or martial art.

In fairness, maybe they're better than they were when I was a teenager. I hope I have not offended; it was not my intent.

:-)

BTW are you familiar with the fiction of K.J. Parker?

I am not. Amazon seems to think I'd like it, though. I'll add it to the list. Thanks!

:-)

An insightful interview is here.

First line from "Devices and Desires" (from The Engineer's Trilogy):

‘ "The quickest way to a man’s heart,’ said the instructor, ’is proverbially through his stomach. But if you want to get into his brain, I recommend the eye socket.’

I've met quite a few SCA fighters who do study the old texts and methods quite seriously, but all of them are seasoned combatants. I haven't seen beginners studying these, probably because they're too busy learning the basics. That's what I was thinking of when I made that suggestion--she should find a discipline where they save the brainiac part for after they're comfortable with their weapons.

Well, good. I was briefly in it when I was a teenager (circa 1995) but they didn't do that then. It was more about random whacking with boffer weapons. I'd heard that there had been some cross-pollination between SCA and other, somewhat more studious groups like ARMA, but also that the focus remained on creative anachronism, not combat.

My own experience was, admittedly, long before the era of cheap Chivalry Bookshelf reprints, myArmoury, Peter Johnsson's obsessive research or the interpretations of Christian Tobler and John Clements. By any metric, the entire community has taken huge leaps forward. I'd never even heard of I.33 when I was in SCA, nor would I have even known where to look for it.

Your post gives me hope.

:-)