Joey Marmorato Prize Playing Highlights

[Webmaster]

Video highlights from Joey Marmorato's Free-Scholar Prize Playing at ARMA International Gathering 2011 are now available on the public training videos page:

http://www.thearma.org/Videos/TPVideos.htm

Joey played a new record of 93 total bouts with 72 wins in a mere 41 minutes with 21 total losses (with about 7 of them draws). Many of his bouts were nothing short of exemplary of perfect technique and principle, and we could not help but feel proud to have such an excellent fighter representing ARMA. Amazingly he later discovered he broke a finger in the middle of the bouts (!).

[James Brazas]

Very nice!

That's some good fencing. Congratulations Joey Marmorato!

I noticed that there were a few using spears or swords-and-shields. Does that mean ARMA may soon have MTPs for those weapons as well?

Admittedly, the shields in question were gripped as if they were bucklers, but they looked awfully big for bucklers.

[Stacy Clifford]

The Prize Playing is a test of proficiency with a given weapon. Since the manuals mainly teach longsword vs. another longsword, that is naturally going to be the majority of the test. However, you can't truly show your combat proficiency with a weapon unless you can use it against other weapons as well, so all of our Prizings have featured a few bouts with unlike weapons since the very beginning. Seeing those weapons in the Prize Playing has no connection to official training programs, it just means those members were proficient enough to go in and give Joey a good test with that weapon. Ernie Perez's infamous shield, by the way, can be held with either a buckler grip or a full arm grip if I remember right. No Prizing would be complete without it.

(There might, however, someday be a staff MTP if I have anything to say about it.)

[James Brazas]

That makes a lot of sense. I would expect MTPs to have a decent amount of dissimilar weapons combat.

That shield of his sounds nice with such a versatile grip.

I can understand why we wouldn't have a sword-and-shield MTP due to a lack of manuals.

I'd certainly look forward to any upcoming MTPs in polearms. Staff could certainly be interesting. I doubt it would be of much use against armored foes, though.

[Stacy Clifford]

Staff could certainly be interesting. I doubt it would be of much use against armored foes, though.

Depends on how you use it. George Silver's staff has a metal spike on both ends to make thrusting a lot more effective, and a staff is still powerful enough to knock an armored man off his feet even if it doesn't do much damage to him (and the armor could still be dented pretty nicely). It also can still be used as a wrestling tool at close range if it's not too long, similar to other polearms. I think the armored man would still have the advantage, but a trained staff man is hardly defenseless in that situation.

[Jonathan Hill]

Congrats Joey, the fights looked fun I’ll bet the day was a blast! I can definitely tell you went into it with a game plan of which technique to use, good idea.

Considering a bladed weapon against armor only really transmits blunt force through the armor, IMO you are better off using a staff against a man in armor than a sword. Put a halberd head on it and you have an even better tool.

So if he loses most of the matches does he have to do it again? If so I might want to lose most just so I could get another day of fights like that! It just looks fun!!!