Fig. 11.—First hit, with slide.
The most common mistake learners of the quarter-staff make is that they try very long sweeping hits, which are easily guarded, instead of shorter and sharper taps, which run up points and are much more scientific.
Your sweeping hit may be likened to the “hook-hit” at boxing, for it lays open your weak points and leaves you for an instant in a position from which there is a difficulty in recovery.
In all these games be well “pulled together.” Watch a good fencer, either with the foils or with the sticks; see how seldom his point wanders far from the lines of attack, and how quick he is with the returns! You cannot guard and return with any sort of effect if you go in for ugly sweeping hits or hard heavy guards.
The heavy hit may come off occasionally, the clumsy guard may turn the point, but why misdirect energy? It is surely unnecessary to put forth great muscular effort when you know that the strength of a small child, if properly applied, is ample to put aside the most powerful thrust or the heaviest cut.
If quite unacquainted with fencing, broad-sword, stick-play, or bayonet-exercise, never be tempted into a bout with the quarter-staff. No one should ever go in for this game without previous knowledge.
My own idea is that learning fencing with the foils should precede all the above-named exercises, for in this way a delicacy of touch and nicety in the matter of guarding are acquired, which may lay a really good foundation.
Nearly all first-rate stick-players have served their apprenticeship with the foils, and, where this education has been omitted, one may generally detect the ugly carving-knife-and-fork style, so unpleasant to watch. Whereas with a good fencer—“foiler” perhaps I should say—everything is done with neatness, whether he has in his hand a single-stick, a cutlass, or the leg of an old chair.
So that it comes to this: We seek the aid of the newest and most delicate weapon of attack and defence—the small-sword—to teach us how to properly make use of the most ancient and clumsy of all weapons—the time-honoured quarter-staff!