Go back in time with LARP

 
Put on a Medieval costume, pick up a foam sword and get ready to LARP.
 
It's called Live Action Role Play (LARP, for short), and it's how a lot of people in the Ozarks spend their weekends.
 
If you drive down South National by Phelps Grove Park, you're bound to have seen larping. The people who do it say it may look a little strange, but it's a safe sport the whole family can enjoy. 
 
Take a swig from your Medieval canteen and get ready to larp.
 
"You hit somebody as hard as you need to hit somebody," Jordan Hickey says.
 
The goal is to be the last person standing.
 
"It's not any worse than a football game," Christine Nielsen says.
 
A foam sword is your only weapon.
 
"It's completely padded," Nielsen says. "I'm an older woman, and I can take hits from these guys and not be hurt."
 
This may look like a free-for-all, but there are rules.
 
Here's how it works: if a player is hit in the arm, that player cannot use the arm the rest of the game. If the same arm is hit again, the player is dead.
 
Some fighters take on the roles of Medieval characters as they fight historic battles.
 
"It's a good cardio workout," Hickey says.
 
This group is just in it to win it.
 
"Me? I'm not as much of a role-player," Hickey says. "I'm here for the fighting."
 
Plus, some old-fashioned group exercise.
 
"We like to offer today's youth a safe, drug-free alternative to video games," Hickey says. "Most kids these days, they want to sit, play World of Warcraft, exercise these muscles," he says while flexing his fingers.
 
"Just seemed like a fun thing to come to and figure out what it was all about," newcomer Lydia McAllister says.
 
She walked onto the field and got a quick lesson.
 
"It's really fun," McAllister says. "Like, I just jousted or whatever."
 
And to the naysayers, these knights and maidens want to dispel a myth.
 
"That we're nuts. We're not," Nielsen says. "We're just a group of people drawn here that feel like sword fighting is the thing we need to do."
 
There are several groups in the Springfield area and they participate in battles around the country.
 
The two groups featured in the KOLR/KSFX story practice Saturday and Sunday afternoons around 3 p.m. at Phelps Grove Park.
For the video visit http://ozarksfirst.com/content/video/?cid=156111

And so it began......

Dawn breaks, war looms, the evil Lord is gathering his armies to wage a campaign of destruction upon the free peoples of the world. It is up to I, Sir Maximilan Pegasus to stop him, with my trusted band of adventurers we must gather the enchanted sword of Tek, the Shield of Way-Lem and the amulet of Subsidence and together we shall slay this abomination! “TIME FREEZE” And bam, the fantasy world fades away, the enchanted sword of Tek in my hand is a rubber sword smothered in coloured ribbons with a laminated card cable tied to the hilt, I look down and I’m wearing plastic armour and unflattering heropants, and the magical world of my imagination washes away to reveal a field in Wigan, but you know what? It’s larp and I’m a larper, it’s what I do.
I started larping when I was 17, I’d never role-played before, I’d never played D&D or Warhammer, never played WoW or any form of online game, I’d never even read Lord of the Rings, I feel somewhat privileged that I hadn’t done any of those things, I think it gave me an untainted attitude towards what larp could be, I had no preconceptions about saving the maiden fair, slaying the dragon or smiting the liche, to me it was just a new thing to try.
It was cold, really cold, 10am on a September morning, the rain was battering down and I’d been given a faux fur tunic, a mouldy old sword and been pointed towards a man and told, “You’re monstering, there’s the ref he’ll tell you what to do.” I obeyed, I played wave after wave of zombies, orcs and various line monsters and to be honest, was cold, bored and hungry. That is, until lunchtime, the teams switched sides, I got into the kit I’d scrounged up, as with most first timers, a black trenchcoat. I took the mouldy old sword, stood with my fellow adventurers and it hit me, I’m a god damn hero!
Pow, there it was, a new larper was born.