The tall mans advantage?

[Shane Smith]

Over the years that I have trained in both Asian and Western martial arts, I have observed that the tall man unfailingly has the advantage if all else be equal or even closely comparable. I have successfully fought full-contact empty-handed and fenced with those I believe to be more skilled than myself in the absolute sense on many occasions. If skill is not the cause(which I maintain it is not), then that leaves only the attributes inherent to a tall body.

My reasoning runs thus; A tall man has a much easier time defending against a shorter fencer as he may simply void and counter at leisure with no real danger to himself all the while posing a very present threat to the opponent. The shorter fighter must through vastly superior art pass through the no-man's land that the taller mans additional reach commands. The tall fighter can simply reach a shorter man before he is an imminent danger to him. Also,he has a greater ability to maintain the proper distance and time. He may also use a longer weapon which is suitable to his greater physical stature. The tall man may successfully defend himself by simply passing away or traversing out of the attack of the smaller fencer while counter-cutting to the hands from out of range. The shorter fencer must of necessity clear the no-mans land while covering himself and then offend the tall man before he may void away or jam the attack.That's not easy to do if the tall man is minding the governors...All that said,it can be done. I've had a few of my fellow ARMA Swordsmen do it to me. What do you think?Am I all wet on this?

What ideas and tactical suggestions do you have to offer to those on either side of this equation?

[Patrick Hardin]

The main advantages of the tall man, I think, are reach and leverage. He can reach distances both offensively and defensively that the shorter man cannot, and if the fight comes to grips, the tall man has superior leverage, and will be able to achieve throws more easily than the shorter man. The one thing a tall man must have, though to make all of this work is speed. A big slow man is inferior to a short fast man. But a big fast man is hard to beat.

Now, that said, there are things the shorter man can do to exploit this. One thing I've been noticing recently in my sparring is that the range of krieg can be useful to the shorter man, if he is good at using ringen am schwert techniques. At that range, the taller man is closer to the shorter man than the shorter man is to him, if that makes sense. <img src="/forum/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" /> If the taller man's sword can be bound up, because of the length of the taller man's arms, the shorter man is then placed in a good cutting range. The same is not true, however, for the taller man. Still, to achieve this is dangerous, and can be difficult. The shorter man must be able to percieve the taller man's movements well, and must be able to either provoke the tall man into making a rash cut, or seem to present an opening that the tall man will attempt to take advantage of.

I think the shorter man has the greatest chance of success right in the "no man's land," in krieg and in ringen am schwert. To get there safely is the trick, because the taller man will probably fight better straight from the zufechten and in the ringen.

So, that's the shorter man's side of this topic. <img src="/forum/images/icons/cool.gif" alt="" /> In the end, really, I guess it all comes down to the fighter's skill and experience.

Patrick Hardin

[JeffGentry]

Hey Shane
Well i come in at 6 foot and i think it does give me(an unskilled fighter) a small advantage like you said in the reach and void area. A more skilled fighter can level the playing field once they get inside.

I am going to my favorite subject here which is intent, and IMHO a small fighter who has some skill and is aggressive and use's there skill's to there advantage will often win out over a larger fighter just by keeping themselve's on the offensive.

In the Marine Corps when you are ambushed you charge the ambush and then overwhelm them by aggression and seizing the initiative to go on the offensive.

i think this is true in most combat, the thing is you must be confident in your skill and not afraid fear is going to slow your reaction and make you lose your concentration on the fight at hand and then panic will set in and panic will rob you of the one second advantage that may end the fight with you the victor.

Again you must fight with the intent to kill the opponent and strike fear in him from the start through aggression and skill.

i do agree that a tall man does at time's have an advantage, it can be over come with skill and intent, what is the saying about those weak of heart should not learn to fence because they will shurly be defeated, that is not an exact quote but it is something similar. lol

[Casper Bradak]

Several masters touched on this subject, and they agree with you. Silver, Vadi, and whoever wrote the wallerstein codex touch on this for a few.

