A HEMA lesson on Quarterstaff, in The Vanguard Centre
Plate from Joseph Swetnam's "Science of Defence"

Elizabethan Quarterstaff Course

£90.00
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A 6 week course suitable for beginners and experienced fencers to learn the basics and features of the Quarterstaff and other polearms, with information and techniques taken from Elizabethan era, British Isles Renaissance sources like George Silver, Joseph Swetnam, and Zachary Wylde. Come and learn the skills of the most fundamental and mechanical of weapons – the staff! Hold your foes at bay, block their advances, humble their villainy, and crush them utterly!  

Let us know what level you are entering the course at, so we can put together the best experience we can for you.

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Description

The Quarterstaff is the universal weapon, with versions of it featured in martial arts and tales of fighting from across the globe across all of history. A refinement of maybe mankind’s second ever weapon, the staff has been romanticised in stories, used by the everyman against tyranny, been the leveller in contests of might, and staffs and polearms have been the weapon of the common footsoldier since antiquity – from the pikes of the massed phalanxes of the bronze age, through medieval, renaissance and early gunpowder warfare as spear, lance, poleaxe, halberd, bill or bayonet, and living on as ceremonial weapons across the world.

In this short course we will take a look at the quarterstaff and related headed weapons from Elizabethan England and the British Isles during the late renaissance. We will take lessons, techniques and inspiration from the likes of Joseph Swetnam, George Silver, and others, notable fencing masters who wrote about the staff, stave, pike, and poleaxe in addition to swords, daggers, and duelling bucklers. While swords may have been the tool of the elite, the staff was available to all, and represented the great equaliser of an armed society… a sword is great, but it does you little good if your opponent can break your arms from twice its length away!ย 

Basic equipment will be provided by the Vanguard Centre as part of the course, but suitable clothing and footwear must be brought by each participant.

The course will cost ยฃ90 for 6 lessons over 6 weeks, with entrance available for purchase through our online shop. Discounts are available for existing members of The Vanguard Centre or Academy of Historical Arts. Pre-purchasing the entire course features a slight discount over purchasing the sessions individually.

The lessons are scheduled at 7.30pm on Tuesdays, on the 23rd and 30th of September, and the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th of October 2025.
New attendees who have not trained HEMA with The Vanguard Centre before are invited to arrive early at 7.15pm on the first day of the course to get an orientation around the centre and get fitted for equipment.

23/09/2025 Week 1: Basics of quarterstaff, holding the guards, handling your rod.
30/09/2025 Week 2: The steps, the strikes, giving them the business end.
07/10/2025 Week 3: Blocks, parries, barrings – learn to take it like a champ.
14/10/2025 Week 4: Manipulate the shaft, be willing to give head or butt.
21/10/2025 Week 5: Headed weapons and workmans’ tools – The big end got bigger.
28/10/2025 Week 6: Learn to be a hooker, embrace BONK

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