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Hey all,My name is Alex. I am from Long Island NY and I'm really excited to try this out and hopefully attend the July event. I am a student so unfortunately I may miss some of the following events, but if I really enjoy myself I will try my very best to attend as much as I can.I am currently working on my character backstory and working on acquiring my costume. I will be playing a Human Warrior for those interested. Feel free to email or PM me, I'm available almost all the time.
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I don't think that would pass safety inspection, since all shields must be padded around the edges with pipe foam. If you were to pad the edges though, it's still made of rolled steel and not stainless steel. Rain could utterly destroy it with rust, not something you want to happen to a $300 collectable y'know?
Welcome!! It is always good to see people new to larping join us. Can't wait to meet you and your character. As alrady stated bring lots of socks. Don't forget a change of clothes for cast shift. A reusable water bottle/skin is also something good to bring as in the heat you get thirsty. Most important have fun.
This thread has a bunch of good insight on how to make your own shield:https://realmsofadventure.net/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=2734.msg22978#msg22978
I'll just second Gabranth's statement, especially if you aren't used to wearing heavier armor or hefting a heavier shield, it will definitely wear you down and tire you out during the event, particularly if you're going to be in a lot of fights. There's a fine line to tread between authenticity, bamfness, and comfort. Ultimately while you do want your costume and armor to look awesome, keep in mind that you're going to be wearing it for long periods of time, while being physically active, getting into fights and running through the woods. Pay attention to your personal comfort while wearing the costume. No one wants to have a bad event and being uncomfortable will just drag you down.
I'm fairly fit, I box, lift, run, and play airsoft. The only difference between this and airsoft is the weight is distributed differently, I could hold my rifle all day and my vest keeps anything on my person evenly distributed weight wise. But this seems different, since the bulk of weight is in my hand, and if I buy the armor I want, on my shoulders. I hadn't planned on wearing leg armor so the weight, if any would be concentrated on my arms and upper body. Though I wasn't really planning on wearing any armor to my first event, it's fairly expensive stuff.
Doing something for a weekend is a beast of a totally different color. Any sport/martial arts match lasts for an hour or two. Even if you spend an entire day playing airsoft or paintball, you also have to take into consideration that this is for 3 days. 12lbs doesn't seem very heavy and in truth it isn't, but carry that 12lbs around on your arms for hours of the day, over the course of 3 days as well as running (there's a lot of that) fighting and other exertions and you'll be panting. Throw in real armor and you're looking at another 15-50lbs (depending on what you're wearing) distributed all over you. Again, totally your choice and if you can do it, good on you mate. Another thought is that wearing metal armor in July also raises your chance for heat exhaustion substantially, if you haven't fought in armor in heat before (not sure if you're in SCA or other similar organization) you might not be aware of what your limits are. I've run around in chain mail before, and holy C@*# is that stuff heavy when you're running. As the others bought up also, the safety issue is the most important thing to worry about. But if your armor has no spiky bits then you should be ok.
So I just ordered my clothes and sword, I'm very excited and very nervous. Anything I can do to practice before the event?
Endurance is a huge thing that will give you an advantage although two weeks of training won't do much. The best thing I think you can do combat wise is try to make an actual style or form. Sometimes boffer combat is just so frantic and about who can hit who first and faster that it just looks lame. Two people who are fighting each other, who aren't trying to frantically trying to get the most hits in but are fighting more strategic trying to avoid hits as much as they are trying to land them both feel more realistic and is far more enjoyable for those watching.Besides combat the best thing to do is try to figure out what your character would do in a split second decision. Roleplaying for me tends to be far harder than combat and I spend alot of time trying to make sure that in a snap decision I'm doing what my character would do and not the first thing that comes to my oog mind.
Finding people to spar with is a great thing, and like Matt said finding a style to work with and practicing it works wonders as well. Take the skills you're coming into game with and look for movies and instructional videos on how to use them better. Sword and shield for example, look up SCA combat videos as they're a heavier version of boffer combat. Watch other people's movements, don't just watch their upper torso, footwork is just as important as anything else.
Welcome to the game! I sadly won't get to see you this event but if you like it and go to the August event I'll get to meet you then. Along with a change of clothes…and maybe a third set of clothes it its raining all weekend, and with a entire trailer of socks(you will need them!), you should bring a bag that fits into the world to carry some food and water on you. or any other things like money, notebooks…anything like that.
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