Viking Spear and Shield Ep.3 : How to do Thrand's Underarm Throwing Spear Slide!

Hey, Brian here, and we're back with the underarm slide. We've covered the overarm slide, which of course everybody knows this. It's classic. Everybody's used to seeing this position. Also, I've had a couple people say something about my leg being exposed when I'm holding the shield in this manner. In combat, yes, you kick it out at an angle. So yes, if you're thinking somebody's in range where they hit your leg, you're going to want it at an angle. If they're at a distance and they're not in close to you, then it doesn't matter as much. But yes, at any given time, you can have it at an angle, whether you're extending a shield or you're holding it in closer, like I am still on the rolling arms here. Just because a couple people said something about it, I thought I'd bring that up. But yes, if it's out in front of you like this, it's very difficult due to the angle to hit the leg. I mean, it makes it a lot more difficult when you tilt the shield out or kick it out if that's where your target, I believe you're in, is aiming for. But today, we're going to start off talking about the overarm slide and transitioning because we just did a video about that. And if I'm standing here with my shield and I want to transition, we did a video on the entire thing where you just bring it under. That's it. It's about as simple as it goes. You'll be able to watch the whole tutorial on that. We'll put a link in here for you. But normally, you'll probably start off in this position. You'll be starting off in an overarm slide position, like if you're going to do this, and I stop right before I hit the target. But what you're going to wind up doing is transitioning where the enemy can't see what you've done. So now you've got a different angle. You can come up under into it, which is much lower below. So I'm saying that a lot of times, you're probably going to be trying to get under a shield. Aiming for the actual head, the problem we have with this is he's going to have a shield as well and possibly a helm. If his helmet is on, most things that hit the helmet at an angle this way coming up because in the underarm slide is actually you're coming under. You lose all power if you try to straighten it out and bring it up here. A lot of people talk about the punching technique. If you try to bring it over, if you actually try to bring this over this way, this is a very weak thrust. I mean, yes, it's possible to stab somebody that way or injure them, but you're also exposing the whole underarm here and it's a very weak position. Spears to get hit this way, it'll come right out of the hand. So that's why we don't advocate attacking over the top of the shield. If you're going to come down and over into somebody, which you can do with the overarm slide, you can make more of an angle by bringing it higher up as you come in. Like I'm doing, I'm not coming right on a straight line with the eye, and you can get over a shield. But in this situation, we would be in maybe single combat trying to get under or surprise the opponent with an angle he doesn't expect to actually have. Does it have the same power as the overarm slide? No, but it's simple mechanics. In a throwing motion, let's say I'm actually throwing, look at the muscles that I'm engaging, and I'm being able to have a spear way back here. Now, not that I can't have a spear way back here hidden behind the shield for the underarm, but the problem is I'm not going to generate the same energy no matter what I do. I can come close, but it's going to be very difficult. That's why we don't throw javelins in the Olympics and in sports underarm, we throw them overarm because that's where all the power is generated as the body throws it. I mean, that's the proper mechanics to get the most energy out of it. But today, we'll talk about is if you already transitioned and how do you do it? How do you go about it? Obviously, we're saying it's not a clutch lance position as in Matthews, he's recommended this thing. That's what the phalanx did. But if you look at this, it's a straight line and I can't come over the top of the shield really. And I'm back to that problem of trying to... If I want to come over something, I'm going to end up in this kind of position. And that has very weak power. We've tested it many times. So how do we gain more power with the underarm slide? We kind of use a pull motion. This is almost like a pull stick. I'm moving it back and forward. And if I let it slide, then I let it slide to get extra reach. But we'll go over the steps on it and it's much like the overarm slide. I don't necessarily have to step. I can have that same thing, throw the weight of the spear, be drawn back and just drive it straight out. I can just use my whole body to put it out there. So let's go ahead and start in the steps. All right, now we're going to start off in the overarm position and we're going to talk about why. Why would I want to transition? Well, if I was in a shield wall with the shields very, very tight together, like a tight formation, this would probably be the only thing I truly have is over the top, which makes sense because that's what's going on. And I can keep this at an angle above the people behind me and not hitting them, even if people are close behind me so they can deploy their spears or pole arms or what have you. So that's basically the way that would work. But let's say if I try to do the underarm, which we transition, I don't see the big advantage to this. I now can no longer see what's below me. I'm not going to have anything to stab down here. And let's say we actually got like right up to each other's faces and I guarantee you that would be, you know, I'm down behind here. Yeah, maybe I could have somebody's foot, but I'd have people behind me that this could cause a lot of interference with. But chances are you probably wouldn't go into that style of formation that way. I mean, you can't get around a large round. An aspis was three foot round. A lot of viking shields and early migrational shields were three foot rounds and flash. Some