Weapons Sparring

[@PLUGO]

Ukolov vs Plaksin: not sure who I was rooting for . . . the guy who's shield displayed Argent, a lion rampant, gules.

[boxerbilly]

That was nice. My hats off to those guys. For those interested here is their youtube page.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBX..._fLXO3A/videos

[sanjuro_ronin]

Never been a fan of overly padded "weapons sparing".
Still, looks like fun.

[boxerbilly]

Never been a fan of overly padded "weapons sparing".
Still, looks like fun.

I'm not so sure this is overpadding but closer to original. I have no idea the armor they wore there or most places traditionally. But what it does show is that those sword attacks, even if sharp, do not work well and generally not at all against armor. This is how it was explained to me. It goes to grapple. A guy goes down and ideally you insert the blade in between a gap. Very hard to do while standing. The guy I spoke to said, war hammers rule against armor. Those can penetrate the steel. Of course you can't spar/fight with those.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I'm not so sure this is overpadding but closer to original. I have no idea the armor they wore there or most places traditionally. But what it does show is that those sword attacks, even if sharp, do not work well and generally not at all against armor. This is how it was explained to me. It goes to grapple. A guy goes down and ideally you insert the blade in between a gap. Very hard to do while standing. The guy I spoke to said, war hammers rule against armor. Those can penetrate the steel. Of course you can't spar/fight with those.

The techniques that actually work against a armoured opponent are the ones that are prohibited in these sparring competitions.
Muck like kendo.

These things are good fun and they built stamina and fighting spirit and all that, but they never should be viewed as being anything other than that.

[Jimbo]

In CLF, we sparred with staffs made of padded PVC. Unfortunately (or fortunately), this resulted in a wide, thick, heavier staff. The disadvantage is that it made the grip much more difficult; the advantage is that a real staff is much easier to maneuver. We never wore helmets or other protective equipment. Even though the staves were padded, you could still get hurt. I particularly hated when my fingers got hit when someone slid their staff up mine to disarm me; that was also a favorite tactic of mine. Though often it's best to avoid doing it to develop other skills, too. Because there was still risk, you could be aggressive at times, but never just recklessly whale away at each other like some people do in padded weapons sparring scenarios.