Short sticks

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Many years ago I experimented with Maglights and concluded that the proper compromise of convenience, speed, and heft was the 3 c cell. I just checked the one by the side of my bed--it is just shy of 11 inches. The d cells are a little too heavy for me and they do not fit my hands well.
 
I was issued a 3 cell when I was a bouncer. It had plenty of heft. Someone stole it off my table so I started using the butt half of a pool cue after that.
 
I once tried to break up a dog fight with a 26" length of rattan with absolutly NO results.
That is when I realized that light weight sticks are useless against a determined opponant.
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Which is why I use hardwood instead of rattan.

Of course, I'd place my odds with Dan Inosanto v you with rattan.
 
Weight is a critical component in transfer of energy. What would happen if you tried to drive a nail with a light weight hammer made of aluminum? No matter how fast you could swing it, it would not work very well. Neither will an impact weapon made of light weight material like rattan. Look at implements or corporal punishment as an example. They are designed to cause pain but not serious damage. Things like whips and cat-o-nine tails are very light and very fast. They cause a lot of stinging pain on the surface of the skin but lack the inertia for the energy to penetrate beyond the surface and cause deep muscle trauma or break bones. Pain alone will not stop a determined attacker. It takes blunt force trauma to penetrate beyond the surface and cause structural damage and that requires MASS.

Use the heaviest stick that you can handle.

Edited in:
Please understand that the above applies to CIRCULAR strikes only. The weight of a stick used for straight thrusts is inconsequential if you properly put the weight of your body behind it. A pound of stick more or less will not make any real difference with your 200 pound body attached.
 
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To some degree, it depends what you target. A lot of strikes in FMA are to hands and such along with the "de-fanging the snake" ideology. The light, fast strike to these areas will break bones...
On the other hand, in my rather long police career, I've seen any number of subjects struck with various sorts of "heavy" impact weapons to little effect. Blows to the top of the head (typical for under-trained individuals) often glance off to one side or the other and produce vicious-looking but non-disabling cuts and lots of blood.
Drunken (or other chemically-impaired) individuals do not respond often to mere pain. Blows to the knee or pressure points or whatever that would make a sober person curl up and cry will go unnoticed.
In these cases, you need a lot of horsepower, properly delivered. Something along the lines of an elbow smash to the side of the head.
Or a Taser.....
 
Proper blows to the knee do enough damage to make even doped or drunks fall to the floor. When you blow out the MCL or ACL the knee gives way under the load.

Go watch CC with the Yankees on ESPN he folded up like a dish rag.
 
Thanks to everyone for all the information. Been thinking about looking into sticks, but honestly didn't have any ideas of where to even start. Thsi has helped @ ton, with too much information to digest now, but a great starting point.
 
Proper blows to the knee do enough damage to make even doped or drunks fall to the floor.
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Example: kicks to the knee in MMA aka 'low kick'. Brings down big guys.

Watch the low kick at 3:09 and 3:37.

And that's with a foot, not a hard, fast moving stick.
 
Mindset has a lot to do with everything we discuss here. YOU have to be willing to do damage up to deadly force to protect yourself or others.

My Street survival course instuctor took people to the floor with a AA mini-mag light.

Personally I have used from a cross pen to a section of dowel rod to get out of jams and walk away. A hard wood stick 14-20 inchs will do just about anything YOU'RE willing to do with it to another human being. As I have told my daughter you have to have a mean switch that you can flip on in a instant with no pity for your opponent.
 
Finally orders some kali sticks. Started two months ago, Kali, tues/thru and kick boxing, mon/weds. All depends on my schedule. I've taken the last weeks off due to hurt back, just as the instructor told us that we were going to do more hands on knife fighting. Wish I would have done this 10 years ago, when I was younger and stronger.
 
Hardness alone is not the best measure of a fighting stick.

With a few exceptions, very hard wood tends to be brittle and crack when subjected to impact. The best woods for impact use have a degree of flexability that allows them to give a little bit. Almost nothing is as hard as cocobola. It is so dense that it will sink in water yet if you clack two cocobola sticks together very hard one will break. Osage orange though is like trying to break a pice of spring steel.

I have never had any experience with janka. Maybe it is an exception. If it will withstand several full power blows to the trunk of an oak tree it will do just fine against any human target. Let us know how it turns out.
 
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Janka is the scale; jatoba is the wood.

In my query to the vendor, who is an experienced wood person, I asked explicitly,
which of your woods will do best when hitting something like a baseball bat?

Jatoba was the unequivocal response.

It's not expensive, so we'll find out how it does.
 
Here's some specs on jatoba from here.
They may help those more knowledgeable about wood (than me)
predict the suitability of this wood for this purpose.

Janka hardness: 2350
Specific gravity: .91
Bending Strength: 21020psi
Shearing strength: 2470psi
Weight: 56 lbs/ft(3)
Crushing Strength: 1880psi
Static Bending: 11900psi
Tangential Shrinkage: 8.5%
Radial Shrinkage: 4.5%
Volumetric Shrinkage: 12.7%
 
Exotic hard wood can be VERY expensive, but since all we need is a single dowell of 2 or 3 feet long cost is not really a factor. My ideal stick would be 28" long, no wider than 1" in diamiter and still weigh a full pound. So far Cocobola is the only thing that I have found with that much mass but they will break during blocking drills. Osage orange is wonderfull but needs to be close to 1 1/2" in diamiter to get the weight up to a pound. That may be fine for most of you but I have short fingers and need a slim stick to get a proper grip snap on my strikes. Also, the smaller the diamiter sticks concentrate the energy of the blow on a smaller area and make them much more effective, all else being equal.
 
Try hornbeam if you have any growing in your area. It's tough as all heck and has a close twisted grain that is very break resistant. A 7/8th to 1 inch hornbeam will shatter a coconut with no trouble. It takes several months to cure down a cool basement, but it's well worth the weight.

Carl.
 
I think micarta is highly dependent on the original material used. You can make homemade micarta out of blue jeans, canvas, paper, or just about anything else. The paper micarta polishes up the nicest, but I believe denim and canvas micarta are the strongest. Mechanically, I think G10 is stronger, but it may not be by enough to notice.
 
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