Glave me baby!!!

[Mr. Magoo1812]

I'm an SCAer in the Outlands and i'm pretty new. I was at practice and one of our fighters brought his glave and I tried it out. It was love at first touch. Distance or up close with or without a centergrip shield I love the way a six foot glave handles. can anyone give me some tips on gakking people with one? it would be much appreciated

[Kilkenny]

Paging Sir Corby.

Sir Corby to the white courtesy glaive, please

[Mr. Magoo1812]

How can i get in touch with sir corby?

[Corby de la Flamme]

It is pretty hard to offer tips when I've never seen someone fight. Nor have I much experience with the typical fighters of the Outlands.

I have one video on youtube that might help: Things Not to Do. Mostly it is a blooper reel, but there are a few pole moves in it. My user name there is Sir Corby.

But OK, here are a few things I think are critical:

In 1-on-1 fights, stand on line to your opponent, primary hand back. (Right hand for most folks)
Have a butt spike.
Use it.
Use it by holding your polearm with the head behind you, with the butt spike generally pointing at your opponent's abdomen.
Hold the polearm more or less over your head, diagonally.
Throw blows, don't just thrust.
Do not run away.
Block leg blows away from your leg, not near it.

Someone in the Outlands must have Duke Paul's videos. Look at those too.

I am reminded of my need to do some videos myself.

[Blaine de Navarre]

Isn't Sir Attila living in Outlands these days? Get with him if you have a chance.

[Mr. Magoo1812]

I haven't set up my glave with a butt spike. I've seen them that way but thought i would miss out on chopping if i relied on it too much.

instead, i put a handle wrap a little less than half way down the shaft. that way i can fight with a shield until they close and use it as an oversized machete.

i fight left handed most often but switch to my right to stay balanced. it lets me thrust overhand everywhere on my opponent and gives me super reach for unbelievable wrap shots with the left handed stance

I just feel really silly when i get gakked in close, we practice in-doors during the winter and i won't let the glave go, so i'll be learning to adapt or it's going to be a loooong winter, lol i'm trying to get ahead o the learning curve on this one with you guys and gals wizdom and experience.

[sha-ul]

I am reminded of my need to do some videos myself.

if you do please, please, please use a good microphone that picks up your voice.
His Grace Palymar did some teaching videos that were good, but he is really hard to hear at times.

[Urban]

http://www.vitaporten.se/default.asp?page=films&pageid=1

there's a section on polearms.

[Mr. Magoo1812]

thaks a million for the link to the demonstration site. It's not totally the infighting i'm working on, but i understand how the buttspike is a nifty thing to keep in your bag of tricks now

[DukeAvery]

Isn't Sir Attila living in Outlands these days? Get with him if you have a chance.

I've lost touch these last few years, but last I heard we was in Calontir. You'd have a good chance running into him at Lillies I believe. I highly recommend him.

Archivist Magoo

In addition to your edgework, it is very helpful to a great thrust game.

What is your general fitness level? If it is good, work on deep lunges. Hang a target on a rope and poke at it. Master the two step lunge. Get someone to give you lessons locally on safe face thrusting. The Outlands is a magnificent kingdom, I'd envy you if I didn't have it so good here in the West now.

-Avery

[Payn]

Some of the things I've tinkered with here in Antir.

Please note, I am a "thrust first" style of polearm fighter.

I start most fights with the point directed at my opponents face. Right where they can see it pointed at their nose. This is designed to give the opponent a split second of pause before they close. You will usually see some sort of movement to deflect the tip offline before they close in earnest. This generates a "tell" that you can read.

When I can remember, I will hold the back hand high, with the front shoulder angled forward covering my rear shoulder. This is designed to hide the forward motion of the rear hand. Removing "tells" on your part will make it harder for your opponent to react in a timely fashion. The shoulders will open when the rear hand gets to the body, and I begin to torso twist to generate more range.

What I consider a soft defense is running backward and continuing to re-align your thrust and taking advantage of your reach. i.e. run away and thrust. I have found that while successful, it can engender enmity from your opponents.

What I consider a hard defense is engaged by 2 primary motions, closing to the shield, or closing to the sword. When closing to the shield, I step offline with my lead (right in my case) foot, and rotate on it as my opponent closes quickly. As I pivot, I will throw a highline cut to the back of the skull as my opponent passes me. If they are not closing quickly enough that I believe that they will pass me in a charge, I will close to the sword side. This motion is designed to encumber the sword arm as it attacks you. Either going underneath the arm and "building the roof" (I'm short) or rotating with the sword attack to defense it, then counter cutting.

