Here we look at Pugil sticks and how they might be useful to the practice of 18th and 19th century bayonet fencing practice as is done in HEMA or historical Fencing.
Glad you are enjoying it. Age is not a huge problem, it is nothing like boxing or mma in that regard. I know plenty of HEMA fencers in their 60s and some in their 70s, and it is only a matter of time before we see 80 year old HEMAists.
It'll be interesting to see a Comparison between Bayonet Fighting Technique/Training on 18th and 19th Century and late WW1 and WW2 Bayonet Technique/Training, I have seen Footages and Manual of British Bayonet of the Second World War and the Technique or Methods were very different compared to the Previous Bayonet Combat.
A very timely video after Matt Easton just (last couple of weeks) released a video talking about bayonet fighting and problems doing it safely while representing the weapon well.
The problem whenever you introduce flex for a part that is intended to apply pressure is it can no longer control, and also drives in against itself under pressure creating strange anomolies. We find this with flexible halberd shafts for example. I do think there is scope for mixing some of these ideas, but you do have to be careful how they are combined as some elements are designed for hard contact and others are not. We continue to experiment. I think there is cope for padding the BF bayonet trainers for example, but because of the flexible tip you can bend and drive through it in strange ways. Often we find a mix of different training tools compliment each other rather well rather than trying to find one perfect one.
