Dog Brothers Public Forum

http://www.burningman.com/

Anyone else going this year?

I'll be at Citrus Camp (Mercury and 4:30).  Stop by for a citrus-y beverage!

-milt

Woof Crafty,

When my group does knife sparring we treat the training knife as if it was a real knife, as I hope most people do.  We never hold it by the blade (even when just handing it to someone or picking it up off the ground) or just throw it down when the fight is over.  We try to avoid even exchanges and "knife boxing" during the fights.  It always takes a few sessions to break newbies (and even some experienced people) of the habit of just grabbing their opponent's blade when they get in close.  Similarly, you don't just rush in to get your stab in, completely ignoring the fact that your opponent just slashed you three times before you could get close enough.

When people do close, or any time both fighters are stabbing each other repeatedly, we have them back off and the fight continues.  Again, it takes a little experience to know when to back away in the heat of it all.

Anyway, my point is that at a Gathering, we're fighting a lot of people that we don't usually train with and unlike a stickfight, we're using simulated weapons and it's hard to know what "the rules" are.  Maybe you could just say a little more about this before we start on Sunday.

-milt