Wanting to learn some sort of historical melee weapon. What would

learn to fence, you can actually join clubs and regularly have people to practice with.

>>33202773
Arming swords and longswords. HEMA revolves around them. Also just google HEMA.

Dont be any old common serf, learn how to construct and operate siege engines. Then you will be of high value to any noble.

>>33202773
Go ask /asp/, that's where the HEMA threads are.

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>>33202773
Long Sword, Bastard Sword, or Great Sword if you wanna be a badass.

If you can grow a thick beard you already have the genetic markings of an axman. Get a Dane Ax.

Maces, hammers, flails, and mauls if you're the spiritual type. Can't spill blood, but splattering it everywhere is a-ok with the G-Man.

>>33202773

The Roman gladius helped conquer a good portion of the map...

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>>33204561
More like Roman tactics, engineering, and logistics helped conquer a good portion of the map.

>>33202773
Meyer Longsword.

>>33202773
>Bo staff
Stop... bo means staff already.

>>33206696
And beside, quarterstaffs and bo are different weapons with different techniques.

>>33206746
>And beside, quarterstaffs and bo are different weapons with different techniques.
How so though? different techniques sure even though there's most certainly some obligatory overlap here and there. How are they so different in themselves?

>>33206955
Quarterstaffs tended to be longer, at around 6 to 9 feet, heavier, and sometimes had metal strike faces on one or both sides, bo tended to be thinner, lighter, shorter, at around 5 feet, and plainer.

>>33207041
Well it largely depends of the style then, most bo in the mainland japanese styles tend to be 6ft long (hence rokushakubo - literally "6ft staff") and the same thickness as a spear (3cm and more), they almost always had metal ends (at least one) if used directly as a fighting weapon (bojutsu was at first largely how to fight with a broken spear or naginata rather than directly how to fight with a dedicated bo).

I don't really know of what sort of bo is used in the okinawan styles, but the bo you're talking about is clearly not the typical mainland one. Now the type of wood is probably different and would most certainly affect stuff for instance.

>>33207134
I was referring specifically to bo, excluding rokushakubo. Okinawan bo were basically just polished wood staffs with no frills, from a cursory google. The rokushakubo was a lot meaner.

>>33207180
>bo
Bo is usually a quicker way to say rokushakubo though... Everywhere I've been looking and talking "bo" was meant fpr "rokushakubo", you would say "shorter bo" if you wanted to refer to something that wasn't the good old 6ft long type.

In what context does "bo" means a small-ish 5ft long thin staff exactly? I'm just surprised that you say that as it really hasn't been my experience (but that's just what it is, my own experience).

What traditional japanese style use a short thin bo? I've never seen anything like it...

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>>33207237
Something like this. Okinawan bojutsu bo seem to be a bit shorter and lighter.

>>33207303
My experience is mostly in mainland japanese styles (which are vastly different technically than okinawan kobudo). The bo they use down there is probably different but I wouldn't know. Okinawan kobudo is still pretty specific stuff, I wouldn't call it the norm and the 6ft long bo is just as much of a typical weapon in the mainland styles that it is in Okinawa, so I don't think that the smaller bo are really the "default" type.

>>33207376
>>33207303
Also, okinawan styles tend to be more recent than the mainland ones (like 19th century recent), those who have a straight lineage anyway, so I would say that the mainland references should still be the usual one, but that's just me.

>>33207395
Hmm. Very interesting stuff.

>>33207416
One key difference technically btw is that okinawan styles tend to grip the bo in a 1/3-2/3 grip (like in your pic). Most koryu styles grip it at one end and one first third for more reach. It's not true for all styles, but most of them do it that way.

TSKSR is the overposted classic example but well...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3F6zEvoHFU