VOL 1
Stick Arts ISSUE 3
Maintaining & Reimagining Arts
For the martial arts comprehensivist
Top - Maxime Chouinard Bottom - Keegan Taylor
VOLUME 1
Stick Arts ISSUE 3
Maintaining & Reimagining Arts
218 Steaphen Fick
20
The European Quarterstaff
Maxime Chouinard & Nathan Featherstone
Bataireacht
196
240
Nicole Holzmann
Roger Norling
La Canne de Combat
Joachim Meyer, the 16th-Century Fencing Master
174 Alejandro Rodriguez Buenafuente
Juego de Palo Canario
Rondel Benjamin
92 Keegan Taylor
116
50
A Journey through the Monastery of Kalinda
Mahipal Lunia Speaks with Keegan Taylor
Warriodhood: A Deep Discussion
Kalinda
60 Mahipal Lunia Speaks with Rondel Benjamin
Life and Strife: An Ongoing Conversation
CONTENTS
Maintaining & Reimagining Arts
Vol. 1:3 - Stick Arts
138 Scott Park Phillips
Reclaiming the Magic of the Chinese Staff
150 Damon Honeycutt
Monkey Kung Fu Staff
164 David Giomi
Shaolin Staff in the 21st Century
296 Adam H. C. Myrie
Stick Fighting in North Africa
270 George E. Georgas
The Greek Stick/ Staff Fighting
318 Ethan Minor
The Bando Staff
MAINTAINING REIMAGINING AND TRANSLATING MARTIAL ARTS TURKU IS THE OLDEST CITY in Finland. This means that it also has the country’s oldest cathedral. Like many such large buildings, it was not completed in one generation, but was modified and made grander as the centuries went on. It is a constant reminder of past times, though, as is the city’s medieval castle that was host to royal intrigues of both Swedish and Polish kingdoms. The ruins of a bishop’s castle in the neighboring town tell of how such contests were not always peaceful.
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Like a medieval cathedral or castle, systems of martial arts need maintenance in order for them to be passed down through the centuries. This is particularly so, as technologies of fighting have long since made close-quarter combat less significant for victory in battle. Even the mighty walls of a castle can become obsolete when cannons can fire into its yard from a hill across a river, something unimaginable at the time of its construction. Yet, like a cathedral, some martial art systems are about
Editorial by Juha A. Vuori, Ph. D
more than the building or the technology they used to wield. Ways of fighting can contain philosophical, cosmological, and other forms of belief, and serve other functions beyond prowess in violent engagements. Indeed, forms of combat, even when performed ritualistically, in sport, or in theatrical forms, can work to join a community together. The simile of a cathedral can offer some insights into the longevity and passage through time of mar-
tial art systems, but it also has its limits. Indeed, people who train such systems are not as stationary as grand buildings. For example, the migration of people has meant transportation and translation of martial arts to new social, cultural, and political surroundings, too. A society where weapons like knives are ubiquitous affords different forms of individual civilian conflict from one where weapons are illegal. Concomitantly, not all arts are displayed in public for all to see or participate in. As such, forms
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of martial art have developed to serve certain needs, and these, too, can change with the times and as things around them evolve. Even the religion and its interpretation practiced in the Turku cathedral has not remained the same as the society and its mores around it have transformed. This has also affected who is allowed to use force on whom, and in which kinds of situations. While Europe is currently experiencing war that has caused a refugee and energy crisis and may yet result in famine elsewhere, the long trend has been the reduction of violence in societies around the world. While social, economic, and political disparities are perennial, most states limit the right and means of inflicting bodily harm on citizens. Far gone are the days when some members of society could be beaten, tortured, or even killed with impunity merely based on their social position, creed, or gender. When this happens today, it can gain worldwide attention. Even capital punishment is rare among the countries of today. Such a state of expanding negative peace in most societies has implications for martial arts, too; if the immediate use of a combative skill, especially in armed form, is less and less likely in the everyday, why
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should the art be maintained? Similarly, how can one find enough people that share an interest in carrying the knowledge forward when its practical use is becoming increasingly remote? The articles in this issue of the Immersion Review show how martial arts have been maintained and continually reimagined over the centuries to suit the needs of the holders of their legacy and those who choose to learn from them. Such passage through time and context raise questions about what is essential about an art, and about what gets lost when the art is transplanted to a new setting. Is it possible, or is it even wise to seek to popularize a once semi-restricted dangerous type of knowledge? Is it better perhaps, at times, to keep it, or versions of it, going through pre-modern face-to-face interaction, away from the gaze of the public? Some of the articles approach such questions by suggesting that it is better to maintain older forms of transmission, while others emphasize adaptation to contemporary mores and ways of conduct. This dilemma is not always a question of either/or, as while something is always lost in translation, it still retains something of the original.
