Last week's practice

Was pretty good. Rag and all, made it a small practice.

So I had bbq along with the fighting. I'm into nutrition and stuff, so I busted out the MTC oil for the steaks. Which, btw, tastes awesome. Also, one of our fighters, that is normally really lazy, was more energetic than he normally is. Prediabetic anyone? Not sure if he realized it or not.

I'm blaming it on the MTC, but I'm not going to make an issue about it. I'm 30, and I'm running rings around these 18-24 year olds. I fight, all practice, and none of the other people do. Mostly they sit and recover. Which is pathetic, but I don't put the blame on them- they are just doing what's normal for our culture. It's our culture that is pathetic. The other half of it, is that I know and do better, but I'm not  doing anything, even though I could. I'm really torn about giving people health advice- first because it's not mainstream. But mostly because it's unsolicited. They are there to fight, not to get lectured on nutrition.

Speaking of recovering, I've still got an injured left wrist. Which sucks. And is completely ironic, coming from someone who wrote the above paragraph. That's ok. I'm pretty sure I know why it happened. My health isn't perfect by far- there's a reason I got into nutrition. I'm taking the appropriate countermeasures. It'll probably be healed enough for fighting by next week(I was already at the no pain when using it around the house). But I want to get out more, so I went anyways.

This means I'm getting pretty good at single blue, which is nice- but will all of the experienced fighters off at rag, I was far enough ahead of everyone else on it, that single blue vs single blue wasn't very fun. I'm trying to teach, get people to have better guards, better ranging, that sort of thing. Level everybody else up, so I can study higher level fighting.

Single blue vs sword and board was still challenging. One fighter can stuff me pretty good, and takes me down that way ~ 80% of the time, and a good percentage of that she comes out unscarred. Part of the problem there is that I can't hand match, or use my off hand to grapple. Hand matching is a no brainer for me(I'm highly ambi, and when single sword, I like to swap between hands). And I'm getting to the state where I'm seeing all of these possible grappling possibilities that I didn't use to see.

Also, part of the problem in retrospect was lazy- she was pretty good at the press(while sufficiently covering her legs- her shield to leg area is pretty good), and I wasn't sufficiently backing up to maintain range, which I desperately needed to do more of. That's because the closer you are to your opponent, the harder it is to block, and blocking with single blue is real hard, especially compared to sword and board. So what was happening was she was getting into a range such that she could still block, and I couldn't.

Now, instead of maintaining distance, I guess I could have tried to close even more, with some sort of dodge, or stuff. However, she had a punch, so she could control the range a bit, and my other arm couldn't grapple to disable it. So I really had no other option that to backpedaled sufficiently so that I would still have a guard, and I should have been more diligent with it.

The shots I got on her were threaten the shoulder, the darkside stab. Couple of block, reposts, though she was pretty good about not letting me get those. And of course, sacrifice my injured arm and take either her torso or her leg. Darkside slash was blocked by her shield angle(which opened up her left leg, but she moves her shield only after her attack/my block happens, so the angle on that was super awkward. In retrospect, I possibly could have gone for a fairly awkward, and unintuitive left leg stab, combined with a sidestep/retreat.

Another fighter, who's got a HUGE shield, now has started to have appropriate levels of aggression(before he just sat there, mostly). So he started giving me a bit of trouble. Maybe 15 % kill rate on me. Makes me happy for him, and makes me want to step up my game, in celebration. Give him a couple more practices, and he should be stuffing me as well as she does. Hopefully I'll be healed by then, and able to hand match.

Balancing swords

Let's talk about balancing swords. I can't stand swords that aren't properly balanced.

First off, a confession- this could really be titled- 'Digging around for why grip weighting is superior to pommel weighting'. Because I've never met a pommel balanced sword that felt right, regardless of where the center of mass was. And really, this is me digging to figure out why.

Second- all of the calculations basically assume the person is the dominant source of force on the weapon. This is not true with heavier styles- since gravity accelerates the same regardless of mass, heavier styles focus on taking advantage of the inertia gravity gives them. If you do similar calculations with gravity as the main focus, you end up with completely different results.

Now, with that out of the way, let's proceed. Physics is the tool we want to use for this investigation. Unfortunately, for me, physics was years ago, and I barely remember this stuff. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Remember, this blog is primarily for me to figure out stuff, and other's people consumption is secondary.

The physics of a sword, are thankfully, fairly simple. Quite like the toy problems given by teachers, where a force is applied to a rod. However, most toy problems given by teachers have the pivot point fixed. Which isn't the case here- a sword has no fixed pivot point -it changes all the time. So what do we do?

The decomposition is this- into movement that moves the center of mass, and into movement that rotates the center of mass. That's Translational(moving the center of mass of the sword) and rotational(turning it).  If you are pivoting at a place other than the center of mass, according to physics, you are doing more than just rotating it- you are doing a combination of rotation, and translation.

Translational motion:

Now, translational motion, is a part of every attack, as you shift the center of mass of the sword towards an opponent.

It seems fairly simple to optimize for:
Inertia = sum of the masses
Less inertia means greater speed with the same amount of force.  People build the lightest swords they can in order to get less inertia.

