Quote:
Originally Posted by medievalbushman
I suspect all of these things are possible, and I know from personal experience that suppressing physical pain is %100 possible. In the combat sport I play (the one I was jabbering about earlier), pain is a given. When I first started, I was told that we'd go at my pace (at practices) but that I should expect lots of bruises and abrasions, and that more serious physical injury was a very real (if unusual) possibility. Eventually, you learn how to suppress and ignore pain, or you won't be able to play our game very much. It's pretty common for me to walk away from practices with large bruises. At a tournament last summer, I fought roughly 30 fights (possibly more, I didn't count), and at the end of it when I was taking off my armor, it was only then I noticed that my left side had gotten lit right up. I don't know how many times I'd been hit there, but I had a bruise roughly the size of an icecream pail lid under my armpit and extending over to my shoulder blade. That area was described by more than one comrade as "hamburger". I didn't feel it until I got in the shower half an hour later.
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Haha! I hear you! While kendo is much more of a sport, the Do, or breastplate only covers so much. Every so often I face someone with no te no uchi or finger control of the weapon and they hit hard and off target under my arm, above the Do. I get a lot of nice black and blue lines on my breast. Like you, I don't notice until I get home. Beginners are the worst. Sempai (senior students) will give kohai (junior students) openings for them to practice cuts. Guys like sledgehammer sam or mauling mary will just pound you. When you offer them kote or the wrist I have to flick my guard in front at the last second or it's like a bat coming down on my hand.
I also have a few scars on my hands and from fencing where my opponent broke a blade and it punctured my glove.