If you have seen a friendly hooded figure wielding two toy light sabers and wandering around campus on weekends, then you have spotted Harding’s “Urban Jedi.”
The “Urban Jedi” is a Harding student who dresses up as a Jedi from the “Star Wars” saga and uses toy light sabers to pretend-fight with other students on campus.
The Urban Jedi asked to remain anonymous for the story.
Most weekends, the Jedi will post a tweet or Instagram from his account,@HU_UrbanJedi, letting his followers know he is going out to find people to fight. He said he approaches people on campus, hands them a light saber and battles them for a couple minutes before running off to find another opponent.
The idea originated when the Jedi was a freshman. While bored one night, he put on a costume, ran around with the light sabers and allowed other students to join in. Later that night, he created the social media accounts and has been battling most weekends since.
Junior Aaron West once participated in a battle with the Jedi. When he saw him near the Grad dorm parking lot, he yelled out to him and they began to fight.
West said it was exhilarating.
“I consider it an honor to have fought him,” West said.
Senior Jacob Bommarito witnessed the fight between West and the Jedi. After seeing the tweet, they had been together with a group of friends on the lookout.
Bommarito said he would recommend this activity to others.
“Lots of people love Star Wars, and I believe it is completely all in good fun,” Bommarito said.
Now a sophomore, the Jedi says he plans on continuing this act as possible until he graduates.He hopes to find someone else before he leaves to continue on as the Urban Jedi.
The Jedi said his favorite part of the experience is how happy people are after the fight. He wants everyone to get enjoyment from it.
“It’s fun. Yeah, we may be in college but we can still just go out and fight with light sabers and no one’s going to judge you,” said the Jedi.
If you would like to fight the HU Urban Jedi, he said he accepts challenges via Twitter and Instagram.