This is pretty basic stuff, mostly, I would recommend that you wait until you can see the speed of the fight before you start using great weapons. Polearms when you are new, are not usually going to generate a ton of success. Being able to track the weapons and motions will enable you to learn what is going on much better, thus leading to a measure of mental success, even if the results aren't a win.

[mordreth]

For point work there is nothing finer than McClellans Drill for the Bayonet
http://www.usregulars.com/Bayonet_files/bayonet01.html

[freiman the minstrel]

For point work there is nothing finer than McClellans Drill for the Bayonet
http://www.usregulars.com/Bayonet_files/bayonet01.html

Mordreth, I wanna have your baby.

That is fabulous.

Thank you very, very much.

f

[mordreth]

For point work there is nothing finer than McClellans Drill for the Bayonet
http://www.usregulars.com/Bayonet_files/bayonet01.html

Mordreth, I wanna have your baby.

That is fabulous.

Thank you very, very much.

f

The apostolic succession on that is McClellan - Napoleon - French Royal - Swiss Guard, it was very much a "live" martial art when it was written up.


I'll settle for a beer

[Mr. Magoo1812]

Thanks for the link to the drills!! that's past my usual thrusting routine

i play the long game if i can. i'm about six feet tall so i keep a close stance and "throw" the glave. my left hand is in the strap and finger loops on the back and the rest is just guided a little by my right hand all told i get about 8.5 feet of reach. It drops at the end of the throw before i retract it, but 9 out of 10 times it's hooking my opponent's sword, armor, or shield.

The headshot thing is my favorite, just keep moving and you're fine.

It's up close things get dangerous, it's like dirty dancing with the glave to keep you alive in the in fight, until your opponent forgets how far you can reach and is looking at your glave over his shoulder. I love it but i'll work on the bayonet drills and the stance, and form tips you guys gave me, it should help me in a hurry

Thank you all!!!

[mordreth]

Best of luck with it - my personal preference for great weapons is to use them as close range terror weapons


shock and awe is a good thing

[Mr. Magoo1812]

Amen to that brudda.

The problem is the 350lb. man with a barn door who corners my scrawny A**. That's when things get ugly lol. He doesn't terror easily though it irks me it also makes me a better fighter and my bruises appreciate that some of this will be preventable at a later date

[DukeAvery]

Master the mini-mace or falchion. In 28 years of off and on again sca fighting I've never done it - getting the weapon from a secured position to a fighting one correctly with a gauntlet on is very difficult. If you do master it, be sure to never ever gauntlet someone in the head, or you will be identified as a problem child.

However, if you succeed your options just got a whole lot wider.

-Avery

[sirtomt]

There a variety of methods on how to handle shield men even very big ones in close. But you should work on walking before running. If you are just starting out with Glaive I would suggest working first on your hand movement on the weapon from long to medium, to close grip depending on your range from the enemy and footwork. The videos people have posted links to are pretty reasonable also.

By any chance will you be at either Calontir Winter War Mauevers , Gulf Wars, or Quest for Camelot? If so I would be happy to work with you being a left hand back pole arm guy myself.


Sir Tom Tinntinnabulum

Northshield.

[mordreth]

OH OH OH

Buy the best gauntlets you can - you are going to get your hands beaten up, and broken bones in the hand, or broken fingers are just the gift that keeps on giving

[Kilkenny]

Even if the shield man is enormous, the chances that his shield arm is stronger than your entire body are pretty slim.

Likewise his sword arm.

You can buy an amazing amount of room with just a bit of leverage, pushing that corner of the shield with the haft of your pole and driving the blade into his head through the gap.

Likewise, if you can strike along the path that his sword arm clears when he strikes at you, while keeping your haft between his sword and your person, you will get happy results.

Duke Vissevald refers to the concept of "attack blocking" wherein you do not passively block with your polearm, but rather make your attack on a path that has the haft of your pole intercept the opponent's incoming sword.

[Ewan]

A pm to blkrabbit might prove educational as well.

Aveloc won An-Tir crown with his pole arm in an open format list.

I don't fight with one myself very often so nothing there,

Buuuuut, I learned how to fight when my knight was fighting almost exclusively glaive.

Here is how I beat (when I was active) most guys who had a glaive.

I fight strapped heater, right hand sword.

