The Measure of a Man (or other person) Distance and Reach
In sword fighting measure refers to your ability to reach your opponent, and their ability to reach you. If you canât reach them you are out of measure. If you need to take a passing step to reach them, youâre in a long measure. And if you can hit them from where youâre standing, youâre in measure. I recommend you simplify this to descriptions of distance or reach for readers.
The more distance you have over your opponent, the more time the defender has to react. The less distance, the less time the defender has. But the roles of attacker and defender change quickly. If they have less time to react to your attack, you will have even less time to react to their counter.
All this stepping forwards and backwards is like a constant mind game where each fighter searches for control.
When retreating from an attack, the defender could retreat to a minimum safe distance, allowing them to make a smaller move to reach their opponent than their opponent had to make to reach them. Even a smaller person with a shorter sword can best someone with more reach than them, by better controlling their measure.
In the illustration bellow, X (on the right) and Y (on the left) have the same reach. X takes a full step forwards and makes a cutting attack to reach Y, and Y takes only a small step back to successfully dodge. Y now makes a cutting attack using a lunging step and X is too close to retreat in time. Xâs full attack also left them unable to defend in time with their sword.
X could have tried retreating as their swing finished for more time to get their sword ready to defend, or done a partial cut, making their weapon a threat needing to be dealt with before Y could counter.
So why not always use this strategy? Why would you ever attack first when this can happen?
In the next scenario, X attacks with a lunging thrust that brings them just in range of Y, but Y takes a small step back. X doesnât stop the attack and now takes a full step forward, keeping their sword pointing at Yâs throat. Y tries to take a full step back in response, but is out of room, and even if they werenât their full step still would not have brought them out of reach. Xâs larger first step allowed them to catch their target in the end.
Y could have defended with their sword if they knew how to win the crossing. That will be covered in âA Crossing of Bladesâ
There are thousands of variations of stepping backwards and forwards or where Y or X could each win even these scenarios in different ways. But I hope these two examples will help you get into the mindset of why a character may advance or retreat. Often a retreat to a long distance will be simply to reset the battle from unfavourable conditions.
If you get in too close, and donât have control over your opponents weapon, youâll make yourself vulnerable. You might also enter grappling range. More on that in âYour Body Everything is a Weaponâ (chapter coming soon)
If youâre attacking and it requires more than one step, itâs often advisable to move your sword as if making an attack while you do so. If it takes two steps for you to reach your opponent, then in the time it takes for you to take one step they could take one step forward as well and be in range to strike you. Giving them an attack to deal with will make them think about defending as they enter your space instead of attacking.
And of course, most battles arenât going to happen like a platformer video game. Circling will occur.Â
You might be thinking about how much it must suck to be backed up against something or someone right now. And yea. It does. Fighting back to back is not advisable in a real battle if you can afford the space. But you know what? You can pull the back-to-back trope from my cold dead hands. If itâs that difficult to do, think of how much more impressive it actually is if your characters can pull it off.Â
Iâm not here to tell you how to make a battle practical or accurate. But to get you in the mindset of whatâs dangerous or whatâs smart. In the end, tell the story you want to.
I know that sounds harsh and Iâm about to explain to why, if taken at face value, your character would get killed. Weâre going talk about weapons, how they work, generalized versus specialized, and a concept called reach.
Reach or Distance:Distance to target i.e. how close do you have to be in order to hit the other guy. Itâs very important to be able to judge distance in combat because the teeniest error in judgement can be the difference between a hit and an almost hit. While reach is a key part of hand to hand training, itâs even more vital when it comes to understanding weaponâs combat. Particularly, how different weapons play against each other. It shouldnât shock you (though it surprises some people) that different weapons come in different lengths. The length of the weapon changes the weaponâs reach or distance it takes to hit an opponent.
This becomes more important when talking about theoretical combat between two different weapons, especially when the difference in length can be anywhere from a few inches to several feet. A few centimeters can be the difference between life and death, and thereâs a rather vast difference in length between a longsword and a club.
