Lots of interesting stuff, very cool to see the Vadi pics, but i feel i must clarify: The original question of the thread I meant in terms of single-handed spear use. The renaissance polearm stuff and asian staff forms are great, but in the main require two hands. I find spear-and-shield combat a very interesting puzzle, and suspect that many of you on this site have put far more of the pieces together than I have :)

My apologies, Greg. I am guilty of nerding out on the pics, and then reading your words and the bo staff debate in a sort of historically glazed mindstate. Got sidetracked and posted without rereading. Thinking about it now, the rear hand is used almost exclusively in the "underhand" grip with basically any weapon or tool that you would wield two-handed to thrust, slash, or cut. Even baseball bats and golf clubs :) I think that your example adds a bit more weight to my little supposition.

No worries, just wanted to make sure that you understood the point I was trying to make. ;)

are we talking one handed spear or two handed?
from experience one handed is more controlled underarm but with practice im sure over arm would be the same. historically speaking overarm seems more used. the hoplites etc evolved the pankration hammer fist techniques from it. and in the bayuex tapestry nearly all Norman infantry are holding their spears overarm.
in a group situation i found overarm much better as you can stab over shields underarm was easy to rush and jam against the shield. i know many reenactors who are rather good with the single handed spear in this fashion.
if you watch this video you can see various styles being used there is a guy in the foreground at about 1.50 using his underarm but from the very end of the spear.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMzeegViiuY&feature=related

Hey, I was at that battle... My group is standing behind the house in the middle of the line. :P

In western style reenactment, the target area for spears is very limited; you can only thrust to the torso. Further more, the underhand thrust is not used due to safety cosideration; the thrusts are deemed to hard, and presicion to low.

The group on the left in the clip had been experimenting a lot with short, light one handed spears last year. The logic is that a light spear, held all the way at the end, has almost the same reach as a longer spear held 2/3 down the shaft.
This works Ok if you are facing an opponent which has small shields and/or few long spears. Against a line heavy in full length spears, like the sweedish "spear coast", you will simply not reach the foe.

I also fought with fencing masks an full body target at the same market, which is a quite different game. In regular WSreenactment, scoring a kill one on one with a one handed spear is likely to take a while. With face hits, kills come fast if you are not paying attention.
Underhand is still better for feinting, which might even work occationally, since you can threatend the face. Overhand appears to be better at pushing and close combat, but unfortunately we don't do enough fencing mask to get propper experience with the underhand compared to overhand...

Just found Lloyd's website. Check this out: http://www.lloydianaspects.co.uk/weapons/spear.html He also made himself a really impressive hoplite panoply. This guy is frickin' cool :D