They trickled through the doors in a near-steady flow, all ranks in their light brown practice uniforms. Her uniform's black color marked her as the Instructor. Saphire Sedai allowed them to chat until the bell rang, and then a hush fell over the room.

"I am Saphire Sedai, teaching Beginning Quarterstaff here. I assume you have all warmed up before arriving to class?" Some students looked to each other. "If not, you should spend time stretching before practicing today. It prevents needless injuries."

“We will begin with basic knowledge about the quarterstaff itself. There are two types; the first is called a “Bo” when set vertical on the ground will reach your exact height. This is a lighter because it is made of bamboo and quicker but does not have as much reach as its cousin staff. The second staff type is a “Quarterstave” it should be as tall as you can reach with your hands, and them some, it'll give you great reach but won’t be as fast and will be heavier than the first. It should be made of a hard wood, oak is best, it hits hard and is hard to stop, especially if you cap the ends in steel. The staff is a VERY quick weapon because you can hit with both ends and alternate jabs and blows (which will come in a later lesson). Although you should NEVER take it into war, a polearm will cleave it in half. If you need to go to war with a hafted weapon use a spear or polearm, they are somewhat similar to staffs. A staff needs a good circle of area to be used, inside a room, it's difficult to use, in a crowd, it's useless unless you master close-quartered combat. You can easily take on two or more people with it, but only if you have enough room to swing at both. The best advantage of the staff is the way you can change the length of it by moving your grips. . but your hands are also very exposed. Remember that.

Any questions before we begin with skills and techniques?”

Lesson Two: Stances
“Those of you who have taken Unarmed Combat are not required to practice the first two stances today, but you are encouraged to practice if you have not yet mastered them. When we reach the lesson on the third stance you must participate again with the rest of the class.” Saphire waited for some of those students to find clear areas of the mat to practice before continuing.

"Moving on. Offensive ready stance," She demonstrated, "is like this." standing with her feet far apart, left leg and foot pointing forward in a lunge to the North, right leg behind and a little to the right diagonally North-East. Her arms and hands she placed into the basic ready position to block: right arm next to her with palm facing down, left arm before her, both with relaxed shoulders and bent elbows. Her weight was evenly distributed on both feet, with posture upright and head suspended. Her torso faced forward. "In this stance I am best able to attack from the right side. This is the reverse in Defensive ready stance." She hoped into the air and switched her stance to the opposite. "This is meant to block hits from your opponent's right side."

Flowing from Defensive stance to a natural at-ease, Saphire gave some pointers, "First, unless a specific technique requires it, never cross your feet. Second, keep your knees bent slightly and unlocked. You need to move fast and easily, transferring weight from one foot to the other. Locking your knees commits you to a single posture. Third, spread your weight along your heel and toes and arch when you are putting most of your weight on that foot. Fourth: when you move, make your weight transition a steady flow. You should not be vulnerable to be taken to the ground easily at any point if you have distributed your weight properly." (OOC: Think, moving from right to left foot, 90% weight on Right, 10% on Left, then 85% right, then 70%, 50% etc . .) "Now, try out both stances."

Saphire watched as those students who hadn’t taken unarmed combat practiced these two stances briefly on their own. Raising her voice to the back of the room, she called the rest of the students back for the third stance used with some weapons, but not unarmed combat. “The third stance today is sometimes called 'horse stance' and sometimes called ‘center stance’," She demonstrated with feet twice shoulder-length apart, slightly bent knees, and torso upright. Neither foot was before the other. Her shoulders were relaxed with her hands at her sides and a little forward with palms facing down. “For those of you from unarmed combat, both knees are bent like your forward leg in the axe kick. . can anyone tell me what the purpose of this stance might be?” There was no answer from the class, so Saphire explained, “Center stance is for certain types of blocks either overhead or below your gut while defensive and offensive stance work better for blocking and attacking the right and left sides. Center stance adds extra resistance to these kinds of blows. In addition, certain staff spin blocks can only be used with it, those spin blocks I will teach to you in section two.

“I will be coming around to previous unarmed combat students to check your center stance, everyone else practice all three stances.”

