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Shamelessly copied from the blog over at Castle Argghh! ( www.thedonovan.com ) but then, the poster copied it from a Google users group, so I don't feel too bad about it.

If you ever served in the military and underwent Basic Combat Training that included the use of pugil sticks, you should relate to this. For background, "SCA" is the "Society for Creative Anachronism", a sort of role-playing re-enactors organization that favors the medieval period with regard to dress and action-oriented skills, like sword/pike/jousting stuff...and they take it pretty seriously. "Ranks" are established based on your mastery of the various skills.

The Story:

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Pugil sticks + SCA instantly makes me think of the fine & funny tale of Duke Vissevald Selkirkssen in Basic Training.

(Copied from Google Groups, since the comment bot won't let me link to it...)
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The sergeant was teaching the recruits how to fight with sticks, and the usual routine was for the sergeant to challenge one of the newbies to hit him. The newbie would be completely unable to touch the sergeant, and this would establish the meme of "The Sergeant knows infinitely more than you do and you have to learn to do it his way".

However, Vis succeeded in hitting the sergeant pretty well. They sparred for a while, and the training officer up on a tower (watching all the various units down on the field training) called down, "Hey, Sergeant. Ask that guy if he's in something called the Society for Creative Anachronism."

Sergeant calls back, "He says he is. What's that mean?"

"It means you can't hit him."

Sergeant pauses a moment, and then calls up, "He says he's a Knight. What does that mean?"

"It means they can't hit him either."

LOL! Not all SCA folks are knights. Some of us are artisans. Only the fighters can become knights, but it takes years of practice and tourniments to earn that title.

Ld. Wilhelm von Trevis