HEMA practice

Met with William Phillips this evening and we got in a couple hours of good practice on Fiore's hand-to-hand, dagger and sword techniques.  I was able to demonstrate my adaptation of the Absolute Force chest protector to good advantage, I think; Will seemed positively impressed.  The basic idea is to sew the AF chest protector inside of an airsoft chest-and-back protector (which is itself water proof) thereby making placement retention of the chest protector more secure during active practice while increasing the level of protection by some degree.  This airsoft device isn't adequate protection on its own from a thrust, but the combination is able to handle a quite firm thrust to the chest with little-to-no slippage of the blade point across the surface of the protector. I did have Will deliver a medium strong cut with his nylon feder V-3 to the back panel and the result makes me confident this will be useful in any kind of fall or roll.  By wearing this under a sparing jacket, this will hopefully reduce the sponge effect in the torso area as well.

The V-TAC airsoft chest protector is available from Amazon for $21.95, this spool of waxed thread is listed at $6.95, and the Absolute Force chest protector is available from Purpleheart Armory for $27.00 (plus shipping; no Prime membership there).

A few minutes with an electric drill put 2 pairs of 1/4 inch dia. holes (spaced about an inch apart) along the bottom of the AF chest protector, following which I sewed it to the inside of the airsoft protector.  Maybe 1/2 an hour all in?  Pretty simple really and I'm quite pleased on my brief experience with the combination so far.