We actually used to use shinai, but after an incident that involved two people on the ground bleeding we decided to reassess the equipment we used.:)

I can dig it. Better'n boken, though.

Though I still remember sparring with one of my friends and my cousin in the snow in 20 degree weather for about 4 hours straight when we first got the shinai. 5 minutes after we came in from the cold we ached so much we could barely move. But it was a ton of fun.

To show my twisted psyche, one of the best summers I ever had I was starving, unemployed and broke. All me and my roommates could do when we weren't looking for jobs was beat each other with shinai. Hours upon hours in the hottest summer to hit Michigan in years, hitting each other, eating blackberries off the bushes next to the vacant lot we practiced in and drinking water out of cleaned-out 2-liter bottles. Comin' home only when the light was gone bloodied, bruised and sore.

Neighbors thought we were maniacs, and I guess we were, but it was a blast.

Heh. I almost got my hand broken when a friend and I were sparring with (blunted) steel swords (trying very hard to keep contact light.) We decided after that to invest in the shinai.

It's funny, in a way, that the older I get, the less lethal the objects I attempt to hit my friends with.

Nothing really beats the ring of steel on steel, though. I'm surprised we never got the cops called on us, since you could hear it across the neighborhood. (Especially since we've had the cops called on us three times over the 5 years we've been using the padded sticks instead.)

Dudes, steel on steel is lovely. Steel on steel with adequate protective gear is better.

(please tell me you were at least wearing some kinda masks)

The first few years we lived here and had fighter practice in the front yard, we'd have cop cars by all the time. Pretty soon, though, that stopped as word got around about the weird folk on the corner. We have actually heard that there are fewer incidents reported in our immediate neighborhood. Apparently word gets around taht the folks on the corner have blunt instruments and aren't afraid to use them. Then they see me hacking at snowmen with live steel . . . We can always tell when there's a new cop on the patrol. I think the department sends them out our way just to break them in.

(please tell me you were at least wearing some kinda masks)

No. (read: "Both 19 and male.") In retrospect, it was really dumb. But my dad just kind of shook his head at it at the time telling my mom he'd done far more dangerous things as a teenager and just we'd find somewhere else to do it if they told us not to. Figured at least this way they were on hand to get us to a medical facility if necessary. Nearly did for my hand. The blunted sword tore a huge swath of skin off through my leather gloves and bruised the hell out of it. I'm amazed my thumb, at least, wasn't broken. But needless to say, that was the end of that.

Of course, even with the padded stuff we use now I could have lost an eye. Someone's sword broke under the padding without him realizing it and he sliced my eyebrow open and scratched my eyelid and down to my cheek. I started cussing at him, thinking he just wasn't using control until someone told me I was bleeding.

We make sure to do weapon checks before every game now, obviously.

A sane person would wonder why they still do this stuff.

A sane person would wonder why they still do this stuff.

Ehh, sane people don't get the swordy thing.

(But I'm still gonna go lovingly fondle my preciousss sabre mask for a while.)

So, I'm watching this totally fluffy movie on ABC family with Emma Caulfield and Bradley Cooper, because, you know, Emma Caulfield and Brad Cooper, and I come across a commercial for a sitcom called "Celeste in the City". And appearing in it is Nick Brendon as some kind of gay make-over artist. And he's a member of... a sort of posse of Queer Eye wanna-bes on acid. Does anyone know about this?

Hee. It's not a sitcom. It's made-for-TV movie by ABC Family, who seems to have somehow discovered that former BtVS actors are very talented and need work. (They also made See Jane Date with CC last fall.)

Anyway, from what I've heard, NB is playing a gay guy who helps his female cousin with a makeover. I'm not sure what her objective is, other than to be the best her she can be. There's probably a cute guy involved somewhere.

I wish I knew what happened to my late brother's pistol-back competition epeés...

Sigh.

You swordy type people know, don't you, that the History Channel is starting a four part series on "barbarians" tonight. Tonight is Vikings and Goths - promises to have lots of swords and gore. The next two parts are on the Huns and the Mongols.