Fight choreography
The non-functional fight weapons — foam cores under skinned costume, balsa-and-resin breakaways — that allow contact strikes without injury.
Mechanism
Padded weapons substitute foam, gel, or balsa-and-resin construction for the metal, glass, or hardwood of a "real" weapon. A foam-core sword has a flexible inner spine wrapped in dense closed-cell foam shaped and skinned to match the prop. A breakaway bottle is balsa-and-resin in the strike zone with a real bottle base for handling shots. Coordinators carry multiple variants of each prop for different contact requirements: hero (real, for handling), padded (for strikes against a person), breakaway (for impact-against-prop strikes that destroy the weapon).
Safety
Even padded weapons can produce concussive impact at full strike speed. Choreography limits direct head contact regardless of pad rating; throat, eye, and groin contact is blocked out of choreography. After each take, weapons are inspected for foam compression or balsa damage that would change the next take's behaviour.
Variants
Non-functional weighted resin cast of a working firearm — used for grappling and strike beats where a real firearm couldn't be safely handled.
Flexible-core rubber knife — the standard for close-quarters edged-weapon choreography.
On screen
Sequences in the archive whose discipline tags overlap this technique's category. Click through for the full rigging breakdown of each set-piece.