[Photo credit: Mika Hanski, 2021]
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Forms of stick fighting that may have been quite popular and widely practiced have later become frowned upon in many societies. As the need for sticks in everyday life and the mores of societies have evolved, the practice of stick fighting has become rare, or disappeared altogether. Maxime Chouinard and Nathan Featherstone open this issue of the Immersion Review by presenting us with such a history in the case of bataireacht, or Irish stick fighting. While this martial art was at one time widely practiced to the extent of characterizing Irishness itself, it eventually became more obscure and has been removed from popular imaginaries. The art has been maintained in the margins, though, and is being adopted for use in mixed styles of stick fighting like the Dog Brothers Gatherings. The article goes through the living lineages of the art and how it is practiced, and lays out its future.
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Kalinda is an example of how stick fighting can be more than just about physical engagements. Rondel Benjamin introduces this way of fighting that encapsulates hybrid forms of African and Indian life that inform Trinidadian culture. Here, fighting with sticks is part of a larger system that incorporates spiritual, educational, cultural, and healing aspects. These also feature in the ongoing discussion on kalinda between Benjamin Rondel and Mahipal Lunia, some of which is provided for us here. For kalinda, maintaining ways of fighting is a way to recover old ways of being, heal the community, and rejoice in the building of a better future today. Indeed, Keegan Taylor tells us about his personal journey through the monastery of kalinda. The recounting and discussion of the deep meanings involved in a free-play with gilpins on a beach in Barbados between Taylor and Mahipal Lunia rounds off the special feature on this tradition in this issue of the Immersion Review.
Mentioning staff-fighting to an average person on the street in many parts of the world would probably evoke images of Shaolin monks. Indeed, China has a long recorded history that is replete with martial strife, and contains many philosophical and cosmological traditions. Accordingly, it is also its own microcosm of martial art systems and styles, as well as traditions of opera and theater that still display martial art elements. Scott Park Phillips makes a connection between popular comic theatrical performances of monks and Chinese literary classics. Together, they have informed the tradition of the staff work of Shaolin monks, but they were present in seasonal festivals that predate the famous temple. The play with staves served a ritualistic practical purpose in educating dragons to keep the weather harmonious in order to provide for good harvests. The sexual connotations of an enlarging and hardening staff have often been edited out of the play and performance, but Phillips makes an argument for reclaiming the magic of this tradition.
Damon Honeycutt presents us with a different take on the Journey to the West by discussing some of the staff work within monkey style kung fu, or the “cudgel of the great sage.” Here, the myth of the king is interweaved and informs the practical application of the various forms the staff can take. In this sense, the staff is about more than just a practical implement— it maintains cultural traditions. To round off the issue’s section on Chinese staff arts, David Giomi gives us a look into the pragmatic generation of chi energy in using the Shaolin staff in the 21st century. The staff works here as an implement for learning how to cultivate and concentrate the kinetic energy of the body.
