Saber Forum

I'm thinking of Pong Krell here. Is it even possible from a practical standpoint to dual weild saber staffs effectively and has anyone every tried it in an actual dual?

It doesn't seem very practical to me, unless maybe you have 4 arms, but I would love to see a video of that. 

I've never tried it but you have to take into consideration that he had four arms. I don't see it as being possible or pratical for us two armed beings. But, we also don't have the force on our side to help. If we had the force I feel it would be possible to mentally weild two double bladed sabers like Darth Treya from KOTOR2 did with three short sabers, but I doubt that even with the force we could weild two double bladed sabers without decapitating or amputating limbs.

Tried and failed.  With single staff wielding, your weak point will be your centerline (or at least it was for me).  With two staffs, you'll be able to protect your center line better but your sides will be very open.  The only advantage you would have with doing this would be that an inexperienced single sword wielder will not know how to attack and be caught off guard.  Go against someone more experienced, they'll exploit that weakness every time. 

Staffs are mostly for defensive to keep your opponent at a distance.  Once they get inside your guard, they'll aim for the areas you cannot effectively cover.  I have found that with staffs it is best to let your opponent wear themselves out so they make mistakes and you can exploit their mistakes. 

How about one saber and one staff? Or, perhaps, if one shortened the staff hilts to a standard lightsaber hilt size and adjusted the blade lengths to 32 or 30 inches each?

It would give you more movement options but I feel that dual sabers will serve you better.  Now if you have a way to add a motorized grip so that it spun without you having to bend your wrist, you might be in better shape. 

I agree. A video demonstrating this would be interesting.

Staffs are mostly for defensive to keep your opponent at a distance.  Once they get inside your guard, they'll aim for the areas you cannot effectively cover.  I have found that with staffs it is best to let your opponent wear themselves out so they make mistakes and you can exploit their mistakes. 
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Sounds very Soresu.

The concept of more sabers is not practical at all in my eyes for one range of motion gets split drastically and then the weight you have to hold each saber at the best point but with multiple sabers it is very difficult because your brain only wants to do one thing at a time so training is very psychological then you have the endurance issue how long can you keep it up. Dual wielding these can be done but is not practical.

It is a very interesting concept. Highly unpractical, but an interesting concept Arik

The only way I would see two staves being used is if they were designed as one-handed hilts and were only about 4 or 5 feet long each at the most. However, having said that, it would still likely be impractical because you would lose all the leverage gained by having two hands on a single staff. Trying to block strikes, especially with the lower portion of the staff, would be very weak indeed and the opponent could easily push your own blade into you. The only thing you'd be gaining by wielding two staves is a confusion factor, a simplicity of blocking zones, and two things to attack with. The confusion factor and the double attacks can easily be achieved with two regular sabers, so the only thing you're gaining with staves is a simpler blocking system. Other than that, I think it'd be pretty useless.


And since we're on the topic, I couldn't resist:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E0CxLWo584#ws (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E0CxLWo584#ws)

I don't think you need four arms to wield two Double Bladed sabers. But it probably gives an advantage if you do.

In fact, this might interest you. Skip to about... 2:50

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=109rdJhGUjM#ws (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=109rdJhGUjM#ws)

IIRC Exar Kun used a pair of double bladed sabers, but with a few caveats: his hilts were normal single-handed length, and he rarely had all 4 blades extended at a time. 

It was more just to have extra options with an emitter at both ends of his single-hilts.

Biology holds us squishy humans back.

Yeah, I was thinking this EXACT video when reading this thread.  While 2 might not be feasable, a slightly shorter dual saber and a single saber might be doable.  You have to remember that with the force they have more strength than we do, especially in their saber grip I'd imagine.  Plus you notice a couple times he used his forearm to brace part of the hilt to get blocking leverage.  Then he switched off 1 blade to be more efficient and popped it back on later as a good "gotcha" move. 

Four arms would really be needed to do double duals effectively, but this... 



Would be feasible and probably fairly effective in surprise situations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkQsdqrxfek#ws (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkQsdqrxfek#ws)

Excellent Master Kane!  Have you ever applied those techniques against an opponent and if so, how was your experience?

It feels a little over whelming against one opponent for me. I liked it more against multiple opponents.

That being said it takes a lot of practice, and even I smacked myself in the head a couple times getting this video done lol

What about, rather than saber staffs with full length blades, use a shoto-length blade?

Well, I know a lot of people use 32" blades for saber staffs because it makes them more manageable.  I imagine you could use a couple 24" blades to make them even easier to wield.  The problem is you start giving up blade length and reach against your opponents.  While having 2 saber staffs would make you dangerous to approach, somebody who had a full 36" blade or even a 40" could probably get inside your defenses if you weren't careful.

Not necessarily.  Jo forms are often better than Bo forms because the staff is a more manageable length.  Also, it would entirely depend on the skill of the person using the shoto-double saber as compared to the person using the standard saber.

Actually, it is easier for a person with a short blade to get inside the defense of a person with a longer blade than the other way around.  When you are fighting someone with a long blade, you actually have a sweet spot that is inside their combat range.  The trick is that you have to go through their sweet spot to get there, but there are a lot of tricks to making that happen.

