Wednesday, June 14, 2006
I Fought With Light Sabers
I haven't posted anything lately because (a) I am a lazy bastard, and (b) I have been busy marking exams. Exam marking is without doubt the most mind numbing part of teaching.
To take my mind off of things I was asked to help present a seminar on sword fighting for a sci-fi/fantasy writers convention , Conflux 3. This was held in Canberra on the weekend and I got to fight with light sabers.
We were there to do some serious fighting, and we did. Basically we were trying to show fantasy writers what "real" sword fighting actually looked like. This was done in the hopes of getting more realistic sword fights in fantasy novels - I hate ready a novel where my "suspension of belief" is shattered by something I know is impossible. This is the problem of being a sword fighting comp-sci lecturer.
Anyway, in addition to the steel on steel fighting, there was a stall at the con. selling Master Replicas Light Sabers. They were about $300 a pop, but they were very sweet. They light up sequentially, they have the right sound effects, they make the right noises when they hit something and they are quite robust. My instructor, Paul Wagner, were given some Light Sabers to play with for a photo shoot. Then later during our seminar we did an Emperor versus Luke battle. I was Luke and did all of the standard twirling and whirling in my attacks. Paul just stood there in a defensive posture and cut at my hands every time I stuck them out. No wonder Luke lost his hand - who came up with the light saber fighting system?
I can thoroughly recommend these sabers as a safe investment in geek chic.
To take my mind off of things I was asked to help present a seminar on sword fighting for a sci-fi/fantasy writers convention , Conflux 3. This was held in Canberra on the weekend and I got to fight with light sabers.
We were there to do some serious fighting, and we did. Basically we were trying to show fantasy writers what "real" sword fighting actually looked like. This was done in the hopes of getting more realistic sword fights in fantasy novels - I hate ready a novel where my "suspension of belief" is shattered by something I know is impossible. This is the problem of being a sword fighting comp-sci lecturer.
Anyway, in addition to the steel on steel fighting, there was a stall at the con. selling Master Replicas Light Sabers. They were about $300 a pop, but they were very sweet. They light up sequentially, they have the right sound effects, they make the right noises when they hit something and they are quite robust. My instructor, Paul Wagner, were given some Light Sabers to play with for a photo shoot. Then later during our seminar we did an Emperor versus Luke battle. I was Luke and did all of the standard twirling and whirling in my attacks. Paul just stood there in a defensive posture and cut at my hands every time I stuck them out. No wonder Luke lost his hand - who came up with the light saber fighting system?
I can thoroughly recommend these sabers as a safe investment in geek chic.
# posted by David and Melissa @ 21:48 