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Traditions of martial art that have been maintained for centuries do not always agree on what is the correct form or interpretation of certain techniques or other aspects of the art. Such disagreements can also include the terminology used in the art, or even its name. Alejandro Rodriguez Buenafuente gives us a sense of this aspect of martial art maintenance through his documentary analysis of the juego de palo canario, a form of stick fighting practiced on the Canary Islands. People have varying motives for why they train martial arts, and such varying personal viewpoints can evolve into a tradition stranding off into directions that aim to maintain folk traditions while others prefer to treat the art as pure sport. Indeed, many martial arts have been developed for warfare or self-defense to later take on formal modes of sport. This is also the historical trajectory of la canne de combat that we are introduced to by Nicole Holzmann. La canne has its origins in sword fighting that was still part of how the more well-off warded off unwanted encounters on the streets of Paris up until the French revolution, which
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eventually banned sword carry from civilians. During the belle époque, the sword was replaced by an urban walking cane that took on the role of the sword in such encounters. With development in men’s fashion, canes became less common. At the same time, many masters of the art of la canne were lost to the World Wars. The tradition has been carried on to today in the form of a formal sport that Holzmann showcases for us. While some arts have been maintained, and made grander with the passage of time, forms of life around such constructions tend to transform at a quicker pace. Indeed, many forms of fighting have been lost to time. Still, some discontinued arts have left historical traces of their practice either in the form of archeological finds, cargo lists of ships, court records, or even manuscripts and treatises that concern the techniques of fighting. Beyond the maintenance of living martial traditions, such traces have allowed new generations to explore some aspects of these old forms of martial art.
Indeed, people are fascinated with past forms of life. The cathedral and castle of Turku form the backdrop for Turku’s annual medieval market where historians and archeologists from the University work together with blacksmiths, jewelers, other craftspeople, food vendors, and amateur actors to enliven and reenact the medieval history of the city. A part of the old town is cordoned off with wooden fences, and visitors can experience medieval sights and sounds. Luckily, the smells are limited to pigs roasting on a spit, and such savory smells as the sewage system are not reverted to quite so olden times.
[Photo credit: Mika Hanski, 2021]
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View of Turku Cathedral from Vartiovuori Hill. [Photo credit: Otto Jula (Creative Commons License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en)]
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As interest in medieval ways of combat has increased in the 2000s, the market these days also hosts a medieval tourney with horse-men jousting with lances and armored individuals engaging in buhurts. In other parts of Finland, there are also Viking markets, where groups of people engage in scripted Vikings-versus-city-guard engagements with appropriate gear. Indeed, interest in recreating old weapons, armor, ships, siege machines, and even entire medieval castles using technologies available at the time has concomitantly led to an interest in reenacting ways of using these new-old artifacts. As the professional historians involved in this type of enlivening and embodiment of cultural history tell us, reconstructing a lived past is not possible. Written history is inevitably a narrative reimagining of past events and ways of being. The same holds for archaeology. The traces of the past cannot render a full account of what actually happened, and particularly what they meant at the time. Indeed, even the international organization involved in the embodied reenactment of mainly European history before 1600 is jestfully named the Society for Creative Anachronism.
Hoplologists interested in past forms of combat that may have since been abandoned face the same issues and hurdles in their research. HEMA has become an established form of martial art, yet even its practitioners realize that embodying weapon techniques from manuals is a reimagining of movements and uses of techniques. While the medieval tourney-enactments in Turku are informed by HEMA practice, there is no such basis for the Viking fighting arts. While there are numerous Viking artifacts that include swords, there is essentially only one tapestry that visually describes the way they fought. Not all cultures have produced drawn or written records of their ways of fighting. Discussion on this aspect of contemporary martial art practice in this issue begins with Steaphen Fick’s historical review of European uses of the quarterstaff. The article gives a summary of European manuscripts on long weapons through several centuries and is a great introductory resource for anyone who wants to conduct their own explorations into these historical records and the forms of fighting in them.
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Roger Norling follows this general review with a more focused introduction of how Joachim Meyer presented the use of polearms in his weapon manuals from the 16th century. When reimagining such ways of fighting, it is prudent to take into account the weapon technologies of the time, the context of combat, as well as the laws and customs that concerned armed combat. These provide for vital insights for the practical testing out of the techniques and mechanics described in the treatises themselves. George E. Georgas leads us into Greek uses of staves in fighting. Ways of fighting are not only depicted in manuscripts, but myths, legends, and stories also indicate how weapons have been used in earlier times. The article once again points to the importance of historical and political context in discussing how various periods of occupation and changes in ways of war impacted the use of staves for fighting. Still, staves and skill in fencing could come in handy even in the 20th century, when knives were used as the implements of political assassinations and attempts at them, as Georgas recounts one such attempt that took place in Japan.
