@$$hole!: Ren Faire 2011 (part 6)

Armored up and ready to go. At the time this seemed like a terrible idea, but honestly the little kid in me just couldn’t resist the urge to dress up and sword fight with my friends.

It’s kind of like that short phase I went through in high school when I tried LARPing (live action role playing)…and then subsequently had my ass handed to me by a guy who was a professional fencer. The dude literally sliced open my arm with a padded sword made out of PVC piping wrapped in padding, surrounded in duct tape. But I digress….

For this battle we were using real rapiers (think “The Three Musketeers” or “Pirates of the Caribbean” type swords) which had been dulled considerably. The armor was mostly padding, but the helmet was an actual iron helmet. Visibility was pretty limited, and breathing got a little tough while fighting (I credit that mostly to the heat, though), and it didn’t help we were out in the sun, but again – it was fun!

I’ll go into some more details on the fight as this part of the arc continues. Speaking of which, tune in Friday to check out more!