From the pseudo-frontlines: St. Bunstable Demo

I'm definately getting old; college students look absurdly young to me.

I participated in a demo of SCA rapier fighting at the University of Washington (whose SCA chapter is the College of St. Bunstable). I was only expecting the fighter I carpooled down with and myself, but we actually got half a dozen people, plus some fencers from another group who showed up later.

Most of the SCAdians there were adults, but there were a fair number of current students, plus some student spectators. I've never really thought of college students as young before, but several of them just seemed... young. Not immature, just not experianced yet.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the past; probably a lot more than is healthy. Mostly I miss the atmosphere of college; in retrospect I had more short-term freedom then than I do now. Here if I want to take a day off I need to get approval, and use up some of my limited vacation time. In college I could just take it. Skip classes or labs, meetings and activities. In the long run I've got more freedom now; more control over my life and more options, anyway. There's always a price for skipping class, and in the long run you pay it.

Right, the demo. Had a good time, did some marshaling, some heralding for the fighting, and of course some stabbing and being stabbed.

I think my assessment of risk has also changed, or been conditioned. The other (non-SCA) fencers who showed up have lower minimum armor and weapon standards than we do, and allow some attacks we don't. Marshaling for people who I could see were fighting with gear that wouldn't pass inspection under the kingdom rules was pretty stressful, but ten years ago I'd have happily fought that way. Do I just better understand the fragility of the human body from my EMS experiance? Or has my tolerance for personal risk dropped? Or is it that I wasn't taking the chance myself? I do find that I caution others against risks I take myself.

I'm not sure why that is.