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Adam H. C. Myrie’s article explores the use of sticks in ancient Egypt and the Maghreb region through the history, basic techniques, and the current place of stick fighting there. This represents North African efforts to preserve the history of fighting arts based on research of oral and other non-written forms of passing on traditions. This work has then been formalized within associations as ways of training, and published in newly written manuscripts. Once again, the training and traditions have taken on different forms that can emphasize sport activities or more cultural forms. Ethan Minor presents the past and current ways of applying the bando staff as it has been used in Myanmar. Staves have not only been ways of self-defense or combat in conflict, but they have also had more civilian uses in maintaining health, procuring food, moving in environments, and providing shelter. Like with so many other forms of combat, the same implements can be used to both hurt and heal when it comes to the staff. Accordingly, there is a close connection between the staff and its user, beginning from the manufacturing and choosing of the staff to its practical application.
Reimagining forms of martial art properly requires the same kind of sensitivity as transcultural ethnography, anthropology, or study of history. Indeed, a hoplologist needs to be wary of the possibility of succumbing to “cultural colonialism” in their investigation. Explorers should not assume or impose universal ideologies or values, even when things can be tested out competitively “in the cage.” Whether one is studying hoplology within maintained systems of martial art or exploring historical forms with discontinuities, there is a need to do so within a shared space of understanding among cultures that requires a perpetual task of translation and reworking of one’s particular position. When this is done properly, a hoplologist may transcend one’s own culture in the evaluation of one’s own and others’ cultures through their ways of fighting. This is so
despite the fact that different cultures have different standards for the admissibility of ideas, whether those concern cosmology, religion, philosophy, or other standards of knowledge. Academics have the luxury of distance and set standards for their practices of research. The practitioners and keepers of an art, though, inescapably face the dilemma of translation through time and culture. How does one maintain arts that were developed and used in wild frontiers when a specific type of expressive honor-bound masculinity was tied to celebrating extremely risky behaviors, such as gambling, excessive drinking, and public acts of violence? The establishment of a modern centralized government has often meant the end of this type of general masculine behavior and the retreating of such activities to the corners of so-
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ciety. Practices of class and other social stations, as well as systems of honor in mainstream or more marginal parts of society, have also had a bearing on forms of martial art. Some forms of art have lost living connections to their roots entirely, yet have been resurrected by later generations, which may allow for more diverse groups of practitioners to partake in the art. Those who pick up the mantle after a long disjuncture see such lost arts as still providing benefits to a practitioner in a contemporary world. Yet, what is lost in these types of moves? Do deadly arts that have survived or that have been resurrected inevitably merely become a folkloric dance bereft of all risk and danger? What would this mean for the future of martial arts? As full-contact combat sport—whether armed or not— has shown, though, these types of activities are not without even the risk of death. Indeed, it is problematic to demonize the sportification of an art. Sportifying an art is not all about loss; it can still maintain
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the memory of past forms of being and allow for risky behaviors and contests among people so inclined. At the same time, sportification, like festivalization, can serve political purposes when connected to nationalistic ideologies and ideas of martial bodies. Indeed, society, culture, and politics all matter for practicing martial arts, and for understanding them academically. Accordingly, many arts have been kept within families, tribes, or other restricted groups while maintaining different moralities from those found in mainstream society. Such arts have been quite effective in particular times and places. The issue remains what happens when such traditional forms of transmission are continued, when they are reinvented, or sportified. What is retained, and what is lost in their translation? Answers here depend on the reasons for why someone trains, teaches, or maintains an art by other means. Is the purpose practical application, intellectual or spiritual enlightenment, sport or other forms of competition, cul-
tural discovery or appreciation, self-expression, or simply physical exercise? All are valid reasons and result in various views on what is the essential part of an art to maintain or transform. Similarly, is the context for the use of an art military, constabulary, or civilian? Is the art used to serve, or has it been appropriated by the state, or is it used to work against forms of oppression, whether sanctioned or not by the state? Is the practitioner committed to work within the law, bend the rules or mores of mainstream society, or even break the law? As the articles in this issue have also shown, a martial art can be deployed to suppress communities, but it may also be a means of resistance against such structures. Indeed, a martial art can be about more than its combative aspects. It can be about recognition, healing, community, and spirituality, about maintaining, reimagining, and translating ways of being.
