Making A Weapons Switch

[Cheeseheart]

Does anyone have any advice as far as technique and method of fighting when switching from using swords to using clubs (not speed bats)?

[Mughi]

Yeah, technique stays the same.

All of your shots are the same, except you can be lazier with them because blade direction is no longer a factor. Only exception is wraps because of the smaller striking surface.

The difference between a sword and a club that you make can be less important than the difference between a sword constructed by you and sword constructed by somebody else.

[Magpie Saegar]

I'm pretty sure a realistic club should have more mass to it than a sword would, and that would change technique somewhat. I haven't tried it, so I can't discuss how, though.

But most clubs are more like quicktubes and don't fit that ideal. Using an average quicktube/club, it should handle a bit like a lazy man's sword, as Mughi explained. Plenty can be accomplished with wrist work on the lighter ones.

[Michael]

A lot depends on what you are doing to make your club a 'club'. One feature of clubs that you may try to duplicate is to make it tip heavy. This is realistic in some small ways (although its not really possible to safely duplicate thr real effects of a mass weapon. However, there are a few legitimate things to think about if you go for extreme tip weighting. First, while most of the same shots work and are about the same speed, your returns will be notably slower. This means you will need to plan you shots around a little longer time to return to guard. You will need better feints, sheild blocks and shot selction to cover for this.

More importantly, significant tip weighting will definitely stress the hell out of your muscles if you are using poor body mechanics in your shots. This will particually show in your elbow as tendonitis but could also show up in the shoulder. Good body mechanics is too complex a topic for me to try to cover in a post and its also an area which I have an understanding of but one which I hardly consider myself an expert in. There is a video from the 2007 SKBC Body Mechanics class on youtube that has some excellent stuff but the vid is not super easy to follow. Certainly your body will tell you if you are hurting yourself but by that time it could be too late.

In return for these challenges, tip weigthed weapons can power through blocks slightly better and can hit with sufficient force slightly easier so there are some real positives in the excahange. Like anything, you need to minimize the negatives inherent in the trade and accentuate the positives.

It should be noted, I wont be switching to tip weighted sticks myself or reccomending it to anyone but if you are committed to the change, you should seek to make it work for you rather than against you.