Staff it!

Been a while since I posted something instructional, as in hands-on instruction. So, let's change that state of affairs! Here is a lesson on the use of two handed stick/staff in line with the Bakbakan Kali curriculum of FMA - Dos Manos, or also used to teach the bladed weapon version, i.e. kampilan.. 

The forms in Bakbakan are used as lesson plan, and this video is a fairly good depiction of that approach. It was recorded for the purpose of teaching the material to members of the European Hub, but here it is made available for the readers of the blog! Remember, take each "bite" of the form and work on it as a separate combo/technique, in order to get as much mileage as possible from it.

I hope you get something from it...but at least - have fun!

Spear sphere

 A while ago, in a Facebook group about MA books and magazines, I posted about a few of my favorite sword/fencing books and referred to the sword as "the king of bladed weapons", just to be quickly reminded that such title traditionally belong to spear. There was a short and friendly debate about my emphasizing bladed and whether that changes anything...but that's not the point. 

After giving it a bit of thought, it became obvious (well, to me) that there are a couple of reasons why both may be true. First, we are really talking about two different periods. Namely, the spear got its reputation of royalty through antiquity and medieval times, while my perception of the sword as the high aristocracy was related to the later periods - from renaissance to the late 18th/early 19th century, which is when the management of swords developed into a revered art and science. Second, the surrounding in which the spear shone was the battlefield, i.e. war theater with armies clashing in massive numbers of combatants. Sword, on the other hand, took over the primacy as a dueling weapon in urban areas, with either one-on-one scenario or smaller number of participants. 

Not to mention the geographical, social and cultural influences that could be taken into account...so let's keep it simplified!

That said, while it is easy to think of swords as an EDC (every day carry) weapon of choice in its time, I have hard time imagining anyone carrying a spear around other than a very specific purpose, either for hunting or military assignment. Speaking of the military context, it bears saying that if a soldier/warrior had both of those on them, the spear probably did have a primary role, while the sword was sort of a side arm. Something like rifle and pistol as a modern day equivalence. 

With that in mind, it occurred to me that the battlefield  of the days of yore most probably offered ample opportunity for asymmetrical engagement where different weapons were pitted against each other, thus possibly giving us the answer about the question of one weapon's superiority? Lo and behold, other have already dealt with it! 

And this is but one example...you can find quite a few others out there. Mind you, it is sort of a rabbit hole, so be warned! One thing that becomes conspicuous rather soon is that there are VERY few attempts at grabbing the shaft of the spear and then closing the distance. Besides the fact that there are many different types of spears (and other polearms) out there, once you try it out, it becomes obvious that such a tactic is actually harder to pull off that it may seem, especially if there is a lot of maneuvering space for the person wielding the the spear. 

So, where do you start with learning a few basics, in case you are interested at all? Again, there are many options available, depending on the preferred approach in terms of historical period, geographical area of origin etc. Still, probably two prevailing avenues are HEMA sources and those of Asian background. 

With regards to the former, even a cursory search will yield a huge number of results. Those will either be written - articles and translations/interpretations of period manuals - or videos that cover similar material. Here is a nice one for fundamental basics:

In the latter case, it may be difficult to get down to the practical stuff (provided that is what you are looking for), as so many Chinese and Japanese systems of use may rely on forms as the means of teaching, and those are often hard to decode if you do not have some background in that approach. So, let's turn to a more simplistic and modern version:

Of course, since I brought up the matter of practicality, one might wonder what is the point of learning to use spear at all nowadays? Well, for one thing, in the domain of personal protection, the mechanical and technical principles of the weapon itself could be implemented with some sort of improvised tools (broom handles, spades...). However, even more important is the development of other, higher level, attributes such as distance management and footwork, space awareness, tactical adaptability etc. In the military domain...well, as much as the bayonet plays a role (if at all), the methods of its use will be well grounded in the use of spear. As a side note, but related to that, in the Soviet Russia bayonet fencing was part of the national fencing competition circuit alongside foil, epee and saber for quite some time, probably into the 1970's, if not longer. 

Maybe we could use what is left of nice weather to do some outdoors training and reap some of those abovementioned benefits... 

Sword sorcery

They say good things come in threes. Also, it seems that all the great bands tend to have a triumvirate of great albums among others...less stellar. A similar thing may be said about book authors. It is a rare occurrence, though, when someone hits three brilliant pieces out of three! Well, today we have a shining example of that rare breed - Maija Soderholm. 

Maija is a phenomenal exponent of blade arts, mainly of the Filipino provenance, and an excellent instructor, too. While it might be customary to introduce a person in this field by means of her teachers etc, she stands so firmly on her own expertise that even the fact that she comes from the lineage of legendary Sonny Umpad doesn't diminish her own contribution to the development and advancement of the arts. Fortunately, she happens to be as mighty with a proverbial pen as she is with a sword, thus writing a string of books hinted at in the introduction. 