[JeffGentry]

all the aggresion in the world won't help if you don't have the skill and mind set to do what you need to do, in alot of the extreme sport's i enjoy such as whitewater kayaking , rode bull's for awhile, and have r/l combat experience was in the Gulf war in 91, (in that split second when i am in the middle of a hairy rapid if i need to move right 4 inch's i have to be mentaly aware enough to know it or i may endup beneath an undercut rock and be a dead body they pull out of the river), so some of this is speaking from experience, i have learned to control my fear not to say i don't get rattled but i don't get rattled when i know i have the skill's i need to do what i want.

As a swordsmen though i have along way to go. lol
My skill there is lacking i am confident it will come in time with perfect practice, but i am a little to aggressive for my skill level and tend get decapatated alot, I try though.lol

[leam hall]

I think this is the biggest advantage of the large person, the visual intimidation. A short person needs to mentally prepare more to overcome the problem, but once you do the mechanical advantages are easily worked around.

Especially if you can get one of us big boys moving in the wrong direction; that's a lot of momentum to redirect! <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

[Devin Wilson]

An excellent tactic I find for a littler guy (like myself: 5' 7'' 150lbs) is nach. It avoids dealing with the higher strength and leverage of the other guy and leaves an opening to close the distance of his longer arms. The trick is just developing the good sense of distance and reaction do pull it off. During some recent freeplay bouts against Provo's largest member I easily found lots of good openings but failed to make a hit because I 1) didn't react fast enough to make the hit before his follow-up hit got my sword arm in mid-swing or 2) I put so much momentum in moving just out of his range that I couldn't recover in time to make the nach. Footwork and guts!

[George Turner]

If the tall man didn't have quite a few advantages then we'd always lose to kids. It's a good thing... <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

One of the problems fighting an equally well trained and extremely tall man nowadays, aside from the obvious, is that he'll have 10 times more experience fighting shorter men than you'll have fighting someone his size, a trait shared with left-handed swordsmen. But I would think that back in the day, when people started studying swordsmanship at much younger ages, they naturally gained a wealth of experience at exactly that disadvantage, since their teachers would always be taller than the students.

[Stacy Clifford]

Once you're at wrestling range I'm not so sure I agree that the tall man is at a great advantage. At 5'6", I tend to find that my low center of gravity evens things out a lot with you beanpoles, allowing me to stay on my feet better and get in underneath. With lower pivot points, I think the shorter guy actually has the advantage in making a lot of throws. The taller guy still has a strength and weight advantage in most cases, but as Patrick said, those longer limbs can be considerably less useful the closer the range gets. The tussles I get into usually seem to wind up with the tall guy trying to put me in a headlock while I'm attacking the legs, because you're just naturally applying force at different levels. I don't want my arms too high in the air, and the tall guy doesn't want to bend over too far, because those things put us in the other person's zone of effective leverage. A lot still comes down to skill, but if all other things are equal then my own experience indicates a slight advantage in being shorter.

Outside wrestling range though, I agree with Patrick, quickness and skill at winding and binding are the best ways to get inside.

[Scott Anderson]

Sounds like it's a good thing for me then that my most common training partner is roughly10 inches taller than i am.

SPA

[Andrey Lileyev]

Hi, Shane

I'm quite tall man but since I bacame one of trainers in my club the tactical questions are the thing I usually concentrate on. I was working on the taller opponent problem a lot of time analysing the things that some shorter opponents successfully did against me and checking them sparing with men taller than I am. So I could research some principals that I'm sure can help you. Reading your post I think you know most of them.

First of all let me do some provisios:
a) When we talk about taller man we mean a man SIGNIFICANTLY taller than you. It is easy to say 'I've lost besause my opponent was just a little taller than me' But you should understand that if the opponent is JUST A BIT taller it doesn't give him an advantage. But if you fight a MUCH taller man he really have an advantage in range.
b) All these principles concern to combat tactics not technique of fencing. You must adapt them to your technique.
c) All my advices work good with one-hand weapons (sword, sabre, rappier...) in which I'm skilled. I'm not sure that all of them are good ideas with great sword.

