A new kind of fight club - with cardboard

GUNS WERE WIELDED at Gettysburg and bayonets at Brandywine, but the weapons on those Pennsylvania battlefields pale next to the arsenal that will descend upon Fairmount tomorrow: Cardboard tubes.

In its first Philadelphia tour, the Seattle-based Cardboard Tube Fighting League, which also has factions in San Francisco and Australia, will host an open battle next to the Art Museum in hopes of seeding a permanent group here.

"Didn't you ever take a tube and whack your brother or your sister with it?" league co-founder Ravin "Unicorn Hunter" Pierre asked. "That's pretty much the origin."

The league was founded in Seattle in 2007 "out of a desperate need to better train and arm citizens with cardboard tubes," according to its Web site.

Anyone over 5 is invited to participate, but in case your head gets lopped off, you'll need to sign a waiver - whether you're 5 or 55.

"We do have some ground rules - no poking, no stabbing and try to keep it above the belt," said Pierre, 27. "If you go for the face, make sure they're wearing a cardboard helmet."

Pierre already had 250 "regulation" lightweight cardboard tubes, which average about 3 feet long, sent in from his San Diego dealer.

In a duel, the player whose tube breaks to the point of a 45-degree angle or more first is the loser.

Since the tubes and the duels are free, Pierre said if turnout is high, those who show up in creative cardboard armor will get first dibs.

In the past, Pierre's seen every type of costume from warrior women Valkyries to an Iron Man with an illuminated heart and a little kid who wrote on his back plate: "How dare you hit me from behind, you coward!"

On Wednesday, a group of fighters, most of whom work with computers by day and had learned of the battle online, gathered in the 915 Arts Building on Spring Garden Street near Ninth, across from a shooting range, to fashion their weapons and armor.

"Most of the things I did as a kid I still enjoy: Eating ice cream, amusement-park rides, whacking people," said Jonny Goldstein. "I don't have as much time to do them, but it's still good stuff."

Goldstein said he's looking forward to getting back to playing with cardboard. As a child, he said, he made human targets from cardboard, then climbed trees and shot arrows at them.

"This is an adrenaline thing," he said. "We're basically born to kill, and this gets you back to that primal pleasure without suffering the guilt."

Far McKon, a software developer, said he loves the idea of returning to childhood games, a concept he said is encompassed by the developmental-biology term neoteny.

"It's the idea that humans have a lot of childish traits, and that's one of the things that make us different from a lot of other animals - we retain parts of our childhood," he said. "That's what makes us learn as we get older. Even though we're 40 we can still learn, and even though we're 25 we still invent new things. Most animals don't do that.

"Part of creativity is that childishness," he said. "What makes humans able to come up with new, creative ideas is that they keep a little bit of their childhood with them."

This week, Pierre found out that even though the league may be child's play, it's still war.

On a comment to a blog posting about this weekend's event, he discovered that a Scottish group called the Boxwars - they build tanks from cardboard and promote full-body contact - had formally declared war against his family-friendly league about a year ago.

"This past year I had no idea we were at war with another faction!" he said.

The Boxwars declaration against the Cardboard Tube Fighting League reads, in part:

"CTFL does not allow . . . 'body slamming, lunging or stabbing.'

"I ask you, What is a life without body slamming?

"No life at all.

"This impotent interpretation of corrugated chaos should not be allowed to flourish. It is time to raise arms against the government of CTFL and their non-stabbing supporters. We shall stab, lunge and body slam them into submission."

Pierre, a Seattle aerospace engineer, will fly to Philadelphia today, host the tournament tomorrow and head to New York City tomorrow night to host a tournament there on Sunday before returning home.

He spent $150 to purchase and ship the tubes, on top of his plane tickets.

"With the money I spent on this, I could have gone skiing, but I'm just happy people are going to come and have fun," he said.

Prizes worth their weight in cardboard will be awarded to the victorious, and perhaps to those with the best costumes and shields, Pierre said.

He will recycle the tubes after the fight, and if anyone's feeling generous he'll also accept unsolicited donations.

Pierre expects to start the tournament with one-on-one fights. Any tubes left over will be used in a "grand royale battle," he said.

He suggested that anyone wanting to practice for the event could do so in their own homes with paper-towel rolls.

The tournament will be held at 1 p.m. on the grass alongside the Art Museum.

Participants are asked to bring name tags, water and a positive attitude.