Im just putting this out there... At the event, I thought that I had a pretty good handle on what would and what would not pass prop check. Or maybe what should and should not pass. I did see something there that made me wonder. I was at the community corner table for the Kendo, Naginata and Iaido club, where Im told that we received quite a stern talking to about a shinai which was on the table. Fair enough, I do know that a shinai shouldnt pass prop check, though I can guarantee you that nobody at the table would have allowed anyone passing by to pick it up and try to swing it around. (We dont even have beginning students do that for the first couple of weeks.) Okay, I can accept that, and in future, well be very certain to not have our gear left unsecured. What gave me the WTF moment was a guy walking around with a couple of lightsabers. From the look of them, Id say that theyre the ones available from ultrasabers (I have a couple of those myself) which are lauded as combat ready. The heavy grade blades that these come with are rated as being the equivalent of a bokuto in strength, and theres NO WAY that a bokuto should pass prop check. (Honestly the number of people who try to get one of these in astonishes me.) the regular blades are still more solid than a shinai. This fellow had two of them, and was swinging them around in the hallway in front of the community corner tables, and yes, they had the bands around them from prop check. A shinai is actually designed to be very difficult to inflict serious injury on another person. I can say with certainty that if I wanted to actually harm another person, and I had a shinai in my hands, I would drop the shinai and use my fists, with which I could inflict far more damage. This probably would not be the case for my lightsabers. Im actually fairly certain that I could use those to break bones. I guess what Im saying here is that the people at prop check maybe should be a little more diligent in what they check for at the event. The blade may be hollow plastic, but its polycarbonate, which is both harder and stronger than bamboo, plus its all one piece, as opposed to the 4 pieces that the shinai is made from (Which serves to make it less dangerous as a practice weapon.) If those light sabers can pass prop check, but a shinai cant, then I would argue that is the spirit of the rule being defeated by the letter of the rule. This is NOT intended as a critique of the rules, more as an observation of how they were enforced.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 00:13:32 +0000
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