Getting started with staff/polearms

[Chris Holloman]

Hey Howdy Hey everyone!

I work in the school system and have been able to keep a steel blunt in my office and train in the gym on my break times. We are doing some safety reviews etc. and my principle has the concern that a parent/student might see my "sword" and freak out, which is a likely hood. He is fine with me training on my breaks but wants me to find something that isn't so obviously "martial". I am thinking with the abundance of brooms and mops etc. that I can carry a "staff" without drawing any undue attention. My question is, where to start...drills, exercises, manuals etc..

Thanks for the help!
Chris

[Mike Ruhala]

That's exactly what I love so much about the staff, it's a weapon you can have when you can have no weapons. I can keep any kind of pipe or stick in the bed of my truck and have one heck of a hand to hand weapon available for immediate access. With a piece of string to use as an amentum it becomes one heck of a ranged weapon, too.

I enjoy the staff a lot and it's the chief KDF weapon I'm working with right now. You can read about my experiences testing various kinds of staves in this thread,

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1823

As far as styles go I study Meyer of course. It is great material and I really enjoy working with it but his teachings on staff weapons assume you have read the earlier parts of the book, longsword is the most important. The nice thing about this is after you've learned his approach to staff and longsword independent of eachother you can start to see where the skills overlap and you can apply swordplay to staffwork or vice versa. Staff length is also important, I'm 5'8 and a 5 foot long staff is the shortest I can use and still do the system justice. Even if you wanted a 7 or 8 foot long staff you could still disguise it as a flagpole, tether ball pole or something.

[RJ McKeehan]

I know this doesn't answer your staff question, but why can't you get a synthetic longsword to train with? A rawlings isn't easily confused with a real sword and would still let you practice any techniques that you do with your blunt.

I'll leave staff technique/books to the experts on that. I've done some training with them, but not enough to offer good advice yet.

[JohnPatterson]

Maybe you could track down one of the glow in the dark rawlings

[Ben Floyd]

The answer:

http://mblades.com/swing/index.html

HAHA! Of course, you could still mace someone with it. And yes, mace is a verb.

[Joey Nitti]

staff would obviously be a good thing to practice if you dont wanna freak people out, but if you wanted to still practice with a longsword you could just use any of the multitude of wasters and synthetics out there

[Jeramy Gee]

Get a copy of "Fighting with the Quarterstaff" if you can find one. You can of course look at Meyer and the book "Polearms of Paulus Hector Mair" is also really good. If you are into something oriented more toward English stuff, I would recommend Silver, Swetnam, and Zachary Wylde (material from all of them is in "Fighting with the Quarterstaff"). You might also try some of the Victorian stuff. There is material out there that even used to be used by the Boy Scouts.

[Jeramy Gee]

Oh, and one more thing. You might also consider "great stick." Hutton discusses that and his style is reminiscent of of longsword. Jogo do Pau would also be good and it is a living tradition. There's a book on it but I can't remember the name of it off hand. Hell, you might even be able to find someone in your area who could instruct you.

Finally, you might also try la canne or something like that. If anyone around you does la canne, Bartitsu, or singlestick you'd also have a practice partner. Really, there are tons of possibilities.

[Frederico Martins]

if you want to give a try at jogo do pau you have Luis Preto's manuals here: http://www.shelfari.com/series/Jogo-do-Pau---Luis-Preto
I sugest the "How to sequence the teaching of technique and tactics" to begin with.
However if you don't have a practicing partner, that might not be very productive.

In jogo do pau, to practice drills alone, what I actually find myself doing more is the multiple opponents rules and sequences(when there is space).
something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSQFEeVVhgE but instead of having partners placing the targets you can simple set points of the floor.
the 1 vs 3 dynamics is specially complex and is allot of work just to get the basics right. Luis book of "Combat in outnumbered scenarios" explains that all.
The advantage is that this works with any kind of 2 handed weapon , it is not staff specific, evenfor batons.

this repetitive forms are also very good http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vABYnld05h4
they usually repeat the same move but in different directions. The first 2 or 3 are easy to understand just from the video and are great to get you oriented in space. if you can end up correctly after spinning so many times that is already great.

[Bill Carew]

I second Frederico's advice on looking seriously at Jogo do Pau (JdP). Or a similar art such as Baton de Joinville or Bastone a due mani (Hutton's greatstick is essentially a highly simplified version of Italian bastone a due mani with some French parries thrown in).

Jogo do Pau in particular has the advantage of being a living tradition, having an increasing amount of modern training materials (books and DVDs) becoming available, and has a fairly simple but very effective repertoire of techniques, which means more time can be spent on increasingly intense drilling and free fencing rather than trying to interpret arcane techniques or sequences on your own.

Did I mention JdP is a living tradition? This is invaluable, because it means you have access to, and can tap into, the experience of living masters who have learned the art from their own masters in a succession that goes back at least as far as the 19th century.

I agree with Roger that time spent with JdP will also benefit anyone working with systems such as Mair’s or Meyer’s staff fighting. There are some very interesting similarities that are well worth exploring.