Belgarth

For those who don't know what this is, its a sport that involves making swords and stuff out of Foam and either PCP Pipe or Fiber Glass. For anyone here who plays, what do you think of it? Also what is your prefered weapon style?

I for one love it, and wished I could make it to some of the major events like Fall Brawl and Armegedon. I like using Greatswords or Flourentine, when you weild two swords.

ANd as a pre-emptive counter argument to those who will inevitably call this sport stupid and woosy and tell us to get real swords, come ot an event yourself. After a while you will start to hurt.

PS: PM me if anyone is interested in learning more about this and maybe be interested in starting a practice.

Also, if you belong to an official Clan, what is it? I for one don't.

I actually do this myself, I wasn't aware that this name for it existed. In America it's called boffing, but I hesitate to use that word because apparently it's slang for gay sex in England or something.

I enjoy the "sport" quite well. I'm a terror with the spear, my friends hate facing me when I'm using it.

The official name last I heard was Belgarth, not Boffing, I've never heard that one before.

Sounds fun, so basically you sword fight with sticks and pipes.

I did it with a pole arm once. Oh and it was called boffing when I did it.

There are very specific rules to making these weapons. I suck at making them so I'm not the best canidate to ask those rules on. Strangley fun weapons to use are Rocks. Yes, you can make foam rocks to use. You throw them and they only work if you get a head shot, which instantly kills them. However only projectile weapons can hit a head, otherwise it doesn't count. Whats cool is my friend made a Key Blade for it, counted as a Great Axe.

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Originally Posted by corncracker

ANd as a pre-emptive counter argument to those who will inevitably call this sport stupid and woosy and tell us to get real swords, come ot an event yourself. After a while you will start to hurt.

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Woah, stop tempting me. Going to an arrangement of something which hardly can be called sport, that I find stupid AND getting hurt along the road. Well ain't that something. :mog:

There's a sport for this? Damn that's tempting.

We usually play with our own rules. No headshots are permitted, arm or leg hits disable, sometimes we rule two disabled limbs = defeat. We don't go by official rules, if you could call them that.

I play with wooden swords? And since moving to New Mexico I have been a bit lax in finding someone/a group of people to fight with. I've heard of and seen a society 'round the city's parks who wear medieval armor mockups and wield the accompanying armament; I forget exactly who they are, but doing anything in an organized manner makes me uncomfortable. Could be great, though.

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Originally Posted by Levian

Woah, stop tempting me. Going to an arrangement of something which hardly can be called sport, that I find stupid AND getting hurt along the road. Well ain't that something. :mog:

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Using 'soft' weapons lets you develop authentic, effective techniques with less injury than using live steel.
I'm in an historical re-enactment society, and as part of this I train in WMA twice a week. We start learning with wooden weapons - swords ("wasters") and staves, and the like. After a while, though, we replace the wooden 'blade' weapons with steel, so I usually fight with a blunted steel sword and light armour.

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I've heard of and seen a society 'round the city's parks who wear medieval armor mockups and wield the accompanying armament; I forget exactly who they are, but doing anything in an organized manner makes me uncomfortable.

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That sounds like the SCA - the Society for Creative Anachronism, an international group. I've been to plenty of their events, though I don't participate in their combat. They use heavy armour and fight with full-force blows, but using weapons made of taped rattan to reduce injury. It's good to watch, and very intensive exercise - but I prefer my club's style, where armour is less necessary because we fight to make light contact, but the weapons and techniques are more historically accurate.

As for boffing/Belgarth: in the SCA, they sometimes have kids' tournaments where they fight with 'boffers', short pipes wrapped in foam.
In my group's dance classes, we're currently learning a horribly complicated Renaissance dance called Buffons, which involves tricky footwork combined with choreographed 'fighting' against other dancers with a fake sword and bucker. Absolutely nothing like real combat, though:p

In steel/wood fighting, I'm reasonably proficient with several styles - quarterstaff, single sword, sword and buckler, dagger and bucker, and single dagger. Currently learning German longsword (based on Talhoffer's manual, I believe), and hopefully axe and spear styles in future.