The major difference being, with any current (non-lightsaber) staff technique, you can grab any part of the staff you want.   With a saberstaff you must grab only the middle of the staff. 

in theory, yes. it would be a very powerful combination. in reality, it could, but it would require years of working with staffs one-handed and a near perfectly centered center of gravity (meaning the staff is held right in the middle, with both sides the same length). so, unless you mastered staffs, you can try, but it would be extremely difficult.

i could see myself doing staff and saber but double staff would really just get me killed.
keep in mind i am 5 foot 9 and Abe Linkin built.

1. blocking with one hand is only feasible with Makashi style which is impossible with a back blade.

2. blocking with the back blade is tantamount to using reverse grip, which i avoid even when dual wielding.

3. the only other "feasible" one hand block i can think of for staff is Soresu which requires such technique that you would be hard-pressed to avoid killing yourself or your sabers, let alone keeping up with your opponents.

so yeah, effective defense against bladed weapons would be nigh on impossible unless you are very phisically strong and have excellent multitasking abilities.

staff and saber would be (slightly yet remarkably) more manageable because you could use the saber to cover the areas left vulnerable by your staff's back blade and hilt, reinforse blocks by your staff or even use it for your primary defense with your staff as backup.

offence would be a (relative) breeze as you have lots of glowing sticks with which to distract opponents while the real attack slips in unnoticed. plus even if you want to move the staff arround freely without hurting yourself or your weapons you can just tuck your single saber behind your back Ataru style and spin to your heart's content.

at least that is what i would think. questions and thoughts welcome.

It's all very well to be flashy and showy attempting the dual-wielding thing but biomechanically in a realistic situation it is flawed to the point of ridicule.

A staff is very hard to accelerate with one hand as the point of torque is inside the span of your hand; and compare this to the rest of the staff. The inertia of the whole thing will make it slow to build up any speed (and for those of you who say, no I can do it quickly, accelerating a staff with two hands or a sword with one is much, MUCH quicker).

Now consider you hit something: there is a saying that if you want to strike (punch) something, aim six inches behind it; without proper leverage there is no power behind a strike to direct the force six inches through it. AND that is assuming the jolt of striking a target doesn't blow the staff out of your grip; if there is a solid connection with a target or block, the shock running through the staff will cause it to weaken your grip. Even if you don't lose it, you'll have lost all the momentum you had to build up to make the strike and now you're back to square one. You would be completely vulnerable to counterattack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzU68DEPw1w#ws (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzU68DEPw1w#ws)

This is the behind the scenes motion capture for the Return Cinematic Trailer... This is where we see a Jedi Master Dual wield a Saber and a double bladed saber. If you notice the weapons they're using are foam and much lighter than the staffs we're using, also I believe at points they are actually shorter. Also this is highly choreographed.

Is it do-able... certainly... is it practical... Not really.

Ok, that was pretty sweet seeing the behind scenes.  So, three things to keep in mind when we talk about dual wielding these things.

1.  REAL lightsabers only have weight in the handle, the blade weighs nothing and only needs force behind it to cut through through things
2.  Jedi/Sith use the Force to imbue themselves with A. strength and agility beyond that of a normal human, and B. use it to skillfully guide their lightsabers
3.  This guy was a Jedi MASTER, not just a Knight or something.  He's had a lifetime of using these weapons.  Also, he only uses the second blade on the double-blade for a short period, about 30 seconds.  Then he switches it off and only uses it again for a surprise gut stab on the one Sith.

Can;t see the video at work, but one other thing to remember is that during almost all of they fight, he had the reverse blade of the staff turned off.  He only turned it on to get through the Sith's defenses. 

Those old republic videos are blowing my mind!

One thing to remember, in Star Wars, the blades have no weight. Double staff wielding in the Star Wars universe is prob much more of a mental/ force skill rather that strength

i will watch the vid later but as for this i would not worry too much.
it is highly reccomended by many staff users to build up momentum before a strike by way of a flourish which really isn't that hard one handed with training. if you are worried try using shii cho sai strikes.
as for getting your blade redirected, well, there is that other blade which will then come right at him from his own power.

"In training" is the catch. I am a practitioner of the bo, so I know what I'm talking about. Building up momentum takes time, time that is more than enough to be killed by your opponent.

The thing about actual combat is that you want to win (kill/wound/disarm/immobilise/etc): winning is not about being flashy, it's about being efficient in landing your blow. Practicality dictates that you train with a (set of) weapon(s) that will allow you to have some sort of advantage. Long, heavy weapons are for reach and crushing armour, such as the staff. Small weapons are for getting in and out quickly to a soft target.
To me, purposely splitting your concentration and strength over two heavy weapons is a poor decision. Although the blade may not have mass, this is a distinction between an ignited lightsaber compared to just the hilt. The blade is stated to have a high gyroscopic inertia, which is essentially the same thing when you want to swing it (especially if you want it to comply with special relativity).

I believe the initial question was on practicality, to which it should be advised against if you're taking your fight seriously. But to wow audiences (such as in a fictitious duel, namely anything in a movie or video game or a stunt performance), I'd say go choreograph the hell out of it and give the people a good show. I, too, was impressed when I first saw the videos (for one, the animation was phenomenal!), but when you try to analyse it in a martial context, they are clearly just for entertainment.

not in training, with training. meaning once training has already taken place. besides; i would still have the single saber to defend while i wind up the staff (which requires little to no attention with proper training.)