Comment by red_admiral

Those who don't lose the fun of hitting things graduate to hitting things with swords and end up in the SCA (not the coffee one).

I see the point about violence but I'm ok with it because it's based on fun and not anger. Olympic archery, javelin, or even fencing have an obvious past in warfare but today they've become sports.

I can only speak for some of the European versions of SCA-like clubs but there's a lot of pride-flag flying strictly-no-fascists fun activity with a dose of pretending to be children again.

(Buhurt is a bit more complicated.)