Survival Arts

A recent attempt at training in armor

Last Tuesday night, I had the interesting, frustrating, enlightening experience of training in a few pieces of modern armor. My teacher, Dale Seago, had some observations which he wrote up on MartialTalk.com. The pics of him in armor were taken by me with my Olympus E-1; the other pics were taken by someone else with their camera.

I'd love to find an affordable set of well-constructed, wearable, Warring States Period yoroi I could train in, but the most popular set of modern-made gear, Hanwei's "Nobunaga" style armor, has gotten reviews which pretty much sum up to "good basic craftsmanship, very poorly conceived & ahistorical design." Still looking.