The thing that really made me love those is the common theme of all her products, i.e. higher-level, strategic dimension of dueling with sharp (and pointy) steel. In other words, Soderholm tackles the tricky topic of thinking process behind the seemingly "magical" performance by all the greatest exponents of this art/science. So, let me offer a brief review of her books, in the chronological order of their publication. 

In the debut volume the author sets the standard for the whole "series" in several regards. First of all, I love the visual theme/design of the cover, which has been kept for the later volumes as well. Next, the title - The Liar, The Cheat and The Thief - is nothing short of brilliant! It very aptly represents the overall "mood" of the material contained within the book. Namely, Maija does not deal with philosophy and ethics of martial arts as they are typically presented nowadays, in terms of self perfection as part of a wider social environment. Instead, her focus is on the self preservation in the situations where life and limb are at stake. Even so, however, there are higher dimensions in this kind of endeavor, beyond the mechanics of technical performance, as important as they are. 

To start with, the author describes a set of hypothetical circumstances that very well paint the kind of mindset required for thriving in the sort of situation that the material is aimed at. again - dueling with bladed implements. She then proceeds to explain why deception is the key word/idea in the foundation of advanced combative practice, in her view. The main section of the book, in Part 2, is dedicated to a number of drills designed to develop in the practitioner a constellation of skills that would help them in being successfully deceptive. The drills are divided into several categories, such as timing, footwork, faking, mirroring etc, depending on their primary developmental goal. This part is also where the only possible shortcoming of these books is found...all exercises and activities are described verbally, with no pictorial illustrations whatsoever. Now, this is not necessarily such a bad thing, as it means the inbuilt guidance to personalization and creativity in practice. Still, if you are adamant about seeing the "original" way of doing them, there is a set of corresponding videos available through Soderholm's website. The third and final section of the book offers several clarifications regarding the author's path leading to the lessons presented and several other tidbits that help put things together.

Her second title is The Hustler. While the previous one was mostly a hands-on instructional, this volume is more...theoretical in nature. More specifically, it will require that you put your thinking hat on and approach the material from the personal interpretation of the presented information. See, it still deals with deception, but goes a step further in treating the subject as a course in managing attention. Both the opponent's and your own. That said, it could be said that Soderholm is seeking to bring to the forefront certain facets of human nature that are relevant to the task at hand, which should help us understand the bigger picture of the activity (Remember? Yes, sword dueling!). And why is it important? Well, because it is easier to put the pieces of the puzzle in the right place if you have the picture before you, and it means the reciprocal endeavor of trying to figure out how to overcome the opponent, while simultaneously preventing them from overcoming you. Possibly most illuminating is the description and analysis of the Arc of Action, as she calls it, with its phases of before, during and after, because so many people seem not have the grasp of that continuum. The thing is, understanding that part will help immensely with the applicability of the rest of material, including time and targets, methods of control, and the art of reading the opponent. Obviously, the kind of knowledge that could be gained from understanding and working with this material is precious when you need to analyze other people's styles and overall strategies that run their approach to fighting. Whether that is for the purpose of countering or emulating them...I leave that up to you.

Finally, the last book (only for now, hopefully) is The Spy and the Rodeo Clown. This one also has the intriguing subtitle Swordplay and the Third Game, which is another way of pointing to the progression that these volumes present in terms of personal "game" development: the first book teaches us how to be unreadable for the opponent; the second is about reading their intention; while the this particular strives to reach the ability of "writing the opponent". In other words, guiding their actions to where you want them to be. In more other word, if in the first book you set the traps and waited (hoped) for the prey to fall into them, this time you are actively luring them to walk into that trap. It is possibly a more proactive approach, but in a rather subtle manner, since the trick is in making the opposition believe they are doing it of their own volition, i.e. in their best interest. Do you now get the references to magic and sorcery? 

Maija has an interesting mode of presenting this material - she first gives you a set of tasks/assignments to do, and only after teaches how to solve the riddles and/or problems that might emerge along in the process. In my experience it is an excellent approach, because it starts with acquainting oneself with the context, so that everything learned afterwards makes much more sense and is easier to retain and further develop. Very few people in the contact weapons world offer that sort of instruction, and I have yet to see more of them getting so deep into it while staying practical. 

The author is known for her championing the training method of random flow as the best way to instill this range of skills, but in order to make things easier to grasp, she first points to an important distinction between the interview and conversation, to better understand the scope of application and appreciate the spheres of influence in the contact range and edge of range (both while entering and exiting the contact range) etc. There is a lot of ground covered here, and it is not something that can be quickly absorbed into one's personal combative expression. It will take time and effort for sure, but in the long term it is not something that should be neglected or dismissed. On the contrary - at the advanced age you need advanced skill to compensate for deteriorating physical attributes, especially in working with weapons, where the margin of error is much narrower.

Before the end, I'd like to suggest a reading order different to chronology of publishing. Even though you can certainly go through the progression as already described, but from the standpoint of understanding the context first you may want to start with the Hustler, then carry on with LCT, and finally work on the Spy and the Rodeo Clown. Whatever the preferred order, you won't regret diving into the material. 

