Horseback

Techniques employed in the horseback plays are mostly technically far simpler than the other plays of armizare. This is because three of your limbs and a good deal of your concentration is dedicated to controlling your horse.

Your left hand holds the reins and generally takes a fairly passive position, either resting on the pommel or possibly holding a shield. Actually steering the horse is mostly done through directing the hips and knees.

Moving offline and pivoting around your opponent which is such a major component of fighting from foot, ends up being a far bigger, slower and less effective movement when doing it from a horse. Sitting astride a horse also gives you far less capacity to use your hips to give power to your techniques.

Compensating for these problems, you can now close on your opponent with ferocious speed, and you have the potential to put an enourmous amount of mass behind your techniques. Everything you do is linked to the momentum of half a ton or more of horse.

You will generally only get time for one or two techniques before the movement of at least one of the horses puts your opponent behind you. By pushing the horses shoulder to shoulder and wheeling on the spot, you can gain more time for more techniques as the horses spiral around each other, but it cannot be extended too long.

With any strike you make, you are in danger of hitting your own horse in the head. It is a large obstacle which is always in front of you. Your horse wants to be hurt even less than you do. In the excitement of the crush especially, it will be holding its head up and moving it around. Like you, your horse will be simultaneously trying to keep itself balanced, protect itself and see what is going on. Always be careful not to focus so much on the opponent that you lose track of what your own horse is doing.