UNDERSTANDING THE SPEAR (and the overarm grip).

 It's been 12 years of training with a one handed spear for me (Arttu). Mostly I have trained weekly in summer time, but few years around the year. I started, and still continue, training with soft headed weapons in Finnish boffering scene. Also trained two handed pole weapons in HEMA context and one handed spear in Finnish reenactment scene. It took me 10 years before I became comfortable using a spear in the grip that is known as the overarm grip. 

 

Underarm grip (left) and overarm grip

Before this I became ok with using the underarm grip. Here is a video of an accuracy drill.

During my 10 year training I learned the sliding strike and to hold a long spear from the end of the shaft. I did not become comfortable in the overarm grip before I trained to throw the spear. (Here is an old, worst quality, training montage video.)

There is a forever ongoing discussion about the grips that goes on in the armchair generals discussions of one handed spear fighting. To me the last thing I learned was how sharpness of the weapons affects the fight with shields. I have now been training with sharps for 4 years and  training with sharp spears has totally changed my opinion about how to fight with a one handed spear against a fighter using a shield.

Second thing I want to talk about is rushing past the spear point. I started my training in a rule set where punching with a shield was forbidden. This means that a sword fighter can almost always block the spear once and then charge to close distance and by doing that, win. When fighting in safety gear we could start punching the helmets with our shields and that changed the game. (We are friends so we try to punch softly or stop when the touch happens.)

To show how the sharpness of the spear and punching with the shield changes the game we made a short choreographed slow-paced video with Sakari and the help of the Virtus reenactment group to demonstrate these points.

-Technique one. (5-20s) Overarm spear tip threatens the head of a fighter, thus inspiring opponents shield lift. The spear is re-aimed to trust the shield downwards, thus "locking" it on the spot. On the next tempo fighter who has committed the trust bashes his shield to the "locked" shield, freeing his spear with this same move. Fighter who does this is now free to use one's spear, while still protected by shield and locking opponents shield (and sometimes body) in place.

-Technique two. (20-30s) When trusted towards face the fighter defends by blocking with the spear shaft that was readily in the overarm guard. Thus he moves the opponent's spear aside while still aligning one's own spear against the opponent.

-Technique three. (33-43s) Punching opponents shield/body with shield to gain control. Opponent tries to parry with a spear thrust, but is in the underarm guard from where this parry is very unlikely to succeed. 

-Technique four. (44-54s) Parrying a shield punch from overarm guard, pushing the opponent's shield downward thus stopping the forward movement. Next tempo has the opportunity to continue similarly than in technique one.

So our argument here is that the shield can sometimes be the main target of the spear user, and this point seems to gain weight with the heavier earlier shields like the Roman scutum and with the Greek aspis.

The next thing that sharp weapons reveal is that all hits don't need to be perfect. The one thing often depicted in art is that the spear is aimed downwards like in the picture below. Also the most ergonomic way of holding the spear.

This of course compliments my hypothesis that the upper part of a shield could be the target of the aim. The spear is very easy to thrust forward towards the face from that position unless one is really close to opponent. Cutting test have shown us that the spears cut nicely when "punched" upwards. The cut test video put right under has this "upwards punch cut" as the first move. (20-50 s) It is a very easy cut to do, and thus it showed us that pointing the spear downwards does not mean one is not aiming at the head even if really close to opponent.

The fact that you can "punch cut" upwards while pointing the spear head down and thus having a constant possibility to control the shield with the spear head was very inspiring to me and I wanted to test it in sparing. For this I needed to find my old sparring spear head that had been stored a way while waiting for new life after covid. The sparring heads I made are o roll of rubber, and they are the most sticky heads I have used.  Everything I have bought bends too much or slides of the shield but this roll of rubber does the job. It is slightly heavier than the lancea next to it in the picture bellow. In my experience it is safe to thrust and cut with it to the fencing mask and its sticks really well.

Lancea on the left. Arttus rubber spear head on the right. A Small throwing spear head photo bombing in the middle. (I should take a better picture later.)

The rubber head felt like the right tool to try the Idea of controlling a shield in sparring. I asked Sakari to take a video of a sparring session between me and Julius in Greywolves training session. For Julius I only said I want to try out sparring with spears after along time, thus I did not want him to accidentally help me to succeed. There was an extra challenge that I tend to loose to Julius in a iron-age round shield fights. In a two minute sparring session I had success in using shield controlling strategy against the hardest opponent available. You can see my chaotic success on the video below. I fight with the black and yellow shield, while Julius has the yellow and red one.

-As the round center-grip shield is held quite high by my opponent, I take the control by changing to an under arm grip and forcing a turn of my opponents shield. (Of course I first don't gain control, but I succeed by the second thrust.) (7-9s)

- I succeed in changing the control to be held by my shield by pressing hes shield towards him. Hes shield gets into a position under mine. I get to pres my shield edge agains hes chest. (~10s)

- Image to give a thrust over our shields while hes shield is under mine. (~10-11s)

After this I enter next fight feeling quite good and line my shield poorly thus giving a free point to my opponent. (20-22s)

The success was quite a chaotic one but it gave me confidence that the controlling strategy would work with iron age center-grips shields.

After this session I don't yet feel the subject has concluded, and as the sparring was so fun after a long break we have been sparring almost weekly during the spring always someone using a spear. In these sessions my opinion of using spear to control the center-grip shield has grown stronger. It also provides a lot of stopping power. In these session I use both over and under arm grips. I have mostly stopped trying to control my opponents' shields with my shield and more often give a punch with it to their mask instead. I have had my focus on learning to use this strategy of controlling the shield, and my opponents have learned to use their shield more actively to counter this. Everyone has found the overarm grip strong and useful in sparring while the under arm grip is still used. We have added a secondary weapon in some fight to encourage throwing the spear and thus making the overarm grip even more frightening. The stopping power of the spear and the danger of a shield punch has made fighting against sword and axe more powerful. We have decided to give a point from a spear cut and from a shield punch when they feel solid. Sparring like this feels super intense while remaining intellectually interesting. (One can watch fun sparring compilation here.)

At the level of skill we currently find our selves, it seems that we want to use both underarm and over arm grip in fights. For my self the over arm grip works in stopping opponent rushing me and has clear advantage in close combat. Close combat also gives a lot of chances to do draw cuts with the spear. The huge advantage of the center-grip round shield is that we can use  both over- and underarm grips, and stab from both sides of the shield. Under is a short 2 minute round of sparring with shield and spear between Arttu (me) and Julius. Both fighters have a side arm to use, and both fighters are using both grips.  

We are also super interested if you can try out what we suggest here, either with sharp weapons or in sparring. Spearheads are cheap so they are a nice way to get accustomed to sharp weapons. Let us know in the comments or in facebook what your experiences are. We train in a quite closed environment and sometimes training culture leads to certain outcomes, that would not work in a different environment. Because of this we wish to hear what your experience is like.