For the most part, the vast majority of practices I go to I'm the most experienced spearman there, so there's only so much I can learn, most of which I have to figure out on my own. Having said that, my old mentor from 20+ years ago has been around from time to time and we challenge each other, while especially in the last year Sir Donnan and I have had some epic duels and have exchanged a lot of thoughts on the weapon form.
Aedult Swim
If you aren't already familiar with the practice, Duke Timothy has set up an annual practice at a warehouse in the middle of Pennsylvania where hot sticks (and not so hot sticks) from all over the country will travel to test their mettle, teach, and learn from other hot sticks that they don't normally have the opportunity to fight with.
With that said, the past two Aedult Swim's I had the opportunity to fight Sir Ariela, Sir Dietrich, Sir Donnan, Sir Randal, Master Wolfstan, Sir Simon, Guppy, and Ulsar, all of whom challenged the skill level that I brought and inspired me to take my game to the next level.
The 5 Ways
Spearing, though difficult to master, is a pretty simple form. You pretty much have a thrust to the left, a thrust to the right, and a face thrust. With the left and right thrusts you can tweak the shots to where you throw what I call an "inside hook" and an "outside hook" (essentially moving the hand to get the tip to rotate over the opponent's shaft). Nevertheless, that's 3 shots, and not really a great ability to throw combinations when compared to other weapons forms.
Compare that to, say, sword and shield; flat snap, off side, Moulinet, flat snap leg, off side leg, head wrap, leg wrap, face thrust, etc. etc. If a shield man can learn 10 shots, that's 10 options to attack. If he can then put them into two shot combinations, that gives him over 100 possible attack combinations, making it very difficult to predict what he will throw.
With only 3 available spear shots, it becomes critical to master all of the "5 Ways of Attacking.'
1 - direct attack (hit what you are aiming at)
3 - feint and attack (pretend you will thrust at one area and follow up with a thrust somewhere else)
2 - combination attack (hit 2-3 times in a row)
4 - draw or counterattack (get them to attack you first, and then immediately counter)
5 - move their weapon and then attack
Aedult Swim I
Coming into Aedult Swim I, I had a very deadly direct attack. That was my meal ticket. I'd see where my opponent was open, and hit them there faster than they could defend. The problem was, this was all hat I had. After over 20 years of fighting, my game, as effective as it was, only encompassed one of the ways of attacking.
I quickly found out when fighting other top spear fighters that my direct attack was not enough. I started to notice that as soon as I began to move my hips, they were already moving to block. Through the course of several duels, I started to set up my shots with feints, and began to have more success. In addition, I began to alternate my stances between "aggressive" and "relaxed" in order to try to throw them off on when my shots were or were not coming. These adjustments proved to be successful.
Aedult Swim II
In the year between the two events I continued to work on the 2 ways, in addition to adding in some combination attacks (these would usually come after a missed shot. I worked on letting my tip bounce off the ground, picking it up quickly, and then throwing a quick follow up shot). So lets call that three ways of attack.
Then I met Ulsar, Ragnar Blackhammer's squire, out of Caid, then Atlantia, and now the Midrealm. Ulsar is, in my opinion, one of the top two spearman I've ever faced (the other being French Canadian Sir Moe out of the East) and the only one to have given me an undisputed beating (I believe he won 10 of 13 passes). The problems that he gave me were an extra inch in range and similar speed, taking away my usual advantages, and having a really tight defense making it near impossible to move his spear out of the way with feints. Worst of all, he found a hole in my defense which he was able to exploit, that being an overly crouched and sideways defensive position that was difficult to counter out of. This gave him free reign to throw aggressive attacks at me without fear of being hit.
Aedult Swim III
In the year before Aedult Swim III, most of my improvements came from a lot of dueling that I did with Sir Donnen. After many practices with him, I think we both learned that we were not able to kill with a quick direct attack. Even after setting up my shots with good feints, I felt that he started to figure out how to read my patterns (how do I look when I feint vs how do I look when I actually attack). We both started getting much more patient and either forcing the opponent to attack, or really building tension in the fight to throw off when a direct attack would come. So lets say that at this point I had learned the 4th way, draw or counterattack.
I brought this into Aedult Swim III and got a chance at redemption. Ulsar and I did two full sessions of spear dueling in the afternoon. I didn't count the actual number of passes, but if I had to guess, they were probably each about 15. This time I brought with me better speed and timing, a more offensive fighting stance, and a 4th way. This was better, but still not enough. I still had a really hard time getting his spear out of position.
Which brings up to the 5th way. Earlier that day I was working with a fellow Anglesey fighter, Tacitus, who also had developed a really tight defensive position. The only way to get him to open up was to force his spear off of its line, causing him to over compensate, and then fire to the other side. This is something I had been doing for years, but never with a powerful push on the opponent's spear. I had actually worked on a "smack" technique for a while, but never felt comfortable with it. This "shove" cause a light bulb to go off. I finally got it, and have now added the 5th way to my repertoire.
Utilizing all 5 ways, I was able to "hold my own" against a highly respected opponent, one who beat me pretty handedly the year before. Truth be told, we didn't keep score, and it wasn't a true tourney situation, so even if I knew the actual score its not a true test of skill. He told me he felt that we went about 50/50, and in my opinion, even if I actually won less than 50% I'm very satisfied. I made him work for it, gave him a challenge, and had him breathing heavy, so I felt I gave him a good fight, something I was unable to do the year before.
Developing Speed and Accuracy
One point I didn't cover about is with regard to speed and accuracy. Over the course of the last year I probably threw well over 20,000 spear shots on my target at home, constantly refining my technique to get my shots faster, more accurate, and coming from more aggressive angles. Learning to fight is still of great importance, but bringing sharpened tools to the fight are just as important.
Teaching Some Friends
Over the course of the day I had the opportunity to teach a couple of friends a few spears techniques. Both are great fighters having fought on championship teams and having been inducted into the Order of the Tyger Combatant, and it was satisfying showing them something that they were able to pick up quickly.
One of them, we (Ulsar and myself) just had to tweak the fighting stance a little bit to cover up a hole in his defense on his right side. The other I showed how to throw a spear shot to the opponent to his left without allowing that opponent to know that the shot was coming to him.
Fighting is Largely About Recognizing Patterns and Timing
Ulsar left me with this great analogy. If you've ever played Mike Tyson's Punch Out, each fighter you had to face had repeated patterns that you had to figure out. Once you were able to figure out the patterns, all you had to do was get the timing down so that you could hit them when they were vulnerable and defend yourself when they were attacking.
Spear fighting is very similar.
All in all the fighting at Aedult Swim was great and highly recommended!