My guard against a typical glaive guy (someone who is actually good with one is a different story, but there are less of them than you think) was heater square to the glaive, downside point on my knee, sword held vertically with the basket placed on top of my shield almost right in front of my face.

This allows me to completly ignore the low feint/thrust to the face tactic many employ. The vertical sword allows me to parry a face thrust much easier. As soon as I successfully parry a face thrust, rush in following the glaive back to the other fighter. Most people would then start chopping at me so place the sword horizontally above the head, while keeping the shield ready for leg shots. Watch the butt spike while closing, if you see the beginning of a butt spike, pausing your rush for a split second will often negate the range needed for the buttspike. Do not close to belly on belly range as the butt spike is death in tight.
Once in close, wraps, slot shots varying your targeting to the head, body and arms. Alos attacking the "long" section of the glaive may be a viable tactic, displacing it out one of their hands. Don't stop throwing until they are on the ground.

Against most mid/upper level glaive fighters this will have a high degree of success so hopefully you can analyze this and figure out how to be better than a middle level glaive fighter.

[Palymar]

I did a 20 min video giving basic pole arm techniques a few years ago. You can find it here if you are interested:

http://www.midrealm.org/kith/kith/pole.wmv

[Paul the Small]

Amen to that brudda.

The problem is the 350lb. man with a barn door who corners my scrawny A**. That's when things get ugly lol. He doesn't terror easily though it irks me it also makes me a better fighter and my bruises appreciate that some of this will be preventable at a later date

Often times a well timed REALLY hard thrust to the top sword side corner of the shield will stop even a 350lb charge. Wait untill he has stepped and is bringing up the trail foot, then strike hard. It can, and usually does, completely fark up their balance and break the charge.

My favorite guard with a glave is starting with the blade held over my head vertically with my hands spread fairly far apaprt and the butt spike pointing at the other fighter's face. This is a great offensive style for glave. I believe glave should be fought offensively and the defensive styles of glave get you really dead. The best defence is to end the fight quickly. Play range, strike hard at the shield if no other target presents itself (psychological warfare is fun ), strike fast, move fast, and play the angles.

Then again my style is a little different than most and YMMV.

[Bob H]

http://www.vitaporten.se/default.asp?page=films&pageid=1

there's a section on polearms.

That site is ... a treasure. Thank you very much.

[Dmitriy]

Ewan describes a common and effective technique used against glaivesmen.

Counter, assuming he managed to goad you into a misplaced thrust and is now coming straight at you, his shield on your glaive, intending to wrap you to east bejesus: imagine a circle with the center at your opponent. Disengage your glaive and move along the perimeter of the circle. Moving to his shield side will give you a good shot at a cut to the back of his head. Moving to the left is a bit harder disengagement-wise, but gives you nice thrust lines to the belly, the inner thigh, and the face.

Don't go for the belly if he has good armor there, folks tend not to notice unless you stop them cold (and even then they sometimes try to keep going).. It's not a rhino thing, it's just how our weapons are; learn to live with the body shots having a lower rate of return than face, armpit, etc.

If your opponent is too experienced to just try to bumrush you, having been gutted for his troubles in the past, start stacking attacks -- you have more time than he does. As you circle to his sword-side and he adjusts to meet your thrust, see-saw back, turning in a fluid motion the thrust that was going for his face into a cut to the now exposed back of the shield-side leg -- that sort of thing.

Learn to move your hands on your weapon, learn to cut and thrust with either foot being forward, and either hand being on top.

Buttspikes have their place, but they are not end-all as far as inside fighting; there is a lot of leverage you have in your hands, slipping the top hand towards the blade and using your weapon as a giant crowbar works great for swinging open those barndoors. Smash their sword shoulder/basket/arm so it poses no threat, pry open the shield on return by clipping the sword-side corner and yanking it using your body's core strength, then pulse forward with a cut at your opponent's grill.

Corby, Tom T, and Palymar are famed glaivesmen, listen to what they have to say.

Sir Brand McClellan had a video (like, an actual videotape) back in the late 90s/early 2000s. I think there are a couple of copies floating about in the Outlands, see if someone has one.

[Mr. Magoo1812]

You guys never cease to amaze me!! The more i read of your guys ideas the better prepared i feel. The gauntlets do make such sound advice i think that's my next large purchase. Can you guys throw out some places you would trust getting them from?