In conclusion, for everyone who takes a serious approach to martial arts, training hard and smart, these books  not only belong to their library, but ought to be read and referenced often and lot.

Stick Scholars

 

Every once in a while a person or a piece of work appears in the ever growing universe of martial arts, and leaves a mark that can change the shape of our understanding of that universe. Some do it by shaking things up, almost causing seismic effects on the previously accepted views, like Jigoro Kano, Bruce Lee or the Gracies. Some give new appearance to older traditions and propel them to unforeseen levels of popularity, like Choi Hong Hee, Morihei Ueshiba and Karl Gotch. Some leave behind written works that keep providing inspiration and food for thought for future generations, like Sun Tzu, Miyamoto Musashi and, again, Bruce Lee.

It is the last category that I’d like to discuss today. In the Western world, the topic of martial arts has for a long time been treated in a book format primarily as either an esoteric phenomenon to feed the imagination, or as a rather banal sort of pictorial book. The endeavors that would successfully join a scholarly approach in study and popular accessibility in presentation have been few and far between. Interestingly enough, in Europe that path originated with fencing treatises, especially those in the second half of the 19^th century, penned by the likes of Alfred Hutton or Egerton Castle. However, the man who took it to a higher level was the legendary sir Richard Francis Burton with The Book of the Sword, and he gave this field of study a name – hoplology. 

Burton and Draeger

 However, it took several decades for this approach to gain some traction in the 20^th century, under the guidance of Donn F. Draeger and his associates (Armstrong, Beltzer, Smith etc.), with special emphasis on the martial arts of the Far East, resulting with several excellent books on the arts of Japan, China and Indonesia. Unfortunately, with Draeger’s passing in the the early 1980’s, hoplological research slowed down drastically.

A few years ago I was thrilled to see the emergence of a new “player” in the field, namely the organization called The Immersion Foundation (TIF for short), which injected the much needed energy into this field of study, with its driving force Mahipal Lunia at the helm. To be brief, they undertook a two-pronged strategy in continuing the development of hoplology: on the one hand they continued the model of expeditions, in order to learn the arts in their “natural habitat” (such as the Caribbean, Philippines, Portugal, South America etc.); on the other hand they organize the annual Immersion Labs, i.e. seminars with several instructors giving presentations and providing deeper insights into a chosen topic for that year.

 

During all of those events, the material is carefully recorded and processed for archiving, analysis and publishing. Owing to such work, a couple of month ago we got the brilliant opportunity to enjoy the benefits in the form of The Book of the Stick! What we have here is a four-volume anthology of articles, interviews and scholarly papers on various facets of stick fighting arts and methods from all over the globe. With more than 2000 pages worth of material, this is an unprecedented presentation, both in terms of breadth and depth. Besides the soft cover edition with b/w photos (see the previous link), it is also available as a hard cover, full color version or even an eBook.

Now, each volume is available separately as well, but it may be really hard to take your pick. Namely, the material isn’t organized and presented along the lines of geographical or cultural criteria, but rather in the alphabetical order of featured authors’ names. While this may seem strange at first, I really came to appreciate this decision by the editorial team. See, it would be too tempting to immediately go for the “usual suspects” of Chinese, Japanese or Filipino arts, in line with personal experiences and preferences. And yes, it might appear to be a rational way to invest your money, right?

 

 

Well, I firmly believe that disadvantages would outweigh the benefits here. I mean, you would easily miss on some true gems that are to be found in each of the four volumes this way. Let’s have just a quick glance at some of the great featured to be enjoyed:

Vol.1 – the introduction to hoplology and TIF, which gives us a better understanding of the whole field and the scope of work; Kalinda, the stick art of Trinidad; Bonafont cane system of urban Argentina from 1930’s; African stick practices in the House and Zulu cultures; the Irish methods of Bataireacht.

Vol.2 – the Colombian art of Grima; war club in Native American war arts; actual application of stick skills in the modern day environment; the so-called hermit training avenues; combat measure methodology of Antonio Tatang Ilustrisimo.

Vol.3 – framework of the Hawaiian art of Lua; the Cuentada training methods of FMA; the rarely seen stick aspect of Burmese Bando; the amazing presentation of how HEMA material can be approached in a modern way for general applications; stick arts of North Africa.

Vol.4 – the Italian tradition of stick fighting; the Lathi of India and Punjabi stick arts; dueling and multiple opponent engagements in the Portuguese Jogo do Pau; Indonesian Ulin Limbuhan.

Don’t get me wrong – this is just a small sample of what can be found in this invaluable resource. Of course there is an abundance of material on the Japanese and Chinese methods, as well as those less expected, such as Greek/Byzantine legacy of pole arms, Maori arts, when it comes to geographic origin, and various approaches on the traditional-modern continuum. Above are simply some of the “chapters” that I found most interesting, for one reason or another. Obviously, the amount of work that went into preparing this seminal publication was astounding, so I would like to say the entire editorial team and organization deserve thumbs up and hat off for their effort.

In the end, no amount of reviews or talk about The Book of the Stick will ever convey just how excellent and important this series is. You will have to get the books and see for yourself.