I'm definitely becoming more and more of the "when they pry the sword from my hand" opinion, though realistically the answer is more like "when a doctor tells me to stop". Knowing me that will have to be a number of doctors, after all I'm the guy who fought in Crown while still on the pneumonia medication.
The thing is, though, there are so many "inspirations". For instance, Finvarr who has never missed a Pennsic battle. At Crown this past weekend there was Vis in armor fighting. He was Crown Prince at my first RP event a score or more years ago, and he's just finished cancer treatment. I look at that and say, "what excuse do I have for not being in armor?"
If it comes to pass that I can't lift a sword anymore, there's always training, marshalling, cooking, and plenty of arts...oh, and flirting too.
"All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
Probably after I take off my armour and realize that I didn't have any amount of fun fighting that day. Even on the worst days I can usually find some small reward in participation and once that goes, it's probably best to hang 'em up.
I just started SCA fighting, so I have a hard time imagining when I would want to stop. On the other hand, I've been doing Dagorhir for over seven years now, so I have a bit more perspective. In both cases, though, I have so much fun every time I fight there's really no way I can realistically imagine a scenario in which I would willingly cease fighting permanently.
Maybe in 40 years, when I'm in my early 60s, I'll look around for something else to do with my time. I'm honestly not sure which game I would have to stop playing earlier--SCA because the equipment is heavier and the hits are harder, or Dagorhir because the fighting is rougher and the pace is faster. When I think about it, though, my father is 62 now, and he still runs distance races regularly (and the occasional marathon) and also had enough energy to take a year off of his regular university teaching job to work in schools in South Asia until next October.
When I get married and have kids, I expect I will lighten my fighting schedule a bit and spend more time, I dunno, reading and painting little soldiers, because it is easier to stop in the middle of those and take care of little ones. But once the kids get bigger and more independent, I imagine I would go back to a more regular fighting schedule.
Alessandro da Viterbo
Sir Magnus
A limerick: Muse, sing of that wrath Achillean/So much grief did it cause those Achaeans!/Heroes' souls did it it throw/Down to Hades below/While their flesh was by dogs and birds eaten.
I race cycling full time in the summer season, so I stop (more or less) each spring, from about mid March to late September and I keep thinking that the amounts of time I stop for will decrease the longer I am in the SCA.
I still find myself looking forward to a change in regular routine and focus come spring but I know that by Fall, I am hungering to put on armour with an insatiable appetite and thus it sort of keeps it fresh, keeps it new for me each year.
I guess there is part of me that figures if I ever find in the SCA what it seems that others have found, then maybe that will keep me from leaving each year, but as of yet, it hasn't happened completely yet...but I think there is part of me that really wants it to...
And each year I wonder if "this year is going to be the one that really sucks me in for good...
Last edited by Calder on Sat Nov 01, 2008 10:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I had to give up fighting when I discovered a bulging disc on the verge of herniating in my lower back. It was a pretty hard blow, I was 22 at the time. I'm hoping with some intense physical therapy and with my doctor's blessing to be able to get back in within a year or two, but who knows.
Donal Mac Ruiseart wrote:SNIP The spear may be the last weapon I hang up. And it may well be that at some point my comrades will have to take mine and someone else's and place a shield or two over them and carry me from the field one last time.
If that be so, so be it.
The mental image alone stirs goosebumps. I am only 32, and I hope to be fighting for a long time yet, but when the Lord Almighty sends His angels to call me home, let it be while I am on the field in armor. Then by the grace of God, let me be borne to my final resting place upon my shield.
I posted this in a bulletin on Myspace the other day:
"I have been down on bed rest for nearly a month after a near fatal MRSA infection and surgery.
Yesterday they took the tube out of my arm that was feeding intravenous antibiotics straight to my heart.
After 24 hours, the hole in my arm is finally closed and healed up.
I am getting off of my dead ass and going to practice.
WTF is your excuse?"
I think that explains my feelings on the subject.
Other than that, if I am ever not physically able to fight, or if it should become boring (which I don't see happening), I will probably quit playing entirely.
I joined because of the fighting, and I live for the fighting. After almost 13 years, I am still obsessed. And I don't see Rapier or Archery as viable alternative options.
Granted, I do a great many other things in the SCA besides fight, but if that were taken away from me, it would all lose it's magic, and I would leave.
Interesting question. I do several contact sports (fighting and rugby), because I find something there I don't find anywhere else. The single most terrifying thought in the world, to me, is the thought of having my doctor look me in the eye and say, "You simply can't do this anymore". On the one hand I've seen people push past this and continue doing what they love for years. On the other hand, I kept a team member awake through her seventh concussion while the ambulance came, watcher her learn how to walk again, and she's now playing field hockey again (poor life choices!). I try to be "nice" to my body because I don't ever want this to happen.
The one thing that could make me stop, I think, is if I lost the joy of fight. If some other consideration, like prowess, or politics, or whatever made it so miserable that the fun wasn't there anymore. I've stopped a lot of sports in my life, usually because I sucked so badly they were never any fun. But this is fun, I'm getting better, and I'm in control of whether other things overtake the joy.
Last edited by Caillech on Tue Nov 25, 2008 3:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Strength is itself victory. In weakness there is no happiness. When you wage a struggle, you might win or you might lose. But regardless of the short-term outcome, the very fact of your continuing to struggle is proof of your victory as a human being.
