A pair of battle-hardened entrepreneurs are teaching empathy, one skirmish at a time — and planning to take their quest from the Sunshine Coast to the world.
Early this month, Jesse O’Leary and Gabriel Ditmars launched the Live Action Medieval Battle Society (LAMBS), an outgrowth of an original collaboration called Play With Honour. The two are medieval battle fanatics who lead pint-sized military campaigns in Gibsons and Sechelt parks. Their fledgling program enlists kids and adults in weekly classes that supplant sedentary video gaming with aerobic swordplay using specially-designed foam armaments.
For O’Leary, who trained as a professional video game designer, the outdoor action is a welcome departure from the world of digital crusades. Today, he makes a living by operating a landscaping and excavation business. After work, he changes into gauntlets and greaves to organize LAMBS’s playful melees.
“I decided I didn’t want to be in the video game designing industry because I wanted to be doing something a little bit more productive and proactive for the world,” O’Leary said. “I found these [medieval] games are a lot more based on building really positive character traits. A big thing for me is building empathy towards others, and this kind of rough play is all about having fun and making sure that people aren’t getting hurt.”
O’Leary shares a decade of friendship with Gabriel Ditmars, a noted local dance instructor and theatrical performer.
“In a sense it was always multigenerational since we started doing this a few years ago as a friend group, and calling it Swordplay in the Park,” said Ditmars. “Even then it was guys our age [20s and 30s], plus little siblings and 40-year-olds.” The initiative now urges parents and grandparents to register for sessions, emphasizing the athletic benefits and opportunities to spend time in creative play.
“I’m really into the acting side of it, coming up with team names,” added Ditmars. “I like to give everyone a character — the taller people might be knights or kings, while the kids are goblins or dwarves.”
So far, their two-hour sessions have averaged a dozen or more participants. O’Leary and Ditmars provide equipment from an in-house arsenal of Canadian-built foam weapons. O’Leary visited the Quebec-based manufacturer, Calimacil, to learn more about the implements, which are aesthetically detailed but soft to the touch. It’s an upgrade from the handmade latex boffers he used previously when organizing mock battles at music festivals around B.C.
The core of the experience is the gameplay itself. The duo has developed a repertoire of original strategy games with strict rules: no contact above the neck and honesty is key. If a player is tapped, he or she must fall to the battlefield — in suitably-lurid agony.
During a recent game at Mission Point Park, an eight-year-old victim raised his head from the battlefield. “How was your death?” he inquired of a teammate also awaiting revival. “It was pretty dramatic,” she shrugged.
“The game systems that we use are completely unique and different from LARP [Live Action Role Play],” said O’Leary, who emphasizes spatial awareness and muscle coordination. “We’re super accessible, and the only situation like this that I’m aware of in the whole world. My vision is that I want to bring this experience to thousands of people, training instructors all over Canada and Europe because it’s really beneficial — especially for young humans — to learn these things.”
The Live Action Medieval Battle Society maintains a website with additional details and registration information at lambsgames.com.