Juha A. Vuori, Ph.D @ juha.vuori.54
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BATAIREACHT A ONCE-FAMOUS IRISH MARTIAL ART COMING BACK TO LIFE Maxime Chouinard & Nathan Featherstone
IF YOU GO TO IRELAND today, it is unlikely that most of the people you will meet will be aware that a martial art was once extremely popular in their homeland. Mention that it was called bataireacht, and you will undoubtedly raise eyebrows. Explain that this was the art of using the shillelagh, and you will get many varied reactions.
BATAIREACHT
· Maxime Chouinard & Nathan Featherstone | 21
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KALINDA AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TRINIDADIAN STICKFIGHTING ART Rondel Benjamin
THE ART OF KALINDA IS AN ancient art form traditionally played in Trinidad and Tobago during the carnival period from January to February. It is uniquely indigenous to the island but interestingly blended with various elements of visiting fighting arts from other diasporas and cultures, such as gatka from the Sikh Indian traditions and some Venezuelan garrote.
KALINDA INTRO
· Rondel Benjamin | 51
The conversation below is part of a larger project of The Immersion Foundtion, for putting two long-term practitioners of martial art traditions in dialogue with each other in order to: 1) push them to explain aspects of their art in greater depth; 2) to push each other to bring out other equally interesting aspects of their art they both find interesting; 3) and finally to find a common ground where these arts or their concepts come together.
Benji: I would like to lay out the structure of what we are doing in the Bois Academy. I think this will allow us to see some of the key concepts and core areas of study that we use. The Bois Academy is a collection of practitioners of the three central kalinda arts. As practiced in Trinidad and Tobago, kalinda comprises stick fighting, also known as the bois, the gilpin or machete or
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LIFE & STRIFE AN ONGOING CONVERSATION Mahipal Lunia Speaks with Rondel Benjamin
[Photo courtesy of Maria Nunes, 2015]
A JOURNEY THROUGH THE MONASTERY OF
KALINDA Keegan Taylor
[Photo courtesy of Maria Nunes, 2015]
KALINDA, ALSO KNOWN AS “stickfighting” in Trinidad, is a martial tradition involving two batonierres, or bois men, competing for warrior supremacy by exchanging licks and blows with skill and strategy in an attempt to subdue or draw first blood from their opponent. I have played the game for more than a decade. I consider myself a diligent student of the game, its methodology, history, and the unique and varied elements making up the tradition.
MONASTERY OF KALINDA
· Keegan Taylor | 93
WARRIORHOOD A DEEP DISCUSSION
Mahipal Lunia Speaks with Keegan Taylor During their interview with Michael J. Ryan, Keegan Taylor and Mahipal Lunia discuss the dangers of digital forms of teaching martial arts and their play with live cutlasses during the Barbados expedition.
RECLAIMING THE MAGIC OF THE
CHINESE STAFF Scott Park Phillips
THE FIGHTING STICK IS the magical weapon of Sun Wukong, the wild-enchanted monkey of China’s religious theater tradition, worshipped and adored by people of all ages. Sun Wukong is an Indian yoga master much like Hanuman and a Buddhist initiate, who achieves enlightenment, and whose name implies opposites—a
dumb-vain personality and a sage emptiness. He is the model of an Iron Body Master, a form of training that makes the body impenetrable and indestructible. Sun Wukong’s staff is the weapon of the fighting Chan Buddhist monks of Shaolin Monastery. Shaolin was an austere religious institution with a large orphanage and
MONKEY STAFF & THEATER
· Scott Park Phillips | 139
CUDGEL OF THE GREAT SAGE APPLICATION, HISTORY, & PERSONAL EVOLUTION OF THE MONKEY KUNG FU STAFF Damon Honeycutt
not seeing you fruitlessly grasp snarled teeth make for dangerous encounters for again and again I meet you in an unfriendly manner
MONKEY KUNG FU STAFF
· Damon Honeycutt | 151
SHAOLIN STAFF IN THE 21ST CENTURY A LOOK AT THE PRAGMATIC USE OF CHI FOR POWER GENERATION USING THE SHAOLIN STAFF
David Giomi
NOBODY KNOWS THE EXACT origins of men using a staff as a weapon. Somewhere long ago, one of our ancestors figured out that if they picked up a long stick instead of a rock to hit with, they could get more leverage and distance to hit from. As soon as a second person picked up a big stick to defend themselves, the art of staff fighting was born. It can be found in all cultures around the globe. Brief History of Shaolin Temple As the story goes, when the Indian monk Bodhidharma (also known as Ta Mo in China) arrived at Shaolin Temple in approximately AD 520-527, he found the monks to be in such poor physical condition that they could not keep up with their spiritual studies and meditation. He then developed exercises to strengthen the monks’ mind, body, and spirit. This is often considered to be the beginning of the mind-body connection that many of the traditional Asian martial arts are famous for.
