Stick fighting with Richard Marsden, based on Polish saber techniques 

This video is basically Richard lecturing like an old master. "Bad form." *slaps wrist* "Nice try, slapping my wrist." *neck swipe*

Hello all, I'm in the video hitting people. So, what's going on? This was part 1 of a stick game called palcaty. How we did it this day was that whoever starts is the King. That was me! The King is immune to double hits and after-blows. Meaning, the only way to kill the King is to hit him and parry, or hit him and escape. The game is weighted in the King's favor. Which is the idea, it's not much about the King, but about how the players can learn. Once a King is defeated, the person who won is hailed as King (or Queen). Now they have all the advantages, and everyone else has to cut them and either parry after, or void. Rinse and repeat. After I went through everyone we did the game again. This time without me. Then we encouraged the King to fight however he felt like, but everyone else had to work on cross-cutting. This is hard to do safely! And the game slowly teaches how to use the Polish saber. Notice the lack of hand guard? On purpose since the real ones had little protection. If you're interested in an account of the 17th-18th century game, Kitowicz cites and example of it in his commentaries on Poland's Commonwealth. static.kresy.pl/image/x/e577c0c6aec3ea22e28aeecbdf1cb246.jpg See for yourself what the kids were up to back in the day!

I love how Marsden's technique often seems to be focussed on the principle of Minimum effort - Maximum gain. From what I can see he rarely moves more than a few yards while his opponents seem to be floating and dancing all around him. Also the movements are calm and calculated, in line with the cadence of his other movements.

I love Polish saber techniques, they are so... Graceful.

3:32 - loses a civilized duel to the first blood so he kills the opponent.

There's always something about the way Marsden moves (even when against other teachers) that is just so relaxed, like he's always the most dangerous man in the room with a sword and it's baller

Wild fire can't burn stone pillars!!!

I love the fact that Mr. Marsden moves very fluidly and attacks with pinpoint precision. It's awesome watching him dance.

The hit-recap or whatever you'd call it has been vastly improved over the competition at the fair. Good job

I also enjoyed looking at the beautiful collection on the wall behind.

I like how simple it is to distinguish an inexperienced combatant from experienced one by a simple glance at their footwork.

I've been practising kendō and learning simply to understand what's happening in duels (actual or recorded). It's nice to see that what I've been learning there transfers into this video-I feel like I saw the strikes, tactics, openings a lot more than I would have a year or two ago.

Badass footage, most entertaining yet. This guy is insane.

This video really had this 'The Master vs The apprentice' feel to it. It's really apparent how easily he defeated most of them.

I live in the Phoenix area. It's a fantastic opportunity getting to work with Richard every week. Definitely humbling as well, haha.

they call him Richard Marsden the Knuckle Cutter, slicing the hands of his foes to gain a tactical advantage

So mesmerising to watch. It's amazing how keen he is to spot just the smallest error or opening in his opponents technique or approach; like a cat he is! It's also kinda entertaining to see him playing around with opponents of different skill levels. You can tell with some that he's just playing cat and mouse with them a bit XD

Some of those cuts to the hand were brilliant.

Great video Skall as always.

2:14 Richard response to a good student...

I enjoyed this as it really showed the various skill levels of everyone and if they have good techniques or not.

I like this more than the other video with the larger guards, having your hand hanging out here really changes things.

i think the polish sabre fighting videos have been awesome. ive been reading about the Polish Winged Hussars and ive never really known too much about them but thanks for the good vids

Richard's footwork and stance is crazy

Damn, you can really see the difference in experience here. Richard's a beast.

Amazing video :) I know nothing about fencing, but just watching the footwork of Marsden is interesting - the fact that he seems to be standing a lot more confident on his feet than his opponents is really cool :)

I did just realized that you could use the sound as a very accurate sign of impact, even when the action is too fast for the eye.

Oh common where are the pommels; needs more thrown pommels.

It's nice to see these uneven matches to really prove the effectiveness of skilled swordsmanship.

I've Been wanting to do this for the longest time

wow, at some point I thought the guy on the left is Darth Vader. Really, this style is so cool it would easily make it into almost any fiction where you don't have 4 meters long "enchanted" swords.

Red socks seems to enjoy sniping hands haha. I would argue that the sabers gaurd would protect from most of those.

That was pretty one sided, but still cool to watch.

I'd like to see more stick, cane, and staff fighting.

Wouhou ! stick fighting ! it's so rare it's a good new, you made my day =)

That was actually entertaining to watch.

I can see the similarities between the fights here and the saber fight sequence in Potop (The Deluge) 1974.

I hear polish sabers can cleave a panzer III clean in two, but when it meets a t-34 the stronk is too much causing a massive explosion.

Wow, Richard nails it

I feel really weird, when something what is polish became popular (even in quite small community).

Richard is impressive..

Always entertaining to watch foreigners train and respect our heritage. Greetings form Polish reenactors~

@Skallagrim Could you make a video in the future about the practicallity and use of "flame-bladed swords". That would be great.

Those ara always cool man, keep it up :)

that was fun to watch.

this dude is quick as hell. i dont know what the hell he is doing, but he is doing it.

he's so good

Jogo do Pau has the best stick fighting and much of it easily carries over to Longsword. For those looking into either I would recommend Luis Preto's works.

i know there are millions of legendary masters in this comment section but in my opinion the dude with the odd crotch guard has some serious reflexes

Its very intersting how diffrent Martial Arts can be. Im doing FMA and would react toataly diffrent

Would love to see some longsword sparring with Richard =O

I've found some interest in poleaxes recently and I've been wondering whether you have some experience with it and what your general thoughts are. I've tried to find some good sparring videos here on youtube, but there hasn't been too much of that kind unfortunately.