So here are the priciples that I teach my students:

1. Protect your head. The most usual thing to taller man is striking your head because it is the most opportune target that he can hit without opening himself. If from the begining you make him think that he can't reach your head, he will try to hit your body. Doing this he is forced to lower his sword far enough (much lower than a man of your height) and open his arm that is your most common goal in this bout. And remember that in is more hard for him to hit your leg. So you shall concentrate on your upper zone defence more than your lower zone.

2. Don't kick against the pricks. Hit him either with fast argessive attack or with counter attack when he cant void because his foreward movement is just ended (don't move on him when he is actually moves on you) but backward movement is not yet started due to inertia. I prefer counter attacks but it is your business what to prefer. Use not agressive (standard) attacks only when you don't plan to hit him right now (to check his defence, to muddle him or to get another tactival advantage).

3. Don't think you're taller than he is <img src="/forum/images/icons/cool.gif" alt="" />. If your target is his body or head you most probably run into his blade before you can reach your attack range. His right hand and legs must be your first targets!!! Note that sometimes it is more difficult to protect a leg than a head. Sometimes even experienced fecner can simply forget about leg defence carried away with footwork. Especially if you fight on natural ground that is not plane try to drive him to upper position so you can concentrate more on your upper defenfe and attack his leg.

4. Feel free to retreat some steps. You can't allways know for sure are you still in his range or not. So don't be ashamed to step back when he is attacking. You allways can win you position back or run around him and have the place where to retreat again. Due to his natural advantage you're forced to retreat anyway. So you better plan it beforehand. There is a difference between 'you retreat controlling situation' and 'he chases you'.

5. Don't go mad with attack. Your agressive attack must be short and resultative. If it is not resultative let it be just short. Step back if you see that you can't break his defence right now. Don't wait untill he calm and counter-attack you. It is usefull to learn so-called 'shuttle movements'. It means that you step forward and afher that step backward and again forward-backward-forward-backward... Train to reduce your inertia as much as it is possible.

6. Footwork, footwork and once more footwork... A-hmm... Did I mention footwork? <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" /> . If your taller opponent is much faster than you, you will lose even if rest of your technique is better. But it can be said not only about a taller one.

Regards. I hope you have foud something ysefull in my post.

[Jaron Bernstein]

I gotta agree with ye. I don't have enough sword time to say for sword fighting, but I do have lots of years of ringen. The toughest people to wrestle are NOT the tall people with high centers of gravity. The most difficult people I have ever wrestled are short, square and solid, with a center of gravity 1' below the surface of the earth (as we used to joke about for one guy who was just impossible to uproot).

[TimSheetz]

Tall is an advantage.. but BIGGER and TALLER is a MUCH greater advantage. When the guy is tall and has the bulk that is in scale with his height he is MUCH more dangerous (all else being equal).

I think that speed, reflexes, and useful bulk are more important than height any day.

Peace!

Tim

SFS

ARMA Pisa

[John_Clements]

Shane, I've never had problems with tall fighters, I'm 5'7", and with any weapon, from dagger to rapier, I've been able to exploit the dispositions of much taller opponents, often getting right in on them, or striking their legs from farther out. I think a lot of martial arts styles that don't permit any closing in or any seizing of arms/weapons give advantages to taller fighters in sparring, but when someone knows how to get in close and fights realistically it's not been a fact, at least not for me and that's what I teach my students.

JC

[Shane Smith]

I fully respect your observations John and I have no doubt that you can best most anyone in the world with a bladed weapon regardless of their height, but based on my own personal experiences in real fighting for real empty-hand and in fencing against fighters of varying sizes and skill levels, I am convinced that size can and does matter if all else is equal as stated above in my initial post.I would submit to you that perhaps you don't have alot of equals that allow you to fully test my theory on this. <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />