Many a martial artist and sword geek has sneered at these machete duels, noting that we hit the shields too often, and yes we do, because it makes sense. This was a battle of attrition. Cory had the better heavier machete and an indestructible shield that had once broken my arm [If you look closely you will see the rim is saw-toothed]. Cory intended to destroy my shield and damage my shield hand, which he did. He was hoping that this would bring on a rush to get a quick kill on my part that would permit him to either drop on me and finish me on the floor, drop his shield on me, or step on my foot—that's it folks. When Cory steps on your foot you might as well be a mouse in a glue trap. He has broken two foots doing it. Unfortunately for Cory when he beat in the boss of my shield and bruised up my knuckles, he also pinned my hand in it. I needed the other hand to take it off after the duel.
This was Cory's tenth duel I think, where I had about 210 under my belt by this time.
The small man's strategy in a shield and weapon face off [This could be a trash can lid and a windshield scraper versus a frying pan and a flashlight.] is to bring the big man's head forward so that you can get to his neck, ear or temple. This can be done by beating on the shield—so long as your weapon is stout enough—to tire his shoulder and get the shield to drop, and by going for his legs which is dicey business.
Your defense with a shield and shorter weapon is to use a zone defense with the shield, move the legs—never trying to block a leg shot—and defend deep penetrations by attacking his hand, and then counter attacking against his hand after shots you catch on your shield. Towards the end I did manage two parries with the blade.
Cory knew the game I was playing and used the thrust up the middle, which could have sent me to the hospital, to dissuade me from lunging in. The key to wearing the big guy down is to keep within range as long as possible and do not attack deep, but get him to commit. As you can see I failed to read most of his commitments. This is not pristine martial arts. It's just raw fighting that demonstrates how ugly, repetitive and tentative things can get when some one is trying to stab and slash you with a piece of steel.
The finishing stroke was accomplished easily with a short pivoting lunge once I was convinced that he did not have the juice left in his legs to send that power stab up the middle. I did nothing that I thought would risk being impaled, or having my sword arm spiked by his shield, which was made from the top of an oil drum. This is the portion that martial artist don't get. Cory knows from experience that I can pretty much hit him whenever I want to. Fighting with weapons is tough for someone with such a big target area going against faster people—like getting attacked by Peter Pan in the middle of the night. Cory just settled into his equipment-based attrition game as he threatened to make me pay in a big way for trying something too direct.
Attrition, this is the aspect of combat that weighs heavily on fighters when they are mismatched by size, and which has no place in martial arts. That's why we fight.
