No politics allowed at this sword-fighting club near Pittsburgh : NPR

Over the previous few years and thru this yr’s contentious marketing campaign season, which was rooted in America’s deep divisions, there was a coarsening in the way in which folks speak to one another. We wished to discover how some are attempting to bridge divides. We requested our reporters throughout the NPR Community to search for examples of individuals working by way of their variations. We’re sharing these tales in our collection Looking for Widespread Floor.

CREIGHTON, Pa. — With their faces hidden behind onerous black masks, two fighters stand just a few ft aside and lift their swords.

They step ahead and clank the broad, uninteresting steel blades towards one another repeatedly. One fighter strikes the opposite within the chest. The struggle is over, and a small crowd applauds.

Inside this former Catholic church northeast of Pittsburgh, below a 25-foot ceiling flanked by Gothic, pointed-arch home windows, members of the Pittsburgh Sword Fighters membership and faculty collect.

It is a event — in addition to a celebration — billed as Friday Evening Fights.

There are many guidelines in a sword struggle. However there’s one rule that applies after the fighters have put down their weapons: no speak of politics.

The evolution of the rule began round 2016, when membership proprietor Josh Parise says he was getting fed up with the rancor of political discourse within the U.S. — private assaults had been on the rise, even inside households, as was cancel tradition.

“I could not tolerate the shortage of decency between human beings,” says Parise, whose membership focuses on historic European martial arts.

“None of it made sense anymore,” he says.

After which there have been just a few would-be sword fighters who got here to the membership and did not deal with others effectively. Parise needed to inform them to get on their horses and go away.

“It is infuriating to me, so with this place, we simply do not enable that to occur,” Parise says.

Leaving their politics on the door

As membership volunteer Kat Licause watches the matches, she says the directive to keep away from politics has led to nearer relationships within the membership.

“I do not suppose we keep away from it within the sense that we’re working scared of massive questions and matters,” says Licause, who works as a tech author. “I feel we simply have this mutual understanding right here that if any of us was ever in bother, we’d choose one another up, like instantly.”

The membership house is outfitted with medieval and Gothic touches, like coats of arms, a three-eyed raven sculpture and pretend stonework that Parise made himself.

Towards the far wall, a customized Dumbledore throne sits on a pretend altar. Off to the perimeters, there is a desk for potluck dishes and an open bar. The gang and the vibe are noticeably chill, contemplating the primary exercise.

“You stroll up, you acknowledge each other, and then you definately hit one another with massive steel sticks,” Parise says with a wry smile.

However divisive political rhetoric, which will be sharper than the swords right here, have to be left on the membership’s massive picket door. The politics ban would not rise to the extent of, say, a Fifteenth-century heresy regulation, but it surely’s there.

Parise says his college students and membership members run the gamut politically, from spiritual conservatives to progressives. He likes to see them discover widespread floor.

“I simply don’t desire folks to really feel uncomfortable, however I additionally don’t desire them to deliver their baggage with them,” he says. “Go away it exterior and simply do the factor.”

Instructing and studying from fellow fighters

Because the event will get underway, a choose briefs the fighters and urges them to play by the foundations and keep below management, lest he “red-card” them.

“These are teachable moments,” the choose says. “We struggle at Friday Evening Fights to be taught and assist one another.”

Extra fighters line up. Amongst them is highschool English trainer and long-sword teacher Todd Rooney.

He is holding his headgear, ready for his title to be referred to as to struggle. Rooney has been a member of the sword fighters’ membership for nearly 10 years and appreciates the politics-free zone.

“As a result of that rule exists right here, I get to work with, spar with, educate, be taught from folks from all totally different walks of life, all totally different political affiliations, spiritual teams,” Rooney says.

And the managed battle of a sword struggle, he says, brings a few type of readability.

“We’ve got to come across one another as absolutely human — we’ve got to respect one another,” he says. “And it is particularly necessary right here, after we’re coming at one another with weapons.”