Nice vid. At 0:26, left is so open for a straight thrust.... Just thinking as an epée fencer :-)

Do you guys ever do Great sword, or just two handed sword even, fighting? Also, this looks like great exercise!

Hey, do you think you can cover the fighting style (if there even is any lol) on the Warhammer 40k series? i'm actually really curious to hear your input on giant heavy armor wielding hulks that have a chainsword in combination with a bolter pistol.

2:17 man, that was beautiful to watch

I dont know why but this was very interesting to watch, the switching opponents it is i guess.

I love how trainer casually destroys every last one of them.

I can easily believe it was fancy polish folk fighting like this back in the day. It looks.... posh.

Make a Polish saber vs katana comparison, please.

the man is a legend

I like that joker paint on one of the masks

The mysterious warrior on the left is unstoppable.

Invincible Marsden!

Skall, question. We talk about weapons and fighting tactics (mainly positions) in games, but never so much armor. If we were to start that, care to talk about how effective Havel's armor from dark souls would be? Yes, I know it would be impractical to wear armor made from slabs of solid rock, but defensive wise, how effective would it be?

Speaking of polish sabers.. what do you think about polish cavalary from XVI/II century called husaria?

the guy on the left is so good

Skall, me and my wife love all your videos and we are both huge fans, I am a sword collector, tester, trainee in swordsmanship myself, and I was wondering do you have any tips for us since we are planning to make our own youtube channel. Thanks in advance!

May I ask, where can i get such sticks, gloves and masks? When fighting with friends we always relied on improvisation and trust (avoided striking the head) so as to that matter

Using the stick as a trainer for the sword is something that was widely done, but stick fighting is different to using a stick to train the sword. Stick fighting has many more subtle actions such as disarms, using the butt to attack and using any part of the weapon to strike with. Also using both hands to on the stick to attack and defend with. but using the stick in the same way you would a sword is still highly effective for self defence.

i just wanna see skall vs richard or lee.it'll be a marvel to watch

What is a good way of choosing a style? I'm stuck between choosing European or Japanese and I can't seem to find out which one I prefer.

It's great to see the expert going up against learners for once, we see Richard fighting pros so often it can obscure just how great at this he actually is xD

Richard 'Hand-Sniper' Marsden on a spree, nice!

I wish there were more polish saber stuff.🤤

im really interested what you think about the fight scene between the black knight and the knight in Monthy Python . and I dont mean king Arthur

Stick fighting. Brings to mind Kali and Filipino martial arts. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that fighting style.

2:04 Onion-bro got rekt.

looks fun

Jesus, the sound the boob armor made when hit in slow motion sounded like the gong that would announce the apocalypse.

Nothing to do with this subject but what do you think of Damascus Steel?

What would I need to search for on the Internet to find places like these near me?

Does enybody know if theres plans to edit Master Marsden's book in polish language? I'm curioues how are looking it description of techniques. On polish market we only have limited manuals of "Signum Polonicum" Zbigniewa Sawickiego and even rearest manuals of Wojciecha Zabłockiego. They show only basest techniques with simple graphics. In Poland there is posibylity to buy the "Polish Saber..." in english but its price is significantly very high.

Richard Marsden sure seems to be a fan of Polish Sabres

hey skallagrim if can please do an analyasis on the armor in berserk the manga version

That must be painful on unarmoured areas. The sticks look like those 1900s beating canes.

in the bout with the guy with blue socks and all black, kudos on getting the instructor off balance, but his hesitation meant he missed the moment to strike xD

Dude is rail thin, that's a handy advantage haha. I'd love to do HEMA but there's really no place nearby me.

Really impressive how much he controls every fight, and I like how he demonstrates the effectiveness of the Fool's Guard Skall talked about in his other Video. Just one question: how serious would be a hit to the hand, like the one at 3:30 minutes with an actual saber? It looks like it hits near the wrist, so I would assume it could severely weaken his grip by damaging his tendons.

2:17 that girl knows some stuff! Awesome.

What about practising with the other arm while you're recovering?

2:16 Oh, oh she's serious. xD

Man, when I saw "Polish" and "Sabre" under a Skallagrim video I instantly dropped everything I was doing and started it up

when your shoulder is alright again, can you do a sparring with your shield? I'd like to see that...

and here we see a master establish dominance in a new school.

slayer of hands

I dont know if its the right place to ask, but me and my friends are considering to start showfighting/larp and were searching for relatively cheap lether armor pieces and gauntlets, but they price around 100€... Are theee any recommended stores in germany we could order from?

That guy is crazy good. cx the one on the left.

So, this question doesn't really have much to do with the video, but I was wondering about something I remember you saying in an earlier video about stupid fantasy fighting styles. Basically what you said is that there are no unorthodox strikes because there's only so many angles you can swing a sword at someone. What I was wondering was what if someone (me in this case) is left handed? I do MMA, and Im always sparring against people who normally practice against right handed people. I, on the other hand am used to being southpaw against right handed fighters. Does this/Do you think this is something you see/would expect to see in HEMA?

It looks identical to other saber combats that I have seen, (I don't mean the sport fencing type). What is the difference between polish saber combat and other saber combat styles?