However, there is another factor here- how far your applied force is from the center of mass. You see, some of your applied force will go towards rotation, and some towards translation. The closer you are to the center of mass, the more force goes to translation over rotation. This is how you can get a faster sword, by adding weight.

Rotational motion

Exchanging a vertical sword, for a horizontal one can be very powerful. Guard for reach. Normally, this is done while striking. The reverse is done while recovering. Have another picture.

Obviously to maximize the utility of rotation, you'd like the center of mass to be towards the pommel, rather than the tip, so you'll get a better increase in reach when you rotate it.

There is another reason to want it down there, but I'm a little fuzzy on the specifics of it-
While your arm speed isn't actually constant, if you pretend it is, then the closer you are to the center of mass, the more rotation you can impart. Now, why would we want to pretend our arm speed is constant? That's where I'm a little fuzzy, and just sort of handwave and say your arm has significant inertia.

Finally let's talk about the actual rotation. Rotational inertia specifically. That's how hard it is to turn the thing. The formula is: Rotational Inertia = sum of (mass * (distance to center of mass)2). So we'd like to minimize that too. We can minimize this by putting all of the weight we have to have, as close as possible to the center. (Which is why if you tuck everything in when you spin, you go faster, despite having the same energy)

Center of mass:

So, both rotational, and translation work better when we have the center of mass, down towards the hilt. This is why we weight weapons- to bring the center of mass closer to the hilt.
So, what is the center of mass? It's the place where the following is true:
Sum of (masses on the left * distance from point) = Sum of (masses to the right * distance from point)
So, that's how this thing balances- the weight on one side, cancels out the weight on the other. And the further weight is away from the center, the more it counts.

So if we want to move the center of mass, we are going to be adding mass. The question is where?

If you want to minimize your inertia(and maximize your translational movement) then you want to pile all your counterweight on the pommel, so you could use less of it to move the balance.

However, that strategy is horrible in terms of rotational inertia- rotational inertia is based on the square of the distance. In order to minimize rotational inertia, you should pile your counterweight in a crossguard. There will be considerably more of it than if you put it in your pommel, but your sword will spin faster.

Which is better?

So do we keep our inertia low, so we have better translational movement, or do we keep our rotational inertia low, so we have better rotational movement? Which is more important? I'm betting that answer is a big fat depends. So what does it depend on?

Obviously style has something to do with it. If one is more valuable for your style, you'll definitely want to favor that type of movement.

Now, lighter vs heavier weapons. Surely that affects where you want to weight the weapon? Not really. Basically you are just multiplying all of the masses by a consistent amount, and that doesn't really change anything. (That is, until you factor in gravity, which we aren't).

What does have a huge effect is the length of the weapon, vs the length of your arm.
Translational gets you about an arm's length of motion, give or take being off balance. Rotation on the other hand gets you about a sword length's of motion, give or take the location of the center of mass.

So longer weapons favor rotation, shorter favor translation. Which is true, up to a point. However, the distance^2 term in rotational inertia means much more when there is more distance. Which is why spears mostly stab, instead of hack.

So the question is, which is larger- your arm, or your blade?

Footwork

So. I'm pretty good single blue dueling- I'm probably the best in my area, which says something, but not all that much, because I'm out west. However, I'm terrible at sword and board dueling. And by terrible, I mean I'm terribly mediocre. Specifically I don't have a good offense. My defence is alright though- for the most part, a good fighter has to actually use their skill to get around it.

When I spar against someone with a decent offence, most of my wins are through my defence beating their initial offensive strike, then reposting into a spot where they have opened themselves up. I'm at least fairly good at that.

Fights where I have to go on offense are terrible though. If they have a crappy defence, alright- I just take advantage of that. However, fighting offensively(which I only ever do if they are refusing to take that role- mostly because they can't either. Most people with an offence lose patience after a while..) against someone with decent defence is a really crappy matchup- I throw a couple shots, their defence is good enough. I'm hoping they take this as a cue to attack, in which case I can parry/block and repost. If they don't I'm kinda stuck. Mostly we close, as less distance widens whatever gaps there are, and when there are none, I just kind of brutally plow into/through them with my shield and strike as they falter. It gets the job done, as I can pretty much knock people over- sure there are some giants that I can't knock over, but anyone even remotely my size can be managed. However, It's not really fun for either of us.

I've been trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong, that makes it so I don't have a good offense for a long time- this has (obviously) been bugging the crap out of me. I've been trying to get help where ever I can, and while people have tried to help, no one has really been able to figure out what my problem is. However, I think I've finally figured it out.

So what I'm obviously lacking is a bunch of different wraps, and a darkside or two. And I know this. People show me how to do them, and I do them just fine in practice. However, when time comes to do them in combat, I can't. They are awkward and slow. And I finally figured out why.

It's the footwork. Specifically, my offensive footwork is awkward as heck. And the reason is, my stance.

Most fighters stances are like this-(narrow)
T0
00
0T

You'll see a lot of people with narrow stances. This is because a narrow stance is good for offensive movement. It's also marginally better against stabs.

