[MR] "Answered Privately"

[Logan]

 all very true and i agree with your observations 100%.  hopefully the new
sem will have a little more common sense and we can work on putting our
sport back to what it should be.

regards
logan


www.ebonwoulfe.com

Never explain - your friends do not need it and your enemies will not
believe you anyway. 

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his
vengeance need not be feared. 




  


-----Original Message-----
From: atlantia-bounces at atlantia.sca.org
[mailto:atlantia-bounces at atlantia.sca.org] On Behalf Of Duke Galmr
Ingolfsson
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 3:40 PM
To: atlantia at atlantia.sca.org
Subject: Re: [MR] "Answered Privately"

I think the list machine ate the first attempt at this.....

Logan wrote:

> actually your majesty it reads:
>
>"an acceptable thrusting blow to the face shall be a directed touch and 
>shall be substantially lighter than to other parts of the body"
>  
>

The reasoning behind reduced force for face thrusts is safety. And I think
it's misguided.

This rule is a knee-jerk reaction to the rise in injuries as a result of
permitting directed blows to the face (thrusts). Rather than address the
real issues directly, the marshallate threw up a safety net that covers up 3
things: inadequate helm construction (specifically the chin strap and
padding system), inadequate armor inspection techniques, and poor
on-the-field marshalling.

There is no fundamental reason that blows to the front of the head are
inherently more dangerous than blows to the side or back of the head. In
fact, I could probably construct an argument that it's safer (assuming the
weapon (or part of the helm) doesn't strike the face). This also assumes a
properly constructed and fitted helm.

Inadequate Helm Construction
As a marshal, absolutely every helm failure I have witnessed was the result
of either bad padding or a bad chin strap. Sometimes these were items that
started off safe but degraded into an unsafe condition, but most often they
were just poorly done. You would have this beautiful stainless steel helm,
sturdy and well constructed, with a piece of kite string for a chin strap.

You see a lot of this because most helms are sold without padding or chin
straps. Those are left to the purchaser to finish themselves. 
Sometimes there are instructions, but mostly there aren't. So, generally,
the parts most likely to fail and cause injury are left to be installed by a
person that may not be best qualified to make them.

I don't blame the armorers completely. Customers are looking to get a pretty
helm for as little as possible so corners are cut. I am sure most armorers
would be happy to pad and strap their helms in a way that provides complete
protection for the person they are making it for. But, that takes time and
time = money. You get what you pay for, so when you buy a helm, if you are
not 100% certain you know what you are doing, have the padding and strapping
done for you by someone who does.

Inadequate inspection techniques
As a marshal, 90% of the helms I have failed were due to too much or the
wrong type of padding or inadequate chin straps. It's almost unheard of for
a helm made in the last 15 years to fail by falling apart. Removable grills
come off, chinstraps break or the padding doesn't actually prevent the helm
from striking the head.

This is an area that has been steadily improving and should really be the
layer of protection that limits helm injuries to extreme cases. The place
where it falls down is that armor inspection almost always happens in a
hurry between the time the fighting activity coordinator gets their act
together and the start time of the fighting. This means most inspections are
done on the body and in a queue of hot and only slightly patient fighters. A
proper inspection needs to start with the helm off so the chin strap,
padding system, grill fixing and welding can be inspected. Only then should
you have the fighter put it on and see if it fits properly and does the job.
The second problem is that marshals are nice guys (well most of them). 
They don't *want* to fail your helm. They understand about driving 6 hours
to fight and if this helm doesn't pass *right now*, you have to sit out.
Having inspections occur right before the fighting only makes that worse
since there isn't time to fix any field repairable problems that might
otherwise have been able to be made. As a result, marginal helms are passed.

Poor on-the-field marshalling
This has always been a problem and some solutions are actually making it
worse rather than better. The biggest problem is uneven enforcement. 
Fighters don't know what to expect from the marshallate. Some marshals are
very strict, but most are unwilling to step in and make calls. I am not
talking about "active" marshalling; I am talking about enforcing the basic
rules.

There is a knee-jerk reaction that occurs when someone gets hurt on the
field that the person on the other end is a bad guy and clearly doing
something wrong. Often, this turns out to not be the case. But, all anyone
remembers is that so-and-so got pulled off the field for hurting fighter_05.
This sort of reaction adds to the mistrust of the marshallate. Now,
sometimes people are behaving badly and jacking people way too hard (whether
this is to the face or not) and those people do need to be pulled.

But, we don't need special rules for face thrusts. We already have a rule
for excessive force. All this touch kill stuff has taken the decision making
(including the use of common sense) out of the hands of the fighters and the
marshals on the spot. And it's a shame.

Galmr
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