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LF good manual for English Quarterstaff.

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John:

--- Quote from: RauttSkegg on 2011-09-03, 00:34:31 ---Also parrying with force and striking through blocks seems to upset many non-armoured weapon using folk. They say it's dangerous and "This isn't the SCA. This isn't heavy fighting"

--- End quote ---

I was a twat a couple of trainings ago, chap came in late, puts on mail, spaulders, open faced helm, heater, and I had a big stick. He held his sword upright with his hand near his right shoulder, and I launched a series of down right blows to the weak of his sword. His sword would be knocked past his face, again, and again. He packed a tantrum. Whilst he never explained why, I believe it's because it is a little disconcerting to come in cold and have anything coming in near the head. Especially his own sword, which was out of his control. It was a safe strike because of the angle and distance. But on a primal level he felt he was in genuine danger of harm. In light of this I've made an effort to slow down when fighting him with a staff.

Everyone has their comfort level, and there are many people more concerned with winning during sparring. They like to have rules in place that make it easy for them to win, and hard for them to lose :). The same strike, delivered ten centimetres closer would have made his helmet ring like a bell. But I'm not allowed to do it because my club does not allow head shots when someone is wearing an open helm. Fair enough, it is difficult to strike at someone's head, and pull the blow, unless you're swinging at an incredibly slow speed. But it does swing the fight in the favour of someone with a large shield, because only the lower legs are exposed.

However, how fun is it to have someone opposing you without a shield? I love it when someone holds a sword out in front of them. A good hard whack to the weak of their sword can send it flying out of their hands :). When rules require the pulling of blows, this is cheating! The same strike can not be done to the agent's body. It is too hard. So we have a situation where we favour striking their weapon, to open them up, as opposed to striking both their weapon and their body. If we slow down our attack, to match the speed that is safe for contacting their body, the agent is unlikely to respect our blow-pulling, and they will cheat by swinging their weapon at full speed against our staff. Striking at the fastest possible speed is martial, but can be illegal under tournament rules.

It seems the best way around this is to talk with our opponents, spar with them regularly. Once they know that we are safe fighters they will often agree to waive some of the safety rules - and spar in a more martial manner.

Thorsteinn:
@John: Well said! Also it looks like you are having big fun in the pics.

The thing I spoke of was about a man who tried to start a HEMA club here in Reno. He wanted to do mostly unarmoured longsword waster work, did not want to require cup's for men & groin protection for women, refused to wear decent protection for his hands, and wanted to fight no holds barred but with power & speed to a safe modicum.

The result was that I broke his finger when he missed a block (he blamed me and not the unpadded gloves he was wearing), complained anytime someone did a take down on him (or a kick or a punch), and had several others thwack him due to his lack of.... heart in sparring (he tended to do things that we didn't expect/were unsafe). He has left now and is headed for Glasgow, Scotland which is too bad because I did find HEMA stuff fun just not the way he did it. We only found out about a year in that he had done about 3 months of EMA before starting fencing and had never done any competition or intense sparring prior to starting the club. Had we only known.

Now, in my defense, I am known as a "Hit Hard, Take Light" kind of guy (:D) who just happens to hit his mama with sticks. It was an accident really, I was swinging and she stubbornly refused to move her head. ;)



-Ivan

John:
Injuries happen. More armour just means you get hurt in new places :). Safety is a combination of training, personal discipline, armour, environment, and sound offence (if you hit the other guy, he won't hit you, ergo you are safe). We have a girl in our club who used to fear fighting with staves. She worried that her fingers would get mashed. All she had ever been taught was to use centre grip. As soon as she learnt about quarter and end grips, she started to enjoyed using staves. Bit of a bugger for your former instructor. Hopefully it encouraged him to put greater focus on safety.

15 years ago I belonged to a school of defence (Wellington Swords & Shields), for a year. I was a teenager at the time. Back then, welding gloves were considered sufficient protection. Oddly enough the worst injury I got was when I tried to kick a girl with a dagger. I still have a scar on my shin. Now the minimum protection for sparring, in many NZ clubs, is welding gloves and a steel helm with a nasal. New people are encouraged to wear any modern plastic armour they can, but it's optional. Probably the riskiest person I know is someone who used to wear a 14th century harness, and now fights with just a gambeson. People who know him constantly forget he doesn't have plate on, and whack him quite hard! The benefit to low armour requirements is that it encourages a healthy respect of weapons, despite them being rebated. It's that respect which does the most for making tourneying safe. On the flip side I've had people refuse to take shots when I use a staff. They think it should be shod with iron before it can do real damage. Easily solved though, hit them harder, and harder, until they take their hits.

Training with a pell is helpful. It can help to understand what you can do with your weapon, and what you can't. I've learnt that there is little power in a shot that starts from a high guard and ends in a hanging guard, targeted at the lower leg.

Ergo if an opponent blocks a low shot, or is wearing plate on their lower leg, it is unlikely that I can power through to harm them. "Little power" is a relative term, I'm comparing the strike with one launched from the same guard that descends upon the head or upper body.

I've also learnt that pool queue thrusts are only valid for striking the face, or unarmoured hands. A two handed thrust is necessary on other parts of the body. See the two photos below showing the end result of thrusts launched from the same stance.

A full two handed thrust.


A pool queue thrust.


Ivan your video is showing you doing rattan fighting yes? A member of my club went to an SCA event earlier in the year. He came back raving about how much fun he had with rattans. I'd like to add that style of sparring to our club. What I like about it is that it is possible to hit with power, and still be safe. I think it'd complement the training we do with rebated steel weapons. There is a tendency to 'take turns' at hitting each other, and resting in guards - instead of constant movement. I believe that soft wasters, like rattans, would encourage continual movement.

Have you, or anyone else reading, tried out the wasters designed by Rawlings in the UK? See http://www.theknightshop.co.uk/catalog/rawlings-synthetic-sparring-longsword-p-2472.html) for their longsword waster and an old sparring video. They have two models of wasters, their standard, and their Xtreme. The Xtreme is 2nd generation, taking into account complaints about the originals being a little too bendy on thrusting. The video shows the older model. I think the older model would be perfect for noobs, and the newer one would suit more experienced fighters.

Sir Rodney:
I'm in the same school of thought as Ivan "Hit hard & take light".  This has served me well for more than a dozen years.  Injuries happen in any sport, contact or not!  I had my right thumb crushed (tendon damage, etc.) by a half-hearted strike through my well padded SCA style mitten gauntlets with a solid thumb.  You just never know what's going to happen.  Earlier this season I received a massive two-handed strike from a polearm to my (armoured) shin and didn't even get a bruise!  You just never know...

John, thank you for sharing your pell work.  The pell has obviously seen a ton of abuse!

John:
All smoke and mirrors mate :). The marks were made on the day I first used it, it's just the contrast between the weathered exterior and the clean timber underneath. It's now completely covered in scrap carpet. This makes it much more neighbour friendly, reduces bounce, and saves my delicate hands.

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