Let’s face it, as staff-saber guys, we want to fight like Darth Maul. He’s an agressive, acrobatic, energetic, and mesmerizing fighter; the epitome of intelligent aggression and concentrated ferocity. However, as all students of combat know, combatives in the moveis simply cannot be translated into real life. I’m not saying anything new, we all knew that kid who learned martial arts from watching Jackie Chan or Jet Li. For sure we can all learn great choreography and awesome moves (I myself learned to do a backflip by watching Killer Meteors) but the movements and sequences were never meant to be translated into the real world.
Perhaps not, but they do draw heavily from more traditional martial art usage of the bo staff, which often uses a dual-overhand grip, at least in forms/katas, so it’s not purely aesthetic choreography, it’s heavily inspired by traditional, legitimate martial arts. It’s not terribly difficult to transition from over/over to over/under as well, and more diversity in options and approaches is typically a good thing. Not to mention that a lightsaber functions a bit differently than other “bladed” weapons would, or at least it does in-universe, where any contact with the saber’s blade is maximally effective at piercing or cutting, while with a sword blade, you must have sufficient force behind it to deal optimal damage and/or cut through armor. Granted, having force behind strikes that are blocked by an opponent’s blade will be useful, but I suppose this point is less relevant for our real-world saber fighting, as one, we don’t have “real” lightsaber blade physics, and two, we’re not really going 100% full-force in our strikes ever, so the idea of delivering a full-force strike with more power over/under than over/over isn’t really relevant to our saber sparring/dueling IMO, as we’re not really striking with truly maximal force in either scenario.
And yet this is the issue,from my point of view, that we see with common staff saber fighting. It seems many saber-staff wielders are trying to fight like Darth Maul, and in doing so, not taking full advantage of the weapon platform. We don’t see single saber practitioners trying to mimic yoda, or the acrobatic moves of Anakin and Obiwan; rather, they use more rigid, less flashy, and more time-proven methods. This being the case, why do we still see guys fighting with the staff-saber and mimicking Darth Maul’s movements? Should we really be exposing our centerline to the opponent with a double-overhand grip? Should we really deliver truncated, essentially back-hand strikes at our opponents, all the while leaving our hilt and center open to attack? I would argue not. In fact I would argue for a particular fighting style tailored not to the cinematic influence of Maul’s fighting, but rather to the natural and immensely powerful strengths of the double saber.
Why do you have to expose your centerline to your opponent with an over/over grip? And if we’re using a saberstaff like a bo staff, it’s logical to assume the hilt would be lightsaber resistant, even though Maul’s wasn’t, but since then we’ve seen more and more lightsaber resistant weapons and materials. Blocking with the center of a sabersaff hilt should be a valid option I’d say, even if you don’t actually want to go around in real life blocking and striking other people and their blades with an aluminum pipe, which is basically what our saber hilts are. Again, an over/over grip isn’t some new invention for Star Wars fights, it’s based heavily on various traditional martial arts, which Park (Maul) himself was skilled in. Is it optimal for fighting? Perhaps not. Is it totally ineffective? Also no.
Before I get into the basic techniques, I need to say a word about the foundation of this combative style. There is really no precedent for the staff-saber because history never produced a double-sword such as this. Bo, and staff techniques won’t work because they often result in the user grabbing what would be the blade of the saber.
You can still use many bo staff techniques with the saberstaff, just only the ones that require holding the staff in the center, or at least relatively in the center. I can show you some instances where Maul holds the hilt off-center a bit, and a long hilt can be held off-center to give additional reach or allow for different moves as well. It is true that no one historically used double-bladed swords, but the saberstaff really eliminates many reasons why they didn’t. For one, retractable blades mean carrying it isn’t an absolute nightmare. Carrying a massive 6-7+ foot sword would be annoying to say the least. Carrying around a 20-30” metal hilt, not so much. Edge alignment can also be troublesome with a sword-staff, as you have to make sure each hit strikes with one of the blade’s two edges (you better not be using a two-bladed katana), while a lightsaber has no cutting edge, since it’s all cutting edge. So any way you spin it or strike it, it’s properly aligned. Shadiversity talks about this in one of his videos, and he does also favor the over/under grip, which I totally understand. I'm not saying that the over/under grip isn't usually better suited for dueling, and easier to pick up as well, only that I don't think the over/over grip is entirely useless. It's not like it's entirely some invention for a movie either. It is really very heavily inspired by various martial arts.
I’ll advocate for something more closely resembling Halberd, or Spear fighting. Therefore my style is based upon natural body mechanics and, more importantly, the fighting philosophy of Miyamoto Musashi. If you don’t know, Musashi is arguably the definitive authority on combatives when it comes to fighting philosophy. He fought over 60 dules (many to the death) and never lost one. He also fought in several battles, so needless to say, when he wrote The Book of Five Rings he knew what he was talking about. Now expounding on Musashi’s combative philosophies could take up an entire book (I myself am working away at just that), but, in extreme summary, Musashi advocates that fights are won by a combination of Rhythm (we could call this timing, but it really deals largely with the action-reaction gap between two combatants), all-in determined aggression, and bodily training and skills. Said even more simply, Musashi advocates that fights are won when one fighter goes “all in” at the right time, and has the bodily skills to make his actions effective.
These principles, then, create for me, a framework within which to discover the true combative potential of the staff-saber. The key advantages of the staff saber are its range, and it’s ability to take what I would call a one-count combative engagement to a two-count combative engagement. The double saber allows you to double the rhythm of the fight, because the moment one blade makes contact, the other is automatically chambered for an immediate counter attack. In this way, where most fights are something like **clash-reset- clash-reset-clash** the double saber allows for a rhythm of **clash-clash-reset-clash-clash-reset**. In this manner, if properly executed, your second blade necessarily makes contact with the opponent before they have the ability to reset their saber from the previous clash.
What do you then do when an opponent has two blades? I’d caution against being too one-dimensional in relying what you think is an insurmountable “ace in the hole. Not to mention that some people are frighteningly fast with a counter of a single blade, and are able to block follow up counter-strikes, even when they inherently come in half the time with a staff than with a single blade.
Think of it like this, one blade functions as the “trigger” for the second blade. As soon as contact is made with one blade, the second springs out like a trap. Your opponent’s blade having just collided with your first blade, there is simply no time or ability to reset to parry this second strike. This is the very broad and basic philosophy behind my method of saber-staff, but there are much finer details and techniques which make this method effective that I could get into if anyone is interested.
I’ll just stop there but much more could be written, and I don’t want to make this post too long. If anyone is interested in me writing out any more of this method, please let me know. I realize this is just the opinion of one person, but I do think some of these techniques might really uncover the true effectiveness of the double-saber.
Thanks for reading if anyone gets through this whole thing! Please let me know your initial thoughts, as I know there are advanced and experienced swordsman on this forum who have accomplished things I never will! I really value any feedback I can get.
TL;DR: I agree that the over/under grip is very useful for a saberstaff. I think it does generate more power as well, potentially longer reach too? And it allows for more jabs/jabs than an over/over grip, while an over/over grip allows for more rapid and unpredictable movements with no real "lead" hand. I think both have their uses depending on the opponent, and it's not at all impossible to switch grips with a simple flourish. You can certainly transition from the unpredictability of an over/over grip to the power and reach of an over/under grip mid-spin/flourish/strike.