Distance is important, because if the other guy can hit you before you can hit them then youâve got problems. This is why the saying, ânever bring a knife to a gunfightâ exists. The thought process is if the guy twenty feet away has the gun and youâve got a knife, youâre pretty thoroughly screwed.
Iâm going to assume you meant a longsword when you said âbroadswordâ and not a Roman gladius. In this situation, the guy with the longsword can strike the girl with the club well before she reaches a range where she can hit him. He can do so safely and with far better defensive capabilities when it comes to deflecting her club, while the club on its own doesnât provide much as a means of protection. Itâs a solid offensive weapon in the right circumstances, but thereâs a reason why itâs paired with the shield.
If she rushes to close the gap, she will get killed even more quickly.
Differences in Damage:This not about which weapon deals damage better, but the kind of damage they deal. The kind of damage they deal directly relates to how the weapon is designed to move, and as a result the path of movement it needs to take in order to achieve results.
The club/mace/morningstar have weighted tips just like a bat. The idea that physical (weightlifting style) strength is necessary to wield them is a misnomer, you donât need to be in order to wield them. The weapon is weighted so that it naturally achieves greater momentum when swung, the momentum is what achieves the strength behind the blow rather than the strength in the arm itself. Speed, ultimately, is more necessary to the success of the club than physical strength. The faster you swing, the greater your momentum, and the harder you hit as a result. The strength is in the force of impact.
Neat, huh? We tend to think the Europeans of the Middle Ages as dumb brutes or assume the Barbarian tropes, but they were efficient when it came to figuring out means of killing each other and overcoming obstacles⌠like armor.
The problem with club is that itâs short. This is not a problem when youâre most likely facing enemies that are unarmored and arenât carrying weapons or carrying weapons of similar size, but it becomes one when facing a longer weapon. Especially one that is as deadly as the sword, especially when that sword is in the hands of someone who knows how to use it.
In Europe, the sword was the great generalist weapon. Itâs somewhat akin to the modern handgun in terms of popularity and usefulness in a wide variety of situations. Theyâre both sidearms, but they can both fulfill roles outside their designed function. The sword is deadly.
Fiction often downplays just how deadly the longsword sword is. But trust me, it wouldnât come in so many different variations or be the model Europeans kept coming back to if it didnât work. Itâs such a useful weapon that it became part of our cultural consciousness, surviving down in different forms through countless ages, to become a symbol of kingship.
The sword is not the best weapon, it is a secondary weapon or sidearm. What makes it dangerous is the extraordinary ease in which it allows one person to kill another and the wide variety of varying circumstances in which it is useful.
The sword deals damage through very specific points of impact and any glancing blow it makes can end up being fatal. It also strikes on a more confined pattern than the club, making itâs attacks both faster, more difficult to see, and requiring less time for windup. You donât need to pierce deeply into the body to reach muscles, find tendons, or to cause someone to bleed. Whether itâs punctured via the tip or caught in a glancing slice, all those wounds become debilitating. Debilitation leads to death.
âWhatâs he going to do? Poke me to death?â
âYes, actually.â
People donât come with specially armored skin. The sword is designed to pierce and efficiently carve up the human body, even a cut just an inch or two deep can quickly become debilitating.
Blood loss is a legit strategy.
Strategy:Strategy is a plan of action. It starts with recognizing your own capabilities and weaknesses in relation to your opponent versus their strengths and their weaknesses.
When youâre writing strategy, you should be bound by the limitations of your character. You donât have to be, but itâs more honest to who they are. Think about the events from the characterâs perspective, chucking out everything except what they know and understand about the world, their combat abilities, their opponents, and their limitations.
There are only so many strategies I could give, but itâs better if you start to use the above to formulate your own in conjunction with what you know about these two characters, where they are, what their goals are, what they want, and what the stakes of their conflict are.
The human element in combat is never to be overlooked. A lot of the time, talking about this can feel like a more complicated game of rock, paper, scissors. The problem is it isnât that clear cut. While knowing what a weapon can do and what it canât do is all fine and dandy (and important to writing your fight scenes), the heart of the fight are the people who participate. Two people can be given the same arsenal and use to it to extraordinarily different results. They change the rules by deciding what they will do, what they wonât do, what they want, and what kind of people they are.
