Warrior workout

Society for Creative Anachronism one of groups to practice medieval tactics

Above, Sir Rockamotta, left, serves as squire and helps View reporter F. Andrew Taylor don his armor during Taylor?s one night of training at a weekly historical re-creational fighting event at Sunset Park, 2601 E. Sunset Road, May 21. Fighters use the practice sessions to test their skills in preparation for festivals and tournaments. Left, Black Talon fighter Charles Ingles, who fights under the name Vargas Nakamura, prepares for battle in the Queen?s Champion Tournament during the Boulder City Renaissance Faire, held March 7. Below Ingles, left, squares off against Taylor at the May 21 practice session. Photos by dale dombrowski/view Above, Sir Rockamotta, left, serves as squire and helps View reporter F. Andrew Taylor don his armor during Taylor?s one night of training at a weekly historical re-creational fighting event at Sunset Park, 2601 E. Sunset Road, May 21. Fighters use the practice sessions to test their skills in preparation for festivals and tournaments. Left, Black Talon fighter Charles Ingles, who fights under the name Vargas Nakamura, prepares for battle in the Queen?s Champion Tournament during the Boulder City Renaissance Faire, held March 7. Below Ingles, left, squares off against Taylor at the May 21 practice session. Photos by dale dombrowski/view Above, Sir Rockamotta, left, serves as squire and helps View reporter F. Andrew Taylor don his armor during Taylor?s one night of training at a weekly historical re-creational fighting event at Sunset Park, 2601 E. Sunset Road, May 21. Fighters use the practice sessions to test their skills in preparation for festivals and tournaments. Left, Black Talon fighter Charles Ingles, who fights under the name Vargas Nakamura, prepares for battle in the Queen?s Champion Tournament during the Boulder City Renaissance Faire, held March 7. Below Ingles, left, squares off against Taylor at the May 21 practice session. Photos by dale dombrowski/view Advertisement

An odd sight greets people who happen by the south end of Sunset Park on Wednesday evenings. A dozen or so people dressed in medieval armor can be seen smacking one another with sticks.

On the sidelines, another couple dozen armored prospective combatants await their turns in the ring. Seated around are perhaps another hundred or so folks, some in medieval garb and some in everyday clothing, all smiling, chatting and enjoying the spectacle.

Wednesday night fight practice at Sunset Park, 2601 E. Sunset Road, is an odd collection of groups, including the Society for Creative Anachronism, the Empire of Chivalry and Steel, the Adrian Empire, and the Old World Society. The fighting is restricted to rings marked by strings on posts.

"That's my 'magic' string," fighter Ty Hummon said. "I'm responsible for what goes on in there."

Hummon jumps through the bureaucratic hoops and insurance issues to make sure everything is legal and safe on fight night.

"I want to be inclusive here, not exclusive. We have representatives from eight different organizations here tonight," he said.

The groups are sub-groups of the four national historical re-creation groups with branches in Las Vegas. Hummon fights with Black Talon, a group of SCA fighters.

The fights are not nearly as dangerous as they look. They can't be. The fighters wear heavy armor over quilted padding. A blow can be felt, but doing serious damage is difficult. To say the least, it's an aerobic workout, as the fighters bob and weave under the additional weight of the armor.

"He's not going to tell you," said Hummon, "but Rocco's lost 70 pounds since he started fighting."

Rocco Landy also is a Black Talon fighter.

"People who get heavily into fighting tend to lose weight and gain muscle mass, particularly the shoulders, arms and legs," Landy said.

Much of the armor is handmade, although not always by the fighter wearing it. Others are bought through specialty catalogs or at renaissance faires. Helmets, in particular, are complicated and important enough that they almost always are bought from a professional armorer. Much of the armor is made of leather and plate steel, although a sharp eye will spot a number of plastic elbow pads or shin guards borrowed from some other sport, disguised and repurposed as medieval armor.

"It sounds intense, it looks intense, but anybody can fight if it's in them," Hummon said. "Size, age and gender is definitely not an issue."

As an example, Hummon cited a mother and son team who fight.

There usually are two rings, representing the two major philosophies of historical re-creational fighting. Some groups fight with wooden weapons and swing with full force. Other groups use unsharpened steel weapons and one-quarter force.

"Over there," said Landy, indicating the steel fighting ring, "they think we're crazy for fighting full force. Over here, we think they're crazy for fighting with steel."

The wooden weapons are mostly shinai swords, which are practice weapons used in the Japanese martial art of Kendo.

They are made of four slats of bamboo bound together at several points, and are designed give a little upon impact, reducing the effect of the blow on an opponent.

There are various lengths of shinai. Some fighters have improvised pole arms by attaching a short shinai to the end of a pole.

Legal blows can hit the body, the head, the arms, the torso and the thighs. The knee and below are not fair targets.

"A lot of us still have to go to work in the morning," Hummon said. "You can really mess up a knee, so they are definitely off limits. The scoring of blows is on an honor system. Just touching your opponent with the sword doesn't count, the blow has to be one that would cause damage if the weapon were real."

"If I hit you hard, and you say it wasn't hard enough to cause damage," said Landy, "that just means I have to hit you harder next time.

It is so much fun at the end of the night to kick back and have a beer with the guy you were fighting and say, 'ah, man, you hit me so good,' or 'did you see that fight those guys had?' " Landy said. "It's the same sort of thing you do after a good baseball game or football game. It's so much fun."

The groups meet at the south end of Sunset Park, near the northeast corner of Warm Springs Road and Eastern Avenue, on Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. There is no charge to watch the fights, although actually joining one of the organizations that fights there involves fees ranging from $30 to $35.

For more information, visit www.sca.org.