09-07-2016, 03:02 PM
(09-07-2016, 02:24 PM)JaM Wrote: Paul: i took that 1.5m reach from your blog... its your number, not mine..
Quote:By the 5th century, the classical Greek dory, or fighting spear, appears to have been as much as 2.5 m long, but it was effectively longer because a combination of rear weighting and tapering of the shaft moved the center of balance, hence the grip, back to about a third of the way from the bottom. A 2.5 m dory had a reach of over 1.5 m, similar to a 3.3 m mid-balanced spear.
http://hollow-lakedaimon.blogspot.com/
Paul, one additional comment to those gifs: you are standing with both foot at the same position, wasn't the left foot be forward with right foot in the back, with the oblique post?
I have no problem with my 1.5m figure, that is a spear held at about a third from the sauroter in either over OR underhand! If you want 2m with either under or over, you just move the balance point back and can still use either grip. To get 2.5m of reach, you are holding the tip of the sauroter with your fingertips! because the whole spear is in front of your hand. In those gifs, I am using my 9' dory shaft, its longer than they used because I am 6'3", but I did not attach the spearhead or sauroter. Thus in those videos that spear is actually front heavy for where I gripped it and I could still use it just fine. Note in the gif where I am just jabbing, at the end I was stabbing three times at an imaginary head and the strikes are very consistent.
As to my feet, I am standing obliquely, but I could stand with them further apart to have a more secure base. This changes nothing because it is the rotation of the torso that dictates reach and I would just have to rotate my hips more to get the same reach. Most authors have hoplites with the right foot too far back which limits reach. Which is another things about Mathew's presentation. If his men don't square their shoulders forward when they strike, then I actually outreach them.
