Size DOES Matter (for weapon selection)

Hi. We have a duty to educate the less fortunate ones.

Anders

:-) Hi, Anders.

I remember - still - my semester of fencing in college. For fifteen weeks, I think we touched a sword only in the last two or three. The rest? Brutal conditioning. I learned which muscles I didn't know I had. (The same thing, I might add, was true when I started using the Viking round shield, with respect to my entire left arm).

I'd be interested if you ever wanted to do a video in this vein about fighting with a disability

Damien Tonkin

This reminds me of the duel that Abraham Lincoln fought once. He got to set the terms and being a very tall man he arranged a sort of tennis net like arrangement with railroad sleepers (the wooden planks, not night cars) that he could make full use of his reach advangate and the other guy couldn't get within stabbing range... It could be considered unsportsmanlike but it got the other guy to concede without bloodshed.

Damien Tonkin

Definitely seems like there may be a reason that spears are the most common martial weapon for basically all of history. :) Love the video!

Nil'Kemorya

Protector of the Small by Tamora Pierce! All about Knight training. Her first series Song of the Lioness does go into it a bit but goes more into detail in POTS.

Helen Ellison

Which series? And…well, I might be able to manage some bloopers. Since you asked…🙂

Jill Bearup

Amazing 🤣🤣🤣 it’s a small, small world!

Jill Bearup

Good grief! I know Lily! She was at school with my daughter!

Love it! In a series I love the main character uses a glaive, and really gets into the training and how much extra training she has to do to keep up with the boys. Specifically wrist and arm strength training. A blooper reel of this would be amazing.

Helen Ellison

I assume this would also hold true for flail-type weapons. A shorter combatant would need a shorter chain. The section on spears made me think of Zulu Assegai's and how they might be a very handy weapon for a shorter combatant as they give the option to be thrown if the enemy has longer reach.

Mark Townsend

Yeah, I pray DFRPG, where range and reach are very important. So we got into a bit of trouble when we got jumped by Giant Rats who entered into Close Combat with us. Suddenly my mace, the swashbucklers rapier and the barbarian's greatsword were useless because they can't be used in close combat. And suddenly my shield went from being great to being a disadvantage, because it was in the way and penalized my skill. You should listen to the podcast, we have a lot of fun and it might be cool to see something that *isn't* D&D for a change.

Anders

So this video has inspired me to go out and learn more about weapon combat personally! Still looking into what type - thinking either fencing or kendo, but it just looks like so much fun to wave swords around, and probably great exercise. Once my wrist is healed from whatever I did to it so I can use that hand again, anyway.

Allan

Very nice. Lily's sais really helped drive home a point about weapon sizing/reuse in fiction and fantasy too; even for what is a relatively small weapon, hers are 16% smaller than the norm to be comfortable for her, so while scavenging a weapon in a combat situation is probably better than not having one, if your size differs from the average combatant, things may be a bit unwieldy.

Ezra Strong

You know, I'm not sure? Probably not, but I'm no expert! (On a side note: Got my sword pin!)

Karel P Kerezman

But is the staff MADE of balsa? Enquiring minds want to know 🙂

Jill Bearup

Oooh. Balsa from the Moribito anime (a SUPERB show by the way) uses a short-ish staff to great effect. (Note to self, it's about time to re-watch that one...)

Karel P Kerezman