Itâs not so much that the baseline rules change, but rather how people choose to work within them.
I canât answer any of those questions. Theyâre your characters, youâve got to do it yourself.
So, what I need everyone who follows us to do is take your concept of physical strength and itâs importance to combat and then chuck it out a window.
You have a character who wanders into combat, fights like a battering ram, and thrashes about until everyone is dead. This will work against people who are unarmed and have no idea what theyâre doing.
Sheâs fighting an opponent who is better trained, better armed, and carrying a weapon with much greater reach (I am assuming when you say âbroadswordâ, you mean a longsword and not a Roman gladius). The longsword is actually longer than her arm. Just as importantly, the strike patterns of the club lend themselves to large openings in the defenses.
This is why when someone fights with a mace, they usually bring a shield and plate mail. If youâre going to be raising your arms above your head, you better be wearing protection.
If she bull rushes him in an attempt to knock him down, she will either end up impaled on the sword itself or heâll let her go past him and carve the sword up her back.
Sheâs got to figure out how to get close enough to hit him, and he has a weapon that is 1) very quick and 2) long enough to ensure she canât in any easy way. If sheâs not wearing armor, she canât just wade in. Itâs also worth remembering that sword training includes striking soft targets like the legs and the arms before going for the center. She could get close enough, think sheâs in the clear, and end up with his blade pierced through her boot.
What I am saying is that if she fights him on an even keel in an honest duel: the deck is stacked against her. More importantly, sheâs stacked the deck against herself. Sheâs wielding an inferior weapon against an opponent with superior training and a superior weapon, one far more deft at making use of openings, greater reach, and with greater defensive capabilities.
You have to be able to reach your enemy in order to hit them.
Right now, youâre trying to treat these two characters like theyâre equals. If you recognize how utterly fucked she is, you can work within her limitations and possibly pull off a victory. However, the strategy she chooses to use is a reflection of who she is as a person. Strategy itself lives within a personâs ability to recognize and operationalize their strengths and weaknesses while acknowledging the person across from them. You also need to know how to use the environment and other factors outside of just statistics.
Statistically, sheâs screwed. If sheâs aware enough to realize that she needs to gain a different type of advantage (an emotional or psychological one) over her opponent, then great. If sheâs a dumb, brute force type character unable to register that just because someone looks inferior doesnât mean they actually are then sheâs most likely dead.
An opponent with superior training and wielding a superior weapon is a difficult challenge to overcome. An opponent with inferior training who knows just enough wield a superior weapon, even badly, is a difficult challenge to overcome.
Weapons are not just aesthetic choices. They are not created equal. Each one comes specifically designed for certain situations. A sword and a club are two very different weapons, with the sword designed for a wider range of uses. Itâs a much more flexible weapon.
A shield with armor (at the very least protection for the legs, feet, arms, and hands), or trading in the club for a staff (that she knows how to use) to regain the reach advantage would help her.
The assumption made by those who understand nothing about combat is that the guy with the sword is always going to strike for center mass or the main part of the body. However, one of the key parts of combat is the concept of carving your way inward. The sword can cut and damage, even superficially, any part of your body that is unarmored. Taking out hands, legs, feet, and arms if they canât reach the middle is all acceptable. She raises her club to swing at him and he drives the bladeâs tip into her armpit. It might sound silly, but thatâs a legitimate target point.
Thereâs an artery there, striking it means fast bleedout and ruins your opponentâs ability to use their arm. Heâll have been trained to aim for it by his swordmasters because itâs also one of the openings left in plate. The same is true for the knees, or the inside of the thigh. Heâll naturally aim for the joints because those are the openings left due to the need for articulation.
Hands and arms are major targets in sword duels. The understanding is that if they canât fight then they canât stop you from killing them.