Lesson Three: Footwork
“It's important that you know what to do with your feet before you add the staff into the equation. After this lesson on footwork, you'll be using your staff for basic defensive blocks, and then offensive attacks while using the appropriate stances and feet movement. Footwork is necessary for increasing and decreasing distance from your opponent. For slashes or jabs that you can't block with your staff, you back away in time. You can also surprise them with a quick advance or close the distance to get a blow in. Footwork can also lend power and momentum to your attacks. Do not stand still when sparring or fighting, keep moving! “Once more I will split up the class for this lesson. Those of you who are Trained in unarmed combat I want to practice integrating the centered stance I have taught you in the previous lesson with footwork you know from unarmed combat. One way to do this is to step halfway through a pass and stop when your feet are aligned in centered. You may listen and practice footwork if you wish, but I want you to know how to integrate your new stance into what you’ve already learned by the end of today. Find clear spaces in the room and practice this while I teach the next lesson, you should see soon how much more important footwork is when you wield a weapon. If you feel you are ready to be observed early, you may practice attacks and blocks against each other or the punching bag, using stance and footwork.”

“For those of you who have not yet had a lesson on footwork, we begin. The first move is called an "Advance", you simply take a step with your front foot, depending on whether you are in defensive or offensive stance, and recover that distance with your back foot. Always step first with your front foot and secondly with your back foot. The reverse is called a "Retreat".

"The second move is called a pass, it is stepping forward while switching stances. Like so,” Saphire moved into defensive stance with her left foot forward and stepped forward with her right foot. Her left ankle changed positions so that it faced diagonally left and her right foot pointed straightforward. The same space between her feet was maintained. The reverse is a "Pass Back". This move covers more ground than an Advance or a Retreat. Double-Advances, and Double-Passes as well as their reverses are commonly used as well to cross more distance.

"Third is a "Jumping-Advance", this is one of the few times when it is wise to cross your feet." She demonstrated, from offensive stance she stepped forward with her left foot, shifted her weight, sprung into the air, and landed in offensive stance a small distance farther than a Double-Pass forward. She was sure that by the time she landed her feet were no longer crossed but back in the offensive stance. "This move covers a great amount of distance in a short length of time and is often used by people wielding swords or quarterstaves. Sometimes you may not want to keep so strict to form anyway in the heat of a fight, but it is a useful move to know because it works well for transitions."

Saphire Sedai looked steadily from one student to the other. "Now, practice this footwork and make sure you have the forms down accurately and can transitions quickly. I'll be watching to correct you. And I will come around to previous unarmed combat students to check how you have integrated center stance into footwork."

Lesson Four: Grips
"From now on the lessons purely focus on the staff, so the class will no longer be split as the rest will be new material for all. Find a staff in the rack by the windows, either Bo or quarter-stave, it doesn’t matter for this beginner’s class, and move into offensive stance." When they moved into form, Saphire grasped her own staff. "These are the grips, the ways to hold the staff: for half-grip you hold the staff in the middle like so," she moved her hands down the staff until they were equidistant from the midpoint, her right hand's knuckles pointing up with her palm facing the sky, her left hand's facing down. Saphire Sedai’s fingers closed around the oak stave. "Knuckles up is called 'suppination', knuckles down is 'palmation'. It doesn't really matter which hand is in palmation and which is in suppination so long as they aren’t in the same grip, like both in palmation. With both hands holding the staff equidistant from the midpoint, this is half-grip, excellent for mid-range fighting."

She moved her grip until her hands were equidistant from the point halfway between the middle and end of the staff. "This is quarter-grip because it is a quarter distance from the end of the staff. (OOC: It looks like holding a baseball bat.) Again, one hand is in suppination the other in palmation. This grip is good for extra reach and swinging power." Saphire Sedai spoke with resonance in her voice, as if clueing them in on a secret. "Remember the great advantage to quarter-staffs, and even polearms, is that you can change the length of the weapon. It is quite versatile that way."

"Now, hold your practice staves at both grips and I will come by and observe you. I won't have you learn any bad habits."

Lesson Five: Offense
Saphire smiled. For many students this would be their favorite part, and it wasn’t complicated. "There are two basic ways to attack with the staff. While you are defending against your opponent's attacks, you should likewise watch for, and create openings to attack. For the purposes of this class, when you attack, it is in the form of a "Blow" and a "Jab". A blow is a hit with the side of the staff, moving in a swing to a broad area. Some target areas are best attacked with blows, such as the side of the neck or head." She demonstrated with imaginary blows to the sides and top of the head of an invisible opponent, using both quarter and half-grip.

"A jab is a hard forward hit with the but of the staff towards a directed and specific target area, like the gut. It's much like how one would puncture an opponent with a pointed sword, only with a much more forceful motion." Again she demonstrated, this time with jabs. "These are more difficult to use against smaller target areas like the neck or face. Although, sometimes you can hit joints or the ribs and do a lot of damage with blows."

