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Colin
Location: Wellington
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 Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 12:31 pm A NZ WMA 'council' |
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| knight of magdalene wrote: | | My thought is that WMA is like ama(asian martial arts) potentially a mainsream product. ie olimpic sport for example. |
I am not interested in WMA becoming Olympic sports. If you want a western martial sport, you already have modern fencing, amateur boxing, and wrestling (Free style, Graeco Roman) to choose from.
Personally I believe the Olympics and similar have been the ruin of martial arts. People play to the rules. Taking modern fencing for example. Due to the electronic nature of it any tap to a legal area is considered a hit. As soon as the hit has been registered it counts. Thus you get silly taps and suicidal, but nevertheless quick, moves. The concept of hit without being hit is out the door. It becomes a game of first hit. That's no way to fight for real. You can read about Aldo Nadi's account of his duel with sharp epee about this concept. Being first to hit is near irrelevant.
However, if people get enjoyment from such sport, so be it. It doesn't really bother me...unless someone comes along and makes assumptions from their sport background as some kind of fact (when it's clearly wrong).
| knight of magdalene wrote: | | The reference to Re enactment was made as a case study as to what not to do only. WMA is ofcouse a different kettle of fish. Nevertheless many WMA ( I will refer to these as sports persons for thats my take on the activity, like boxing the other western martial art is a sport) become interested in this fromparticipation in the likes of reenactment. |
The majority of people in New Zealand who do WMA have never done re-enactment. I expect this trend to continue growing.
While some systems of WMA are sportive (like London Prize Fighting), they are still in the mold of hit without being hit. The majority of WMA systems are not sportive.
What is holding WMA back in this country IMO is nothing to do with a lack of councils, but a lack of "off-the-shelf" safety equipment. The rules that I advocate are minimalistic, as in they barely exist. No target is illegal. Some of the throws and joint destruction techniques have to be limited, but I don't have a problem with people starting them (just not to completion.) For this level of play, I need some serious equipment that can handle it.
At some point a NZ federation will no doubt be instituted. It will only have two objectives. One: the schools that say they're doing WMA are doing WMA, and two: act as a lobby group to government.
In some respects a national federation has already started. |
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knight of magdalene
This account is inactive
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| Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 2:30 pm |
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The sporting aspect is the nature of the competition. ie to win makes it a sport. Weather or not a hit is a point will depend upon its real life counterparts effectiveness? I guess your seking the purity of the art which I respect.
As far as equipment is concerned, the kit I am imagining would be constructed of high density plastic. High Density Polyethylene
High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) is a rugged material which is easy to mould, has a high resistance to impact and is not affected by most chemicals. Principally used in injection and blow moulding it may also be vacuum formed or extruded.
Working Temperature Range: -35°C to +65° visit http://www.stowers.co.nz/rawmat.htm
the latest product is gray in colour and will stop certain medium cal bullet. it is light weight and can be molded using full protection metal kit as the template. The construction can follow that of the metal kit which protects the joints. I have been experimenting with this product and would be interested to see what your thoughts are about the designs. My current design is a composite of HDPE and carbon fiber (as used in bullet proof vests) cloth backing held in place within a gel of silicon medium. This is comparitively cheap to make and can be acheived in an home oven I am happy to sow my efforts in this area.
As far as the formation of the federation that is a good thing, it must have a methodology for sorting out certain issues in an independent manner. The sooner the better as I would like to train. |
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Colin
Location: Wellington
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| Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 3:49 pm |
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What "certain issues"?
I don't imagine that forming a federation will be on the horizon any time soon. If and when it is formed, it would only handle "certain issues" that were relevant to it. For example if the government decided to be like the State of Victoria Australia and ban swords, those "certain issues" would be greatly focussed on. It probably wouldn't be independent either: it would be trying to rally all those interested in having swords petition their MPs. This would include people outside WMA (it's quite surprising the number and variety of groups that have and like swords)
As for plastics, I'm not against the idea of using plastics. I've even investigated such, including the company behind the link you posted. |
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Phillip Shorter
Location: HSEMA, Hamilton
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| Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 2:00 am |
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I'm with Colin here. The only reason a 'federation', whatever that might look like, might form in the near future is precisely if the government moved to ban or license swords as Victoria did a few years back. And I tend to think that it would be more of a lobby group than anything else.
Don't get me wrong, the orderly part of my mind would love there to be a governing body for our arts, but frankly at the the moment the 'federation's' elected officials would outnumber the actual practitioners.... (at least from the NZSEMA).  Too many cooks and all that... |
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