SHAOLIN STAFF
· David Giomi | 165
DOCUMENTARY ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF THE
JUEGO DE PALO CANARIO Alejandro Rodriguez Buenafuente
Translated by Michael J. Ryan, Ph.D. Generational Transmission: Ángel González Torres (1949), Tomás Deniz Hernández (19001983), Nicolás Morales Martín (1865- 1944), José Morales Martín (1854-1935), Pedro Pestana Gevara (1832-1905)
THE JUEGO DE PALO OR THE juego de garrote is a tradition stretching back centuries. On the Canary Islands, when two people demonstrate their skills of the juego de palo in private, or more often in front of an appreciative public, the intensity of these matches can vary. Matches can range from a performance-oriented exhibition during celebrations to a match with a more severe intent that might occur during a more private duel. In the Canary Islands, beginning around the middle of the 1970s, there have been several ongoing disagreements over the terminology and techniques of the juego de palo canario. These disagreements have, thanks to the internet, even turned into transnational debates. As a result, there is a broad range of opinions about the art ranging from the introduction of “invent-
JUEGO DE PALO CANARIO
· Alejandro Rodriguez Buenafuente | 175
LA CANNE DE COMBAT Nicole Holzmann
DUELING WITH SHARP weapons was an upper-class phenomenon from as early as the modern age until the end of the 18th century and often resulted in severe injuries or fatalities. It was also customary to carry an epée to defend oneself against assaults in cities like Paris. The French Revolution put an end to that, banning all swords and other fencing weapons from the streets of France. And anyone caught dueling was severely dealt with by a judge.
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At that time, criminal gangs had already established kicking techniques that they called "savate" after a designation for “old shoe” and utilized canes as weapons. For the upper class, being stripped of their sharp weapons but used to carrying canes as walking aids or as a fashion statement, the idea of adopting the kicking and cane techniques as a self-defensive alternative was not far-fetched. And so, savate and la canne found their way into France’s gymnasiums
and fencing halls. While the techniques of English boxing had been incorporated into savate and had become known as boxe française around 1830, la canne became part of the standard repertoire of weapons taught by fencing teachers. They further developed la canne techniques based on sabre fencing. Different styles and directions shaped by different masters emerged, and soldiers in the French army learned savate and la
canne. These defensive weapons were unified in 1843 by Louis Leboucher in his work, Théorie pour apprendre tirer la canne en vingtcinq leçons (“The theory behind learning how to fight with la canne in twenty-five lessons”). Towards the end of the 19th century, the streets of Paris became safer, and the self-defensive aspect of la canne became less important. In 1899, Joseph Charlemont pub-
THE EUROPEAN QUARTERSTAFF A HISTORICAL REVIEW Steaphen Fick
THE QUARTERSTAFF IS AN iconic weapon used in history and fiction for self-defense and war. Staff weapons are some of the oldest weapons of war and defense, and every culture has staff work and uses a long staff for combat. In the European tradition, we do the same, and it is used as a training tool for other weapons as well. The staff was most commonly cut from ash, oak, or some other hard
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wood. Higher quality staves were also often tipped with metal on either end to add to the force of the strike. We have all seen the picture or video of Robin Hood fighting Little John with a quarterstaff on a bridge over a creek, but how did they use the staff weapons? In the European tradition, the staff weapon is taught as a staple in the mar-
THE USE OF POLEARMS:
JOACHIM MEYER, THE 16TH-CENTURY FENCING MASTER Roger Norling
JOACHIM MEYER WAS BORN in 1537 in Basel of today’s Switzerland. His father, Jakob, was likely a papermaker and a cutler and may have moved to nearby Straßburg sometime before 1560. Joachim Meyer was noted as a burger and cutler in Straßburg in 1560 when he married a widow named Appolonia Ruhlman. In his short, 34-year life, he became a renowned fencing master, teaching burgers, dukes, and princes and authoring five or six extensive fencing treatises, three