Untrained fighters tend to offer up those targets more regularly and frequently because they donât realize that they need to protect them. Stabbing someone in the foot is not glamorous, but it works.
So, she needs a way to counter that sword, itâs speed, and itâs reach. It could be as simple as adding a parrying dagger or a shield if she can one hand the club. The strategy begins with finding a way to nullify the sword, protect herself so she can get close enough (without taking debilitating damage) and end the fight.
As she is now, sheâs pretty doomed. Running at him wonât work. Rushing him will not work. The usual bullish skills she relies on are naturally countered by the length of his weapon and his training. Sheâs basically in a position of âbringing a knife to a gun fightâ. If she cannot strike him down before the sword comes out then she is in some serious trouble.
Itâs not impossible, but donât treat them like equals. Treat her like sheâs fighting at a severe disadvantage. (No, not because sheâs a girl. Itâs because sheâs ill equipped and has no combat understanding other than learned experience.) Knowing that and working within it is the necessary understanding thatâs key to victory.
Iâll be honest, one of the biggest issues with âsuper skilledâ or ânaturally giftedâ fighters is that, unless theyâve learned otherwise, they tend to be shit teachers. Teaching is, in large part, the ability to take your own experiences and struggles then apply them to aiding your student to learn the same. The best teachers are often the ones who struggled hardest to understand their subject matter, who spent a lot of time on it. This can be someone gifted, but itâs not the natural conclusion. Someone who naturally grasps the concepts and grasps the basics quickly enough that theyâve never needed to really think about it will have trouble explaining those same basics to someone else. This can lead to many frustrations for both parties, especially if this is the teacherâs first outing.
Itâs important to start with recognizing that being good at fighting and being able to teach someone how to fight are actually two separate skill sets.
Being a teacher requires that you think about what youâre doing, how it works, how it functions, and then how accurately show someone else how to do it. It actually takes a fair amount of introspection and understanding. It, ironically compared to cultural perceptions, often makes you better at what discipline you practice. This is why at the higher stages of martial arts training, for example, students take on more responsibility and begin assisting their teachers then eventually teaching themselves. Having to sit down and actually explain it to someone else, to think about what youâre doing, and how you did it in a way that they can understand is important to improving yourself.
In helping others, we help ourselves.
This is just a lead in to me saying that just because this prince is good at fighting, it doesnât mean he can teach or teach her well. There are many different kinds of combat, and his training may not be suited to what sheâs looking to learn or needs to know. This is even more true if heâs physically gifted and she isnât. For the genius, a technique that may be extremely complicated is exceedingly simple, they natively grasp the concept and their bodies can quickly adapt it into their repertoire. They may have also learned at an accelerated rate. Their learning experience being vastly different from someone on a more even keel. Even if heâs not gifted or he is and she is, they may not learn the same way and that requires him having to entirely restructure everything about his teaching methods to get the techniques across.
Heâll also be far more educated than she is which will make it more difficult to relate concepts to her if she doesnât understand what the concept is. They come from very different beginning positions. Heâll have been primed for combat his entire life even before he began learning, while this may be a concept thatâs just occurring to her. Someone raised in the lap of luxury has a different perspective than someone who grew up on the streets. More than that, unless heâs ornamental, a princeâs life is filled with responsibility, study, duties both political and governmental, with huge constraints on his time even if heâs just the second or third son.
Ruling is a job and the child of a ruler is one groomed from birth to take over that role. A prince thatâs really good at combat but not likely to inherit the throne, for example, may be one being groomed to be their older brotherâs general or Grand Marshal. The one who takes the reins in terms of military matters and national security, both internal and external.
Or if heâs got a lot of older brothers and no prospects, then he could be raised to be the familyâs duelist or Champion. The one who fights in place of the King when another noble challenges a decision, royal decree, or personal slight.
Ultimately, the kind of teacher he is matters. The breath of his experience matters. Teachers arenât all equal and teaching is a learning experience, just as much as the studentâs training. If heâs never taught anyone before, if he expects everyone to come to it with the same background he did i.e. lots of personal tutors, if he doesnât understand the difference between starting with nothing and starting with something, then she could be in for a very rough time.