slightly lenticular, but anyway, long story short, I can in single combat sidearm this, so I wouldn't need to go into underarm to go out from the side and hit this one. I mean, I can even almost come in like areas like this for a single combat to stab a guy. Let's say he was opening the hip or the leg or the thigh or something. I can come in from a sidearm and get down low with it under my shield, so I don't need to do the actual underarm to do that. It changes the angle of the underarm. So what we're trying to say is this could easily come into somebody's leg under the shield with the overarm. You don't have to go over the top of your shield or into a foot. So it's a very good attack in that manner, but when you would want to do it is to surprise your opponent. He wouldn't see the transition I just made right now. If it's done properly, he wouldn't even see the transition. So now you have an underarm spear. You can come up, but you could possibly come up under his defense and into, let's say, his abdomen or into a thigh or anything that's open, actually. So it's not that you never ever use it. It's just that there's a lot of times where you wouldn't have the necessity to use it. And yes, if you get it out there and need to control it, you can clamp the arm down to gain more control over the spear and then still bring it back. You don't have to keep it out there like this is your entire fighting method and try to parry with spears. We don't advocate that even in a formation because if the formation was tight, of course, you can see the problems you'd have with this immediately trying to do this, unless you want to do something like that, which we explained why you wouldn't do that. So basically, it would be a single combat thing. The main time you'd want to do this isn't a single combat and it would be a transitional thing when you've decided it was a good idea to try to utilize a spear in this manner. Plus, what we'll talk about now is the actual technique. Let's go through steps with it. It's a lot like using a pool cue. What I'm doing is I'm letting the whole arm foot underarm to actually get it out there. So if you watch what I just did, I just pretty much catch it in the balance point and my arm comes way back and I'm throwing the weight of the actual spear. So the heavier the spear, of course, you get more power, but you'll never get the exact same power as you do overarm. Even if you come close, which is possible, you don't have the same throwing mechanics. So it's not going to be like doing the overarm throwing slide and be able to get enough power with your slide to do that sort of damage. A lot of times when this takes place, you may want to actually put it out there and put some body into it. Like you're coming under and if you see what I'm saying, step in and push because you will lack a lot of power. But in the steps of doing it, you basically have it back, which can be hidden behind the shield. When you go to throw it out, it's the same idea. You start to engage the body moving. When you get to a certain point, then it's just out there like I just did. No slide. I can actually thrust out using my body and just twist in the hip and get pretty decent power. But I want to do accelerate the weight of the spear to get extra power. Now, if I'm going to go with the slide, then the whole technique relies on its back and I slide it. I let it go. Boom. There you go. It does lose some accuracy as well coming underarm. It may just be me, but I don't actually prefer trying to do an underarm slide over a actual overarm. The overarm has a lot more accuracy. You have it up near the eye, but you do, as you see, you do get some power with the underarm. I just don't see the applications being as diverse. Obviously, if you're using it, you can't do things where you switch off to the side with the shield and attack at angles like this over the shield if needed while you're still covering the body, let's say if you're getting offline from the opponent. But anyway, let's go through the steps one more time. We have it chambered or back in this position. It's usually hidden behind the shield because that's your main advantage to doing this. It is hidden. I'm going to come in low. You would start the motion. You could stab in close with it as well. Like I just said, you could be in here and be stabbing by just barely moving the body, stabbing in real close if you needed it. Second step, you twist and pivot. So, boom. The second step is you're actually pivoting to get out there and have power, which I could have the shield up airing a blow. Boom. And have power just by pivoting my hip and using it and accelerating. The next step, of course, would be if I'm back and I want to turn it into a slide. Boom. And that way I can actually stay back, have the spear in a position very much like if I'd started out in this lance position but with more power and surprise, and can still just retrieve it and bring it right back behind the shield, switch back to overarm if I need. And that's pretty much all there is to the underarm slide. Hope you all enjoyed the tutorial we had today on the Viking spear and shield, which actually applies to the ascus as well. It's just held in a slightly different manner. We will come back with some videos and try to cover that as well. I want to thank Neil Burrage for letting us use his spears. We're actually using a bronze spear on the wood here today. It's performing extremely well. And I hope you enjoyed our idea of the technique. It's basically the overarm slide, but it's used in single combat underarm. There are a few applications. It could be used in a shield wall or tight formation, a loose formation. And yes, it could be done if you weren't really worried about how tight the formation was. And people do do it in reenactment having an underarm. I'm not sure how often they implement the slides, but I think that if they were able to do it and it was legal, I think they would gain a lot of advantage from that type of extra reach, because it can be extreme in those circumstances. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the video and farewell.