“One of the best offensive basic tactics is to switch quickly from jab to blow, or blow to jab with opposite sides of your staff. That's one of the great advantages of the staff, you can switch sides of the staff, and thus jab and blow tactics, very easily.

“Practice these two tactics of attack well, and then practice switching back and forth between the forward thrust of a jab and a blow from the other side of the staff.”

OOC: You may want to skim part of the next lesson to understand what blocks and parrys are, as well as the end she gives an example of a combination of jabs, parrys, blocks, and blows.

Lesson Six: Defense
"Now, there are three ways you can defend yourself. The first you know, that is, moving out of the way. But you often do not have enough time for this, especially if you want to attack, and it doesn't stop your opponent at all from flowing into their next attack. The two other ways are blocking and parrying.

Blocking is simply putting your staff in the way of your opponent's swing. Although, try to keep your knuckles out of the way of that swing, and instead meet his or her staff or blade with wood." She smiled wryly, oh that had happened to her so many times. Had she been away from a Yellow's aid, there would have been scars on her knuckles. "This is why your grip is facing down and up. It helps for swinging the staff in either direction. Staves are oak, so don't worry about a sword cutting through. A Bo on the other hand you might want to worry more about when facing a bladed weapon because the material of yours is somewhat softer. If on the off chance that a blade does cut into your staff, just twist your staff and pull, it may even disarm them. In a later session, I can teach you spin blocks, which block very effectively, almost as much as shields."

Saphire Sedai placed her staff on the ground and pointed to target areas along her body. "Head, gut, shoulders, hands, knees. These are good areas to hit. Staves can dent helmets enough to cause concussions, and a strong hit to the gut can cause enough internal bleeding to kill. Hitting joints is good for disarming. You can of course hit other areas that will cause pain, but hitting these will do the most damage and are most vulnerable. Some staff wielders also hit the neck and groin, but sometimes those are hard to aim for. I am telling you this now so you know what your opponent will be trying to do."

“The trick is to anticipate which area your opponent is aiming for and apply the appropriate block. As I said before, a block is simply meeting your opponent's swing or jab with your staff. But, your staff has to be there to prevent their staff or blade from hitting you. Often there's a clue in the direction that their shoulders are moving, but your reflexes will also sharpen with time.

She grasped her staff again and demonstrated blocking her target areas. “When your opponent comes in with a blow, you meet it making a life-sized ‘t’ with your weapons. One will be vertical and one will be horizontal.” She demonstrated the head block by holding her staff away from her and above her head horizontally in center stance, “This blocks blows coming from up above your head vertically”. Saphire Sedai blocked away from the right and then left side of her body while holding the staff vertically in defensive stance “This blocks staves or weapons coming in from the side horizontally”. She finished by blocking down below her gut and away holding her staff horizontally while in center stance. “The head block mirrors the lower, the right block mirrors the left.”

"The third way to defend which can sometimes also be an attack, is called a parry. You can integrate these as transitions between blocks. As you move your staff to block one side of your body to the other you can rotate it so that any incoming blade or staff is pushed away from your body. That is the essence of parrys: to change the direction of your opponent's slash or jab away from yourself." After calling a student up, she demonstrated, aiming but butt of his staff towards the right side of her body. She began with the low horizontal block and rotated to the right vertical block while shifting from half-grip to quarter grip to increase the distance between his staff and her body. Through stepping forward she pushing his staff away and to her right. Now he was in the open, his staff pointing to her right and beyond her, and he was too close to recover the distance now that she had moved in forward. "This is especially advantageous because even if your opponent advances, they will become vulnerable as their weapon is away, neither defending or attacking, and leaving their target areas open. “Stepping back, she let this student return to the rest of the class. “You can also defend against jabs by directing the point of your opponents’ staff away from you, while blocks can’t prevent jabs because they are too easy to miss.

“This lesson is for your defense, but also how to get around blocks and perrys with the jab-blow technique you learned from that last lesson. For example, if you swing a blow towards your opponent's head and they block it, you can quickly switch and use the other side of your staff to jab them in the gut. Or if you are trying to jab them in the gut and they parry towards your left, you can switch to a blow at their right side with the other end of your staff.”

"Now you try. Work first by yourselves to master the blocks. Then work with a partner integrating attacks and defenses together randomly. Do not worry about footwork for this one, but try to keep your stances in order.”