I think I have saved myself from going down the rabbit hole because of my interest in Kali/Eschima which is a seemingly novel development outside these inscrutable traditions.
That doesn't mean that I've gone feral. Rather, my perspective has shifted as I comprehend my own preferences, limitations and passions.
This is how I currently exist in a stick world:
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| The Stick World According to Dave |
What I'm trying to do is combine kali stick work with the jo staff. I reject the big bo -- as tall as its user -- for the more practical lifestyle-relevant shorter lengths.
Kali maybe be savage (especially when you consider the knives and machetes) but it is a great martial art with superb self-defence credentials. While I'll stick to sticks I have signed on with Light Haven in India and I am now a proud Patreon sponsor -- their first.
But my first love is the jo, mainly because that's my walking stick. There are various approaches to the jo -- from traditional jojutsu to, what interests me more, the hanbo -- coming out of the Okinawan tradition.
The hanbo is taller than the kali stick and functions as a hip high walking stick. Sometimes it is also called a 'jo' -- although its diameter is usually thicker.
Can you see where I'm coming from? The Kali stick is as long as your arm. The hanbo is hip high...and the jo is as tall as your armpit.
The sort of jo katas, or whatever, I appreciate the most, are the ones whose moves and strikes are closer to the hanbo, and, to a lesser extent, the kali stick.
If you are wielding the head high bo staff, you are engaging with a very different dynamic...and you are sentenced to medieval warfare mode.
Size does matter.
It was watching the Okinawan style with sticks that brought me up short and drew me back to a sort of everyday stick reality. If Okinawa is the home of karate it is also the home of a karate that is rooted in self-defence unarmed or weaponized rather than the later developments after it was imported into Japan and Nipponised.
Okinawan karate and stick work also, I think, indicates a strong Filipino eschima influence.
What does that all mean for one such as I?
- I can cross train. Anything I learn on the jo or hanbo or kali stick applies to all weapons.
- That means that the drills change and I purge myself of Aikido and the traditional Jojutsu.
- Ironically, the hanbo is a weapon in Ninjutsu -- especially in the Bujinkan school. So it is being taught and practised...and filmed as on YouTube. A big plus.
- There is room for free form kali and hanbo...So there should be space for freestyle jo.
- The Jo vs the hanbo vs the kali stick is really about how close-in you want to work and what you do when you are in that position. I'm not interested in ever requiring any self-defence -- but it's nice to know what's to do if I did.
That doesn't mean I'll dedicate myself to wacking as is so often the case in kali. Takayu Kanayama has been a revelation.