Mentor/Student is very much a give and take. Itâs setting boundaries. Itâs building trust. There are a lot of ways to do that.
Even though youâre not writing from the Princeâs perspective, these are important questions to suss through and figure out. Your main characterâs entire learning experience will be decided by what he does and what he knows. So it may be important to figure out what that is.
As for the first person learning perspective from the studentâs POV.
Youâre in for an easier road when the student knows nothing and writing from their point of view means that their teacher informs their entire learning experience.
Start slow and build your base.
One spends an entire lesson on stances, learning to stand, breathe, and balance their weight before theyâre ever allowed to hold a sword. Then, they practice holding the sword, practicing their strikes. Single strikes, rather than combinations, with stances. Then, they practice their footwork separately. Single strikes are practiced together in conjunction with the footwork. Then, we move on to combinations putting footwork/strikes together into a flurry of movement with attack and defense. Practice alone, becoming used to no resistance. Then, practice with a partner. Then, practice with multiple partners to build experience.
Intersperse cardio. Stretches both before and after practice to keep the limbs loose. The character thinks about their training during the day, as they do their chores. Practicing their stances, locking their wrists, adjusting their fingers.
Safety first.
Depending on teaching style it could be confusing and âmysteriousâ with the teacher refusing to explain whatâs going on. Or, they could explain the purpose.
The character will practice the same repetitious movements over and over again. It wonât be very exciting. Theyâll leave training bruised and probably a little beaten. The teacher needs to balance the realities with hope for improvement. She will get better slowly, though due to a vast difference in both experience and expectations she may never be his equal.
Attack and defense are both necessary.
Every sword strike can lead to death.
The teacher will destroy preconceived notions.
Try not to make it so that theyâre awesome at everything right away. Even the ones who can physically get it, it takes them time to really understand it. Also, a character who goes âoh! thatâs easy!â will immediately be bumped into harder challenges.
They will be dumb in the beginning. All students are dumb in the beginning unless theyâre not really beginners. Thatâs okay. Being slow, confused, and frustrated is part of being human.
Donât forget the cardio. Training extends outside of class time. She must practice and consistently or else sheâll forget, sheâll have to learn all over again in the next class.
Some good training sequences:
Tamora Pierceâs Song of the Lioness and Protector of the Small are very good to use for reference. Particularly Kelâs relationship with her maid Lalasa in the second novel Page, with Lalasaâs training being geared for female self-defense. Lalasaâs solutions such as practicing her stances during the day while she stands in line are excellent examples of a character consistently trying to learn.
Game of Thrones: Arya Stark training under Syrio Forel. Cat catching included. Why cat catching, you ask? It trains the reflexes and hand to eye coordination, also helps the trainee hone their stalker instincts. Plus, it doubles successfully as the teacher trolling.
The Mask of Zorro: Iâve mentioned Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins before, but the Mask of Zorro has one of my all time favorite training sequences. It combines humor and no small amount of sadism with some genuinely good advice while being highly entertaining at the same time.
He has a lot of good training tips like his longsword training tips, footwork, small tutorials about different kinds of sword combat, and discussions on history plus the roles of various weapons.
If you can, honestly, look up your local HEMA chapters and fencing clubs. The only ones who can teach you how to teach sword combat are teachers who teach sword combat. Itâs okay if you know nothing, most martial artists are more than happy to share knowledge with beginners. Take a class if youâve the resources. Itâll help you a lot.
This is what medieval sword fighting probably looked like- two fighters being defensive and testing each other with sharp blades. This video comes from the wonderful swordsfolk at DIMICATORÂ , based in Germany.
This martial arts school reconstructs the practice of historical European swordsmanship. They focus on unarmoured fighting with sword and buckler, as described in late medieval German manuscripts.Â
In a fight, sheâs going to die. The only way to get past his sword is to kill him preemptively. Once the sword is out, sheâs dead. More than that, she has no way to close the distance to even injure him. Quite literally, she will not even slow him down. This isnât a background question, or a gender question, itâs just a weapons issue.
