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Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

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Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#51

Post by irrational »

Dlanv wrote: post #23
irrational wrote: post #19

1925 in Great Britain? So, this was published just a few years after the end of World War I. I presume it was written by people who actually fought in the war. I wonder how much of this reflected the skills they had learned or used as soldiers in that war?

I'm not sure they fought with quarterstaffs or rapiers in WW1. The boxing and jiu jitsu perhaps.

Apparently swords were used in the war.

http://www.militarian.com/threads/use-of-the-sword-in-ww1.70...

Hitting each other with sticks seems like something people at war would do ;-)

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#52

Post by troon-lover »

throwawayboise wrote: post #7
themodelplumber wrote: post #2

Holy smokes! Reading this over, I'll bet there were more than a few injuries among the groups that practiced it. Imagine sending your kid off for a fun weekend and then watching them come home Sunday morning with an acute elbow injury from an arm bar... Scouting was dangerous enough without that stuff. You could get lost and even die in any number of unexpected ways. I watched a friend take a full swing of a wood axe…

At the time this was written, boys learning to face danger, fight, and possibly getting injured was considered normal.

No post body was provided.

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#53

Post by nytesky »

ddoolin wrote: post #43
kjanssen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey man, my first year at summer camp all I did was basket weaving, leather working, and pottery. I originally planned to do swimming and some other adventurous stuff but was too overwhelmed by the swim test to be allowed in the lake and had a bit of a meltdown before changing course. I spent the whole week chilling in camp or the crafting grove working with my hands - it was great. A few years later I went to a diff…

I wasn't at all worried BEFORE that swim test, but afterwards I can safely say that was legitimately difficult and pretty terrifying. Especially when you realize the lake we did it in was full of leeches, which was completely foreign to me at the time.

Ah summer lake leaches. Stuff of nightmares. My understanding was as long as you didn’t touch the mucky bottom you were in the clear? I swam in New England lakes for 20 years and never had one myself but saw several.

Probably why I did the mile swim several times, treading water to keep leach free builds endurance.

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#54

Post by throwawayboise »

jvanderbot wrote: post #48

I really love this. I am a firm believer in everyone studying _some_ martial art (player's choice). For the following reasons: - It teaches an insane amount of respect when two people have to hold themselves back to practice - It teaches self-discipline, mostly in the long-forgotten art of keeping yourself from becoming so angry you cannot function with form. - It gives a crazy amount of confidence to know you are at…

I could support kids learning boxing if it was limited to body blows. With what we are learning about concussion, it seems to be more and more understood that blows to the head are never OK. Maybe you still need to teach defense against head blows, but they should probably not be allowed in competition. Getting battered in the head until you cannot stand up or respond should be right out.

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#56

Post by mistrial9 »

ilamont wrote: post #10

Some merit badges involve strenuous physical challenges, such as hiking (multiple long-distance hikes including a 50-miler). The canoeing MB requires learning how to get back on an overturned canoe while in deep water, which is bloody hard. They still have badges for shooting and archery, too. There are also some badges that were unexpected - plumbing, fixing farm equipment, computer game design.

canoe merit badge here

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#57

Post by mistrial9 »

jvanderbot wrote: post #48

I really love this. I am a firm believer in everyone studying _some_ martial art (player's choice). For the following reasons: - It teaches an insane amount of respect when two people have to hold themselves back to practice - It teaches self-discipline, mostly in the long-forgotten art of keeping yourself from becoming so angry you cannot function with form. - It gives a crazy amount of confidence to know you are at…

not sure how anyone can recommend boxing now ; all those interactions require the right social environment, things can go wrong quickly. I reflect on learning about places in the USA where they take wrestling seriously, which at the time seemed like low-income, blue collar sort of places.. but now I realize that the social interaction between men there was rugged, but they had norms and ways to regain equilibrium. Meanwhile multi-cultural urban school, really a bad idea to have regular and repeated situations where students strike others, IMHO.

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#58

Post by wespiser_2018 »

ilamont wrote: post #44
omegaham wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was also our troop. You couldn't make Life Scout before you were 15 thanks to the leadership requirements, and that meant that the earliest you could get Eagle was sometime at age 16. The vast majority of them got it just before they turned 18. The projects were intended to be ambitious and demanded that the Scout do the bulk of the planning and dealing with the bureaucracy. Imagine my surprise when our troop we…

That's the way it is for our troop. Most of the kids aren't able to get Eagle before they are HS juniors and are 16 or 17. A few just made it in before turning 18. The bureaucracy is a mistake. I know why Scouting does it - BSA organizational culture, abuses in the past, trying to apply standards across local troops - but a lot of it falls on troop volunteers to and parents to nag scouts to death and fix the inevitab…

that's me and my friend: we both made eagle scout at 17, and the ceremony for me was after I turned 18.

My first troop was very by the book, and the last eagle scout in the troop was the scoutmasters son, maybe 5 years before I joined. That troop disbanded, and I finished my award at another troop were it was a bit easier, but still a lot of work.

For me, earning Eagle scout required me to stay active in scouting through age 17, and do one (or maybe 2) extra weeks at summer camp to earn enough merit badges. Once I was older (16/17) and in my second troop, I already had the leadership requirements, so I just went to meetings and help out with the kids that were much younger than me while I planned my project.

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#59

Post by glowingly »

germinalphrase wrote: post #39
thaumasiotes wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but talking to friends about favorite video games while weaving them was like free therapy. This is backwards. Your friends aren't cheap knockoffs of a therapist. Therapists are people you pay to pretend to be your friend.

This is bassakwards. A therapist isn’t supposed to be - let alone pretend to be - your friend at all.

No parasocial experience really is. However, intent of the therapist may not be fully acknowledged by the patients.

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#60

Post by jghn »

ilamont wrote: post #24
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sure. I was a quiz bowl captain, president of the national honor society, and placed yearly at the state science fair and I didn't list those on a professional resume either. It takes very little effort to be an Eagle Scout. I completed all requirements including the community project aside from the board review before I turned 13. Our scoutmaster suddenly quit on us to attain his MS in engineering (his employe…

> It takes very little effort to be an Eagle Scout. I completed all requirements including the community project aside from the board review before I turned 13. It really varies from troop to troop. Ours is old-school, by the book, multiple leadership positions required for half-year terms. No one got an Eagle who was under 15 and the projects are very involved with construction or logistics. Tearing down and rebuild…

I am an Eagle Scout. I would never put it on my resume, and I roll my eyes when I see a resume with it on there. Ignoring the always present "it was harder back then" (fwiw, in my day average ages started to plunge from 15/16/17 to 13/14/15), my point still stands.

I can see it being okay as a first job out of college or similar. I got my Eagle at 17, and I could imagine someone with no real work experience thinking that's something to help pad the books. But once one hits 30, 40, 50, beyond there's no reason having done an Eagle project should be cited as a major accomplishment in their life. At least not from the perspective of seeking employment. I'm 100% in favor of people feeling proud about what they did, the whole point of that project was to have done right by people.

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