Forums > Help! > Staff balance

Posted: 18th Jan 2011
High speed generally hurts your contact skills. Weighted staves are easier to do contact with, but you can do contact with any staff of the right length. Slow down, deep breaths.

Posting the specs of your current staff would help greatly.

Posted: 18th Jan 2011
High speed might impress the civilians, but if you take it slow you can bust out some awesome technical stuff, including contact.

Its a sad fact that busting out some spinning at furious pace gets more oooohs and aaaahhhs then something as awesome as contact.

But if you want to get into contact, take it slow and get a heavy, grippy staff. And practice practice practice.

Personally, I wouldn't bother with fishtails. It's just one simple beat and has little wow factor. First contact move I learnt was a full steve. It's pretty simple
And opens the doors to contact in a massive way.

I have a question for you. How does martial art staff blend with spinning? I'm looking to get into it and was wondering if the two combine well.
EDITED_BY: Fine_Rabid_Dog (1295370970)

The existance of flamethrowers says that someone, somewhere, at sometime said "I need to set that thing on fire, but it's too far away."

Posted: 21st Jan 2011
Hey, sry, been busy for a while -

The contact I do is still slow, but I'm fooling around with different grips on the staff. Now I have a thin material grip wrapped up and it seems to grip a bit better. I'm half way with "the matrix" at the moment and "the steve". My staff is about shoulder height and aluminium, but did not come with a grip. I can post a pic next time if you like?

Martial artsist in general frown when it comes to the fancy tricks. Serious guys do not take it seriously when you throw a weapon in the air for example - but the creative guys like it. It does help with control of the weapon as you do many strikes that need power and control. Also you learn how to work in many different directions combined with quick direction changes of a staff for example. Next i want to try the long staff and swords

Thanks for the reply guys!

"It's not that we aim too high and miss,
it's that we aim too low and hit" - Da Vinci

Posted: 21st Jan 2011
From the bit of weapons work I have done, most does not transfer as performance, and performance means you lose the control needed for a weapon. This is especially true with contact, where one can easily lose control of a staff if someone hits it or something. There are some things that will overlap though. Mostly (I found) was that you have more of an awareness of where things are in relation to you, but that does not really need weapons training to achieve.

So the actual moves will not cross over, but the body-awareness will, which is still useful.

Caveat: What follows is the result of messing around with 6' staves, and playing with each other to see what works, not an actual course of training, so it is possible that things overlap more than what I and my friends found.

Basically what we found worked well was an off-centre grip, sort of like a spear (at base and just less than 1/2), rather than at 1/3 and 2/3 or so that you often see, since the latter gave no real reach advantage, which is what we figured would be the most useful benefit of a staff. Once distance closed a bit, it was a little more useful, since you got two ends to strike with, but even against something like tonfa, it was far easier to keep your distance with a spear-like hold, since weapons of almost any type up one's range by a surprising amount. (From about 6' away, I only need one step forward with a tonfa to be able to hit an opponent. Not my most effective range, but I could hit a staff holder if he did not stop me.)

Would be keen to see what others feel about this though.

'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Posted: 22nd Jan 2011
I agree with aston about the body awareness. When it comes to kata's in martial arts, you get to know your weapon very well. You know what you can and can't do with the weapon. Although spinning might not be part of the traditional kata, creative kata's have many elements that create that wow factor for the viewer. It is just the next step of using the weapon - to ad the creative flair (contact and spins).

I haven't experimeted much with the off centre grip though. I never really thought of it. Granted the sword (chinese broad sword) and khali (short stick) naturaly have off centre grips. I thought about creating fire khali, but it seems a bit boring as you can only do basic strikes and "swings" rather than twirls.

"It's not that we aim too high and miss,
it's that we aim too low and hit" - Da Vinci

Posted: 23rd Jan 2011
[Old link]

This is about staff grips that might be good for you.

Posted: 23rd Jan 2011
Just my thrown in:

In Contact you would aim for a staff balance that is not necessarily pinned to the very center of the staff. Many people I talked with prefer a grip that is wider (cover 1/3, rather 1/4 of the center area) - which widens to the ends.... hmm, to explain:

normal staff.... O----===----O
contact staff... O---=====---O or
contact staff II O---E===Ǝ---O

(with "O" marking the wick, "-" the staff, "=" the grip" and "E" being wider ends of the grip, often coming with a rubber "flower" (like on rubber poi), which are pointing inwards - These "flowers" are not only for decoration but add some momentum to the staff)

Wider ends on the grip will cause the staff to have a 'natural desire' to return to its center when spinning over your body.

ideally......... OO--E===Ǝ--OO

the best smiles are the ones you lead to

Posted: 24th Jan 2011
I suggest learn conveyors in all their forms. a great way to recover any move that is slipping and manitaining the contact they are also continuous and reversible with a great many variants so you can get a lot of moves from a basic set even more than steves took me about 2 hours to learn basic conveyor and a couple of weeks to get them continuous with a pivot (halo)

the more grip the better, nothing worse than catching a staff just off the grip on the hot bit using your armpit!!

Heavier ends compared to the middle will give you good staff balance. the more weight in the centre of the staff the less balance you will have so lightweight pole with big wicks makes contact much easier. Also put a marker in the middle (centre of balance) so you can see when you are learning where that balance point is makes entering contact moves so much easier.

*hugs*

Welcome to the fun of staff

A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.

Posted: 25th Jan 2011
Great, thanks guys. I will try the grip modification.

What I did realise is that my staff was too light at the ends- the wick. As a test I wound some rope around the staff close to the wick at each end - for that little bit extra weight - and it did wonders. I was able to nail the matrix in half an hour where it took me close to 2hrs previously with no good result. Also, conveyors were so much easier to do. Now I have to replace the rope with something more fire retardent or get a heavier wick.

Maybe the widened grip at the ends will aid in this. - Will keep you posted.

"It's not that we aim too high and miss,
it's that we aim too low and hit" - Da Vinci

Posted: 28th Jan 2011
I have done it. I replaced the grip with a hocky grip - it's a rubber like grip that gives great hold and a bit of cushioning. But I kept it straight all the way through.

I did add a bit of weight at the ends in the form of rope wound around and sprayd with a heat resistant spray.
It kinda looks like this O-o--=====--o-O

I find any body spin will work now (with enough practice) plus it kinda looks cool with the shape it is. It's all black with red marking the centre and edges of the grip.

Thanks for all the advice guys.

"It's not that we aim too high and miss,
it's that we aim too low and hit" - Da Vinci