Hi Lance,
Just watched the vid, nice stuff.
Just some points.
1 Taking one hand off the spear to make a longer thrust just defeats the object of having the longer weapon. Your opponent already has the longer weapon, taking a hand off just looses controle.
2. Still too many too many simple linear attack that you are going to block. The first part of the attack should draw your response then they should make a circular action to another opening and thrust if your respose is good they start the motion again withdrawing slightly and make a thrust to another opening.
3. The spear user is making sweeping or arking attacks which are easy to intercept. If an arking attack to head is made then if your response is to raise your guard to intersect, then the ark of the spear should be shortened so that the block does not take place and then thrust the point into the stomach.
4. Keeping the motion of the spear is essential to the exercise and again I would say that the weight of the spear does not facilitate this. Spear tips are super fast, this is their advantage, they stike one area and circle to another, they withdraw fast and enter just as quick on another line.
5. Lastly even if you do close distance and they have not the speed to open the distance to the rear then they still have the simple technique of shortenting the spear in the hand and thrusting while you are still trying to enter. It may be said that they have at this point lost a lot of their advantage, but this last technique may give the swordsman enough trouble that the spearperson has time to create the distance advantage again.
Finally, the entering in, becomes a lot more difficult if you raise the stakes of the situation by the spear person using a weapon with more "scare" factor. In our meagre demonstrations on the video we did (posting tomorrow I hope), the spear was a metal blunt, and I purposely did not wear a gambeson (well it was hot), and I knew with a gambeson I would take more risks. As it was I walked onto a spear point, and it hurt a bit. "What hurts teaches" some German fectmaster said. I have been fighting blunt metal for a long time and even though arm guards were many times mandatory I never wore them. Because if you wear guards and you do not feel were you are hit, you cannot refine your technical exactness. so that you do not get hit (Its late, i hope I make sence.).
Oh and when you close make sure you stay at sword length (until you have hit em hard), because if they have that little hidden dagger in the back hand and you close too much it is you that ends up on the slab.
All the best
Col
 |
||||||||
|
|
||||||||