Grips by George Hernandez

This section on "Grips" will focus mainly on gripping instead of grips/handles but obviously the two are related.

The grip is the handle part of a weapon. The part of a weapon that is grasped by the hand or hands. For the sake of more precise language, I will try to use the word "handle" instead of this meaning of "grip" since it is a perfectly good synonym. Clearly the length of the handle is key to whether a weapon is "single handed", "hand-and-a-half", or "two handed". In fact, the length of the handle is more often used to determine the "handedness" of a sword than the length of the blade. The main portion of a handle is made of materials such as wood, bone, horn, or ivory. Most handles have shapes, coverings, or textures that are decorative as well as increase the ease of gripping. EGs: engravings, grooves, wire wrapping, and cording wrapping.
How to grip the handle of a weapon. This will include a study of the range of the human hand, esp. the wrist, palm, and fingers. Studying grips is important because a better weapon can be designed by studying how humans grip things. Conversely a person can take better advantage of a weapon by gripping it properly and changing the grip as needed.

There is also the aspect of how to grip your opponent but that shall be covered elsewhere.

Here are several distinctive features of grips:

1 or 2 handed grips. The 2 handed grip usually has 2 applications of 1 handed grips.
Weapon extension.
- Radial. Aka overhand grip; sopramano (Italian); sword grip. EG: A rapier thrust.
- Ulnar. Aka underhand grip; sottamano (Italian); ice pick grip. EG: An ice pick.
- Knuckle. Aka punching grip. The weapon extends parallel to the hand's metacarpals, i.e. the bones between knuckles and wrist. EG: A katar.
- Palmar. The weapon extends perpendicular to the palm. EG: The 2nd hand was used to push the pommel of sword.
Weapon force vector. This depends much more upon the weapon.
- Assume that the weapon in hand is a single-handed, double-edged sword.
  - Thrust. Vector towards the tip. Two basic ways to improve thrusting with the hand:
    - Align the weapon with the forearm.
    - Immobilize the weapon at impact.
      - Plant the weapon (parallel to the thrust vector).
      - Grip the weapon handle strongly (perpendicular to the thrust vector).
  - Cut. Vector towards the ulna.
  - Backcut. Vector towards the radius.
  - Flat of blade forehand. Vector towards the palm. (A tennis forehand)
  - Flat of blade backhand. Vector towards the backhand. (A tennis backhand)
- Similar analysis could be done for other weapons. Note that the "cut" for the above weapon is the usual hammering move.
Hand placement.
- The placement of hands upon weapons is dependent upon the weapon, particular preferences, and particular applications.
- The most common placement issue is a matter of range & leverage v strength & precision. A placement further from to the tip usually has more range and greater leverage, but the weapon will seem heavier (require more strength) and will be less precise. Obviously the converse applies.
- The most common placement issue in two-handed weapons is whether the hands are close together (as in a baseball grip), apart (as in gripping a katana or long sword), or apart then coming together (as in an axe).

Just for fun, here are some notes on tennis grips [ref].

All these grips are close to the end of the racket for greater range.

Basic forehand, eastern grip, or hand shake grip. The handle sits on the main palm.

Advanced forehand, semi-western grip. The handle sits on the knuckle part of the palm.

One-handed backhand. The handle is rotated 90 degrees into the palm.

Two-handed backhand.

Chopper grip. For servers, volleys, sliced backhands, and smashes. The handle is rotated only slightly into the palm

2007-10-16 19:40:49Z