Just to avoid confusion: Using the terms used by Marozzo 1536, the pole arm simulator we used is a "spiedo" - it has that very long blade and the hocks, and you can use it for slicing and hacking. We had to avoid that out of safety reasons, and count thrusts and drawn/ pushed cuts only, so we applied the rules of a "partesana", which is also what you see on the card. In modern terms it would be called a spear I guess. We had partesana-simulators last year in the tournament. They were made of bamboo and rubber --> super safe but too wobbly. Often neither attacker nor the person hit would feel any impact at all and the referees hardly saw the hits too. So this year it was wood with plastic tips. Seems to work much better while being a good compromise on safety.

Great)) it would be interesting to see different styles, for example fencing with a Japanese master

I didn't expect to see a Pole Arms section. For safety reasons, I assumed a bill or a partisan would be too dangerous to use in free sparring or in tournament conditions. I see you guys showed restraint at times and used synthetics, so not bad as a compromise. I saw that Jay Maxwell was looking at the partisan more and more, and I didn't get why. I remember Tempus Fugitives shop in the UK (now defunct) selling a beautiful sharp partisan, and man that thing looked incredible. I assume that a steel trainer to be used in a prized tournament (i.e. incentive to hit hard) is still out of the question. But this is the first time I see a partisan fight, and I can only imagine an in-period fight with the real deal (those long blades looks frighteningly awesome). I wanted to stick to learning side-sword (and a bit of rapier). I decided to get an Italian style feder to also study some Bolognese longsword, some spadone, but stop at that. Now I think I need to add the partisan to the list of weapons to study. 😏