Belgarth

[Big D]

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:

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.

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.

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

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.