This actually started in the late 70’s in New York City where students of Leo Game of Pekiti Tirsia got together to train realistically. They “borrowed” fencing masks from the Colombia University fencing team and went at it. I studied under Tom Bisio who was Leo’ts top student at the time who happened to be attending Colombia. Eric was one of Tom’s students before me. They tend to use less dense rattan but still go at each other hard.