Sir tom i appreciate your offer and i would love to take you up on it, but i'm a full time student and work two part time jobs. I'm not even going to make it to Estrella this year :.( If you pass me your e-mail info i'll gladly keep in touch though

As for getting close i figured i could spare a hand when they get close enough.

On the belt i wear for my tabard, i strapped a piece of PVC pipe shaped like a Lego man's hand, i keep a dagger there. when you drop your hand to mid shaft on the glave and sneak that out low it's great for threatening their head until you get a nice opening.

I know it won't always work, but the two weapon thing adds some options and variety that really surprised two of the fighters i tried some of you guys's tips on. I noticed a vast improvement just with the stance suggestions you guys gave me

I appreciate the help and can't say thank you enough!!!

[Wulf]

Yeah gauntlets are a must for a polearm fighter. I fought for years in hockey gloves and well on cold and rainy days i can really feel it. Don't be as stupid as i was/am and wear crappy hand protection when fighting polearm, your hands WILL get hit. They will get hit often and hit HARD. For this form its the third most important piece of armor your gona have, helm and cup being one and two. Learn to thrust. This is probably the most important thing for a polearm fighter. It lets you attempt to dictate the range of the fight. If that sword and board guy is going to stand out there at eight feet and let you stab him to death and never close you win every time. Practice switching hands and changing your feet it will help you big time. Be prepared to move any direction at any time. I know that sounds like advice for all fighters and it is, however with a polearm its even more so. Sword and shield fighters will want to be right up on your and they are not looking to give you a big hug or sloppy kiss so you need to be comfortable that close to them or back up.

In melee you will find your role to be a lot different. In a static fight you are going to be behind the shieldwall often waiting for a charge or charging right behind them, or if you are aggressive enough and can get on a flank they are going to have to send 2-3 to get you out of there because your going to disrupt everything.

Above all HAVE FUN. Its a new form for you and it has a lot to offer don't get upset when you have difficult times for a while. Just keep taking your lumps and have fun.

[Payn]

http://cgi.ebay.com/SCA-Stainless-Steel ... 3013r35694

Andy Ward gauntlets are the style that I have found to be the most protective of any I have used. I wish he still did the Ti ones.

http://wardmetal.com/medieval_armor.html

[mordreth]

"Kermit the gauntlet" from egg armories with a street hockey glove in them will stop direct hits from a bazooka

http://eggarmor.net/gaunt.html

I fight in a steel pair, but am thinking of going back to them since I am hoping to kick my travel and practice schedule up

[Dmitriy]

Mordreth -- I know someone who got his thumb broken in one of these, fighting glaive. So I guess it depends on the bazooka..

[Corby de la Flamme]

I would never recommend that anyone planning to fight much polearm settle for a gauntlet that does not have thumbs with a mechanical connection to the main body of the gauntlet. You need more than a 1 inch piece of rigid material to absorb the force.

I've never seen egg gauntlets with a mechanical connection.

By "mechanical" I mean a method of attaching the thumb to the gauntlet besides laces or leather. If you can grab the tip of the gauntlet thumb and move it somewhere that it would not normally go when there is a hand in it, then it does not have a mechanical connection.

Because of this requirement, I have never had a finger broken in 22 years of glaive work.

[mordreth]

Mordreth -- I know someone who got his thumb broken in one of these, fighting glaive. So I guess it depends on the bazooka..

Dang
That's the first one I've heard of, my opinion has just been modified

[mordreth]

I would never recommend that anyone planning to fight much polearm settle for a gauntlet that does not have thumbs with a mechanical connection to the main body of the gauntlet. You need more than a 1 inch piece of rigid material to absorb the force.

I've never seen egg gauntlets with a mechanical connection.

By "mechanical" I mean a method of attaching the thumb to the gauntlet besides laces or leather. If you can grab the tip of the gauntlet thumb and move it somewhere that it would not normally go when there is a hand in it, then it does not have a mechanical connection.

Because of this requirement, I have never had a finger broken in 22 years of glaive work.

I'll leave it that I haven't broken any recently ,most of the damage to my hands is ancient.
I will reexamine my enthusiasm

[Sigifrith Hauknefr]

Mordreth -- I know someone who got his thumb broken in one of these, fighting glaive. So I guess it depends on the bazooka..

Dang
That's the first one I've heard of, my opinion has just been modified

I broke my thumb in one too, "fighting" greatsword. It was just a simple tip fracture, no dislocation. I was just tapped right on the tip (where there is no padding in the street hockey glove).

("Fighting" is in quotes because I was just warming up, really)