Heâs swinging a 5 – 6 foot long blade that weighs about as much as your laptop (4 – 7 lbs). We can talk about it being slow (for a sword) or heavy (for a sword) but itâs very important to understand, she cannot get within six feet of him and live. Itâs still a very agile, lethal, and fast weapon.
Itâs also important to remember heâs not a video game character. Heâs not going to make some big overly telegraphed attack and then end up with the sword buried in the masonry long enough for her to run up and shank him a couple times. Doesnât happen.
If she never fights him. She just comes up behind him in a crowd, buries her dagger in his kidneys, and leaves him to bleed to death, she can come out on top. But a quick assassination strike is her only option. Really, thatâs the combat role of a dagger, outside of some very situational stuff.
So you have a character thatâs geared for heavy infantry combat vs. a character who is effectively unarmed. Thatâs never a good situation.
Also? She should know that. When youâre talking about someone whoâs effectively an opportunist, she would know she has no chance in a stand up fight with a soldier/ex-soldier/merc. If presented with this guy, her options are to either shank him, or run. If heâs ready for a fight, then she needs to be someplace else, now. Someplace he canât follow her. If thatâs through a black market he canât enter, through a church, into somewhere neither of them want to be (like the tavern theyâve both been thrown out of for completely different reasons) but that will raise less of a fuss over an âunarmedâ woman racing in, than a main armed with a greatsword. Because, honestly, a big guy with a greatsword barreling into anywhere is rarely a welcome sight.
Itâs important to understand, running isnât cowardice. A character choosing not to commit suicide against an armed opponent in a back alley brawl is just being smart.
On a writing level, Iâm going to leave you with a question: If it doesnât matter for the plot, then why is it there at all?
Whenever youâre working on a scene, it needs to be in the story for a reason. It needs to move the plot forward, or provide more character development. Something. It needs to do something.
Killing off a character because, âeh, might as well,â is usually a bad idea. There are legitimate reasons to do so, but they get into some really tricky territory. Killing characters to promote the idea that, “no one is safe,” can easily backfire, leaving you with readers that no longer care. Even in the best circumstances, the more characters you kill, the less their deaths matter.
Simply snuffing peripheral characters because you can, doesn’t really get you anything. If neither of these characters are important enough to affect the course of the plot, why are you spending time looking at them fighting? It becomes a weird kind of filler that can just as easily be cut.
There isnât one. With knives you can âsafelyâ take a couple strikes to some areas of the forearm, but, that doesnât hold up for a sword. So the safest place to take a sword strike is anywhere youâre not standing. Failing that, taking a blow to the shield, or to heavy armor, or parrying with your own weapon is about as good as it gets. Taking a sword strike to exposed tissue is almost always going to run the risk of a crippling, or lethal injury. You can get lucky, and suffer a superficial injury nearly anywhere, but it will never be âsafe.â
Running away. Getting stabbed and bleeding to death is also a valid option. Iâm being a bit of a smart ass here, but this is not a good situation to be in.
In competent hands, a sword can keep your character from getting close enough to actually harm their foe. Even in incompetent hands, it can easily debilitate your character.
For an unarmed character, they need to be able to stay out of the swordâs reach, or get too close to use the sword effectively. Without weapons, even improvised ones, once the character with the sword is ready, this just isnât possible.
So, your character needs to close the distance before the other character draws their weapon, or run.
All of those martial artists blocking, parrying, and catching swords with their bare hands? Those are exhibition techniques. They look really cool, but trying to use them in a fight will only result in death and dismemberment.
In the past weâve said thereâs no unarmed technique for dealing with a sword, but this is an exception. If your character is wearing plate gauntlets, with articulated, metal grips, (or, better yet, full heavy armor), there is an option to grab an opponentâs blade. So, your character in full plate might be able to deal with someone armed with a sword.
A mathematical proof, using confirmed facts from archaeometallurgical research and experimental archaeology, that no sword can cut through other swords or plate armor.
