Light sparring armor used in european mediavel fighting

[rawnshah]

I found some interesting possibilities for body armor on the Revival.us site. The helmet is very much a kendo helmet with neck-guards:

For $120 that's not bad but a little high. The good thing is that they have many different sizes.

More interesting is the protective gloves which they use when fighting with (unsharpened) steel weapons in rapier-style fencing. While it's not as hard an impact as ours, a hit with that will easily fracture or break unprotected bones.

It's kevlar reinforced for cut protected and padded on all fingers, the back of the hand, the wrist and a lower forearm. Their $70 price is about right.

The coolest thing of theirs which I like is the body suit.

It is a single piece unit with hard plastic on elbows, shoulders, front, and most of the back. You'd still need the helmet and the gloves. If there was something similar for the knees and shin, that would be awesome.


I guess what we'd really need if we had such outfits are tougher and harder goshinken.

[rawnshah]

I should add that a shinai is relatively much less damaging than a solid wood bokuto. While it can still leave a pretty nasty bruise with full force, it's not likely to break your arm. The shape and grip of the shinai (like our goshinken) however encourages improper grip and attacks since most folks forget the proper angle of the edge (hasuji). For the judges it is also harder to tell if they made a proper attack with the "edge" of a shinai (if there is such a thing). On the other hand with a bokuto I can usually tell if one of the student's grip is off or if they're using the flat of the blade.

[rawnshah]

The armor listed above is what we would consider for sparring with a bokuto, most likely at half or less power. The difference is that even with that armor, at full power it is possible to crush your bones through the padding. The padding is there more for avoiding incidental harm.

So far we haven't gone that step yet. I can't force everyone to get this equipment since it can be expensive but it would fun once people did. I still have to buy them myself.

[Christopher Arendt]

Yes but is it machine washable? :)

Instead of using a Goshinken you would have switch to Shinai for practice.
Those are the kind of helmets we use at NAU for Saber practice.
(The entire goal of saber is to try and take off your opponents head, so it HURTS)
You can take a hit to the head with a Bokato in one of those fencing helmets and barely know it.
(Don't ask how I know this.)

[Andrew Dicenso]

I think if I had one of those suits I'd be too tempted to run around pretending to be Masterchief lol. Thats really neat looking though, maybe we could get a class set.