In the story I’m writing, there is a witch character whose main talent is moving earth. Her fighting style is based on defending and countering (somewhat similar to aikido, I suppose). Currently, she also uses a staff as a weapon, as that seemed like a logical weapon for such a technique at the time. Would you suggest a different weapon for this style, keeping the current one, or having no weapons at all?

howtofightwrite:

As far as I know, Aikido does have its own staff form. I don’t really know anything about it beyond, “yes, there’s this thing that exists.” But you can look up Aikido staff katas, and see them for yourself.

Generally speaking, staff forms are very common in traditional Asian martial arts forms. They’re frequently a stepping stone between unarmed training, and advancing into a martial art’s weapon forms. This is because training people on the staff is very easy.

I’m sure there are martial arts that eschew the staff completely in favor of other weapons (and a few that simply don’t use weapons at all), and I don’t know if Aikido uses the staff as your first introduction to weapon training. But it is a real weapon option.

Off hand, I wouldn’t suggest a different weapon. That said, based on what sounds like earth based superpowers, if wood is specifically a different element in your setting, it might be inappropriate. But, that’s more of a world building question that I just don’t have the information to address.

-Starke

An answer from “howtofightwrite”, answering a question of mine. You get to see this character in action later in the novel. To be frank, she’s kind of a boss.