A while ago, in a Facebook group about MA books and magazines, I posted about a few of my favorite sword/fencing books and referred to the sword as "the king of bladed weapons", just to be quickly reminded that such title traditionally belong to spear. There was a short and friendly debate about my emphasizing bladed and whether that changes anything...but that's not the point.
After giving it a bit of thought, it became obvious (well, to me) that there are a couple of reasons why both may be true. First, we are really talking about two different periods. Namely, the spear got its reputation of royalty through antiquity and medieval times, while my perception of the sword as the high aristocracy was related to the later periods - from renaissance to the late 18th/early 19th century, which is when the management of swords developed into a revered art and science. Second, the surrounding in which the spear shone was the battlefield, i.e. war theater with armies clashing in massive numbers of combatants. Sword, on the other hand, took over the primacy as a dueling weapon in urban areas, with either one-on-one scenario or smaller number of participants.
Not to mention the geographical, social and cultural influences that could be taken into account...so let's keep it simplified!
That said, while it is easy to think of swords as an EDC (every day carry) weapon of choice in its time, I have hard time imagining anyone carrying a spear around other than a very specific purpose, either for hunting or military assignment. Speaking of the military context, it bears saying that if a soldier/warrior had both of those on them, the spear probably did have a primary role, while the sword was sort of a side arm. Something like rifle and pistol as a modern day equivalence.
With that in mind, it occurred to me that the battlefield of the days of yore most probably offered ample opportunity for asymmetrical engagement where different weapons were pitted against each other, thus possibly giving us the answer about the question of one weapon's superiority? Lo and behold, other have already dealt with it!
And this is but one example...you can find quite a few others out there. Mind you, it is sort of a rabbit hole, so be warned! One thing that becomes conspicuous rather soon is that there are VERY few attempts at grabbing the shaft of the spear and then closing the distance. Besides the fact that there are many different types of spears (and other polearms) out there, once you try it out, it becomes obvious that such a tactic is actually harder to pull off that it may seem, especially if there is a lot of maneuvering space for the person wielding the the spear.
So, where do you start with learning a few basics, in case you are interested at all? Again, there are many options available, depending on the preferred approach in terms of historical period, geographical area of origin etc. Still, probably two prevailing avenues are HEMA sources and those of Asian background.
With regards to the former, even a cursory search will yield a huge number of results. Those will either be written - articles and translations/interpretations of period manuals - or videos that cover similar material. Here is a nice one for fundamental basics:
In the latter case, it may be difficult to get down to the practical stuff (provided that is what you are looking for), as so many Chinese and Japanese systems of use may rely on forms as the means of teaching, and those are often hard to decode if you do not have some background in that approach. So, let's turn to a more simplistic and modern version:
Of course, since I brought up the matter of practicality, one might wonder what is the point of learning to use spear at all nowadays? Well, for one thing, in the domain of personal protection, the mechanical and technical principles of the weapon itself could be implemented with some sort of improvised tools (broom handles, spades...). However, even more important is the development of other, higher level, attributes such as distance management and footwork, space awareness, tactical adaptability etc. In the military domain...well, as much as the bayonet plays a role (if at all), the methods of its use will be well grounded in the use of spear. As a side note, but related to that, in the Soviet Russia bayonet fencing was part of the national fencing competition circuit alongside foil, epee and saber for quite some time, probably into the 1970's, if not longer.
Maybe we could use what is left of nice weather to do some outdoors training and reap some of those abovementioned benefits...
