Oh yea, I meant it is not lethal or so when someone knocks you at the top of your head with it or so. Even with the men on - which itself is imho not a very great piece of protection - if you get hit around your ears it can be quite excruciatingly painful. Which was one of my beefs with the whole sport - why can't you have proper protective gear? It is not realistic to pretend that because some spot doesn't earn you a point that it won't be hit. Quite contrary, you can't have enough protection when sparring. I like how in HEMA you can have full plate and be riding a fricking horse if you just agree on it amongst yourselves without someone shouting heresy in the background. Which reminds me of another thing, the idea that you shouldn't try to intentionally kill your opponents with full force, stiff gripping and keeping delivering more force even after you've made contact with the other guy's body. In order to keep things remotely humane it is good to have a relatively loose grip and relax upon hit while also trying to make a cut so the momentum isn't directly against a bone or so. Full force being more of a thing you can agree with your special friend case by case.
Without trashing anyone (yea, right, like that has stopped me before), a significant difference in Western and Japanese thinking: Japanese emphasize 'spirit', "I win every time because of my warrior spirit which you lack". See a kendo match, a guy stands perfectly still, in his own world of thoughts. The other guy 'splits his head' with a perfect strike but the recipient is unaffected, displaying stoic oblivious face despite being just attacked with a head splitting strike. No point is awarded for the guy who would now be dead "displayed indominable warrior spirit". (Which I always mistake for "wtf just happened") Also, they practice hitting the other guy without any concern for your safety. Essentially, open up your defense and hit the other guy in the head as he is splitting your head. Winner is the guy with "more spirit" and who's hit lands 0.01 seconds before the other one. Nevermind that you just got yourself killed with it, you "won". Also, discouraging anyone under 50 from learning how to parry or evade because it's dishonorable to try to save your life. I was also going to link a video of US task force "the fleet that came to stay" that shot hundreds of Kamikaze down every week with almost no casualties to themselves but I digress. Then there's the whole thing about bullshido, that ancient tradition that was invented and popularized in the early 20th century by Imperial (peasant) Japanese officials to boost support for military. See Satsuma Rebellion, the samurai revolting against emperor (Last Samurai) had plenty of rifles with them but when they saw that they couldn't overcome a single fortress of a handful of conscripts and heard of the imperial response almost everyone defected. Nevermind honor, it was often more about who seemed like he was going to win except for the ring leaders who couldn't really switch over after having started a rebellion personally. Because it was recognized that the 20th century conscripts could not live up to made up ideals, they came up with a cool solution (look it up) known as hiropon*. As a standard part of rations it helped them tremendously and allowed their troops to march longer, eat less and have more "warrior spirit". *We know it as crystal meth. Now, what do the Western people usually think? Swords? Why not make a sword that you hardly need to maintain at all that will last you a lifetime, instead of something that takes 10 hours to maintain over it's short lifespan of a few months of intensive use. If you're going to make armor, why not make armor that is impervious to most attacks while at it. How about learning to parry before you're 50 years old, might help you survive to that respectable age. What is similar is that the whole chivalric code was something aristocrat people (who received taxes and didn't pay any) came up with in 18th century to honor their ancestors for their birthright to decadence and vanity. "At least great grampa was a badass! But not just badass, he knew how to dance and recite poems too so I'm connected to him because I too like flowers and poems!" In both West and Japan people have this notion of a sophisticated and culturel and honorable warrior elite that never really existed the way it is commonly understood these days. Among both knights and samurai there were plenty of bureaucrats and officials, people who were more skilled at bean counting than with the sword they'd inherited. Or if they were unlucky they wouldn't be good at anything but they'd still carry the hereditary rank because there wasn't exactly any kind of estate police going around and handing out certificates saying "congrats, you've now officially earned your title with your martial arts prowess".