Portrait of Joachim Meyer, from Gründtliche Beschreibung der . . . Kunst des Fechtens (1570), public domain. [Courtesy of Wiktenauer by HEMA Alliance]
MEYER & POLEARMS
· Roger Norling | 241
GREEK STAFF/ STICK FIGHTING George E. Georgas
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STAFF/STICK FIGHTING HAS deep roots in Greece; it found a use for military training and for civilians to defend themselves. The staff was easy to make as a weapon, so even a person of the lower classes could own and use it easily. For example, since ancient times, the staff served as a weapon for shepherds to protect their flocks against predators and thieves.
GREEK STAFF
· George E. Georgas | 271
STICK FIGHTING IN NORTH AFRICA THE FUNDAMENTALS OF COMBAT
Adam H. C. Myrie
IT WOULD BE AN UNDERstatement to say that there are a plethora of martial arts the world over that almost every culture possesses a fighting system. Through dance, dueling, self-defense, or warfare, swords, knives, spears, axes, cudgels, and even bare hands and feet are tools for inflicting or simulating violence. The stick is one tool in the vast array of options available to the aspiring and practiced martial artist that is almost universal across all systems. A simple, usually straight piece of wood in varying dimensions acts as a weapon or a safer analog for other weapon systems. The stick is among the most versatile training tools for weapon-based martial arts, as the limits of what it can represent are bound only by the practitioner’s imagination. The stick is ubiquitous in North Africa, where over 5,000 years’ worth of traditions involve using the stick to train for other weapons of war, settle personal grievances, and carry into battle. Two of the most well-known and ancient forms of stick fighting in North Africa are tahtib and el matreg. As mentioned above, from Egypt and through the Maghreb, these two ancient arts have served in all three ca-
pacities. Among the tombs dating back to the days of the pharaohs are wall paintings representing different forms of Egyptian stick fighting. Tahtib, or Egyptian stick fighting, served as one of the three core disciplines in ancient military training. Here in this article, we will cover the use of Egyptian and Maghrebi stick fighting as training tools for other weapon systems through exploring their history, basic techniques, and current place in the modern world. A Point about Sources Before delving further into the topic at hand, there is an elephant in the room to be addressed: sources. While Africa’s continent’s history and martial traditions are ancient, these communities did not rely on the written word to transmit knowledge to future generations. While North Africa has an admirable record of keeping written accounts through scrolls, manuscripts, and stone tablets, this was not the principal method to transmit this type of knowledge. Oral history is still an essential aspect of culture throughout the continent through direct lineages of training, poetry, historical epics, song, and dance. Written accounts
NORTH AFRICAN STICK
· Adam H. C. Myrie | 297
Ethan Minor
THE BANDO STAFF HISTORY AND APPLICATIONS:
PAST & PRESENT SURVIVAL! SURVIVAL IS THE mother of necessity. The internal drive to survive has been an instinctual imperative for both humans and animals throughout history. Through the gift of instinct, humans have discovered myriad ways to ensure their survival and that of their clan. This quest for survival led humans to utilize the natural resources available to
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them to their advantage. The staff, which is just a very nice stick, has been an essential tool for survival since early Homo descended from the trees to the savannas. The ubiquitous stick can dig up roots, finish off wounded animals, and threaten those seeking to harm them. The stick underwent a re-purposing and discovery of new purposes as early Homo evolved into
Stick Arts VOL 1, ISSUE 3
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