I volunteered to teach 'stick fighting' for the 5th & 6th grade Medieval Feast at my kid's elementary school. Based on last year's piece, this could have meant having two kids essentially do a dance with two long dowels, clacking them against each other in well choreographed... err, stick clacking.

Fortunately, armed with a good teacher and a lot of duct tape, we went for stage combat instead. Specifically, stage combat using weapons student-build from Lukrain's Guide to Boffers.

We're using the basics of stage fighting as I learned them, rather than sport boffer. To wit:

1. The defender controls the action.
2. Cover as much distance as inefficiently as possible.
3. Play for the audience, not each other.
4. If you get stuck in the routine, call 'Have at your' and fall back to the basic four-hit pattern.
5. Always miss three ways (be blocked; check blow in case block fails; stand too far to connect in any case).

And here's what I've learned so far.

1) Kids like hitting each other. This makes my job much easier than my other 'teaching hobby', astrophysics for K12 students.

2) Kids shut up if you let them hit each other. Advice I've taken to heart in my own household.

3) Keep It Simple, Sandy. Always true, but here, truer than usual. My original suggested choreography was a brilliant fusion of ren faire banter and medieval chivalry with a sprinkling of Elizabethan whimsy. That didn't make it past the first script meeting.

4) Emphasize noise over hitting.

There are few things as boring as watching two people with foam swords standing in one place swinging their blades into each other. As a sport, fine, for spectators-- lame. But... take away the kid's swords and have them do the choreographed hitting, and we get NOISE! And action! And drama!

In fact, I find the 'fighting sans blades' performances better than when they have swords in hand. So they have to 'sell' the routine pantomime before they get their blades for a given practice.

The most interesting social dynamic is the script decision on whether to have a 'good guy/bad guy' plot or 'two noble opponents face off' stance. At first, the group voted to have a hero/heel plot. But when the two noisy proponents of that plot were absent one day, the vote changed to 100% "we are all noble"... and the result ended up playing better dramatically.

The kids have come up with a lot of interesting bits to put in. They wanted a disarm scene. They added some nice vocal flair to the entrance salute. And they definitely wanted a death. So I've updated my rules.

6. Remember, it's not fun and games unless someone dies at the end.

Until next month,
Sandy, freelance

Now also twice weekly as The Daytime Astronomer and via twitter: @skyday