Mine is like this-(wide)

T000
000T

Now, my stance was taught to me at UCI. They told me it was to prevent yourself from being knocked over- if you are hit. Which is mostly false. If you go limp, and let your reflexes take over, they do a pretty good job of keeping you on your feet from most hits above your center of gravity. 

That said, a wide stance isn't useless- first off, it makes for an easier, denial guard, denying the outside lane. Second off, you can pivot on it, really easily. This make it so you can turn to face people from different angles, and respond to offensive movement easily. Basically, it makes for an easier, better defence.

Which is great when you are single blue vs single blue and defence is king. But terrible when sword and board vs sword and board, where offence is the priority. Because, it sucks for offensive movement- which is what I need for wraps and such.

Glad I found it. Now I can retrain myself, and progress.

Brother Training

So, more brother training, and the postmortem

We worked on ranging- short vs long, long vs short, charging a red with a blue. I think he got that pretty good. Which is good.

We also explicitly worked to reduce his flinching reflex- he was blocking alright, but every time a shot was coming towards him, he'd flinch as it came. Being that open to feints would just get him killed. So we explicitly worked on reducing that, which was good.

Then we worked on his denial guard and a frame block. It's amazing how much you can get away with with just a excellent a frame block.


Now for the postmortem- was the training worthwhile? Did it allow him to work well at saltwars?

So first off- overall impressions- He fought well. I think he did quite well for about two weeks of training. Definitely still at the popcorn level, but definitely chewy popcorn.

Now, some things I noticed, that I would work on with him if we were together.

1) His movement/ranging kept him alive longer than he otherwise should have. Part of this was just plain good- he was working the strategic level, which is nice. However, Amtgard as a whole doesn't.

It seems to be a cultural thing. This criticism can be leveled equally at me too- so I flanked in the ditches there. I didn't flank hard or anything- no real tricks, no real changing of strategy between rounds. I didn't even especially try to curl the line. Mostly what I did was go to the end/outside. Kill or bypass(leg, etc...) my opponent. Then work my way down the line, killing people from their flank. And that really was too much for them. They had so much trouble stopping it. And after a while, I felt ire over it, despite it being the LEAST of my flanking game. Course on my end, I actually felt really crappy because they were REALLY open, and I wasn't taking advantage of them as much as I could/should have.

So my brother, who was babysitting, and maneuvering for 1-1s was also too much for them. I think he would have been acceptable in a Bel context, but towing the line. Not because either of those things are bad, but because he's just learning them. So for instance, he'd take longer to maneuver for a 1 on 1, than an experienced fighter (also, people give experienced fighters more slack, as they have a greater chance of plowing through more people with correct maneuver).

The other thing, is that while he was babysitting mostly correctly, there was a point that I forgot to teach him about it. First off- let's define terms- babysitting is the art of tying people up on the battlefield. It happens like this- you are against a superior fighter, or many inferior fighters in good formation. Rather than engage and most likely die, or flee, and let your opponent turn and attack the rest of your forces, you babysit. This is where you are engaging at maximum range. When they come after you, you back off. When they turn their attention, you move forward and harass them. Done correctly this nullifies them- as they can't get you, but they can't direct their attention elsewhere.

So babysitting has a natural end- two actually(assuming you don't screw up and get hit).

The one you want, which is the other end of the field resolves, with your side winning, and they help you take out your man. This is more likely than not, as assuming the battlefield is roughly equal, you have tied up a person or people who collectively are worth more than you. Therefore, the odds are that the other side of the field are tilted in your side's favor. Which really is the whole point of babysitting. He handled that case correctly

The other one, which you don't want, is the other side of the field resolves with your side losing.
Leaving you the last one, or near to the last one alive on your side. This one he handled decently- he maneuvered till he could get as close to a 1 on 1 confrontation as he could manage, then took it, and died with honor. Which is decent. But that's not how it's optimally done.

The point I didn't think to communicate with him was that if you get into that situation, you've acted too late. You need to keep aware of the battle field, and if your side is starting to crumble on the other flank, it's time to engage. Why? Because first of all, if you don't act, the battle is probably lost, following the pattern in the above paragraph. At this point, while it's low probability, you have the chance to change things- if you manage to catch the person you are babysitting off guard, and kill or leg them, then you can run to reinforce the other side of your line, which is currently failing (the best way at this point is usually a back attack on the engaged enemy, but not always), and turn the tide of battle. And if you don't, you've lost anyway. So, engage if your line is failing.

PS- another way to look at is, at this point, if your line fails, you are going to end up maneuvering for 1 on 1s, and if you start a bit early, you have an easy to isolate 1 on 1- the guy you are babysitting. Given that you were babysitting him, it's probably a tough one- however, with your team dying, odds are, in order to win, you'll have to face him sooner or later. Best to do it one on one, when he doesn't really think you'll engage him.

2) His shots reverted to monkey arms, especially around a tower shield. I'm ok with this. I'd rather he have a good defence, than a good offense, and I didn't have time to teach him both.

3) He managed to understand charging polearms in the field, which is good.

So that sums up saltwars, and training my brother for it. I've learned a lot about how to teach- what should be taught, and I've learned some of the holes which I have in my explanations. Totally a good experience!