Carl Levitian
member
There's many ways to use the cane, but I wonder if one should consider the most common means of an attack by a would be criminal?
Most people I know assume that a cane/walking stick will be used as a club due to the long length of it. After many years of practice, I like to always use the stick in a two handed riot stick way of blending very close range blocking and thrusts. Most street criminals like to close up to a very close range by surprise, and use a knife for a threat. In this area, (Washington D.C. and Baltimore metropolis) the cheap knife is a favorite weapon with the street punks. Cheap and easy to get, and just as easy to ditch down a sewer, the knife has the quiet threat of making some victim "give it up" as they like to put it. Cheap kitchen knives seem to be the most common knife, aside from box cutters. Guns seem to be held by the more serious criminal out to rob a convenience store or commit a drive by on a rival gang member.
It would seem like the most likely first use of a stick is to block an incoming threat to your health. Like a knife or bottle or club of some type. Combining a block and instant return strike is very easy to do using the army pugil stick way of bayonet fighting. This gives you two end on powerful stikes that are very hard to deflect or block, as well as blocking the first strike of your attacker. I admit I very well could be a bit prejudiced in my stick use, from both army and police experience, but both times in my life where I got formal training in use of a stick, it was always two handed. Never, in all my instruction, both in the army and in the Colorado Law Enforement Acadamy, did any instructor show any one handed use of the stick. In the 1970's when I was a police officer, the Koga stick was in vogue, and it was a smooth equal ended stick that was used for block and thrust moves. In real life in crowed bars, it worked great. Requires no room for a swing, can be used in very close quarters, is very hard to block an oncoming ram. It should work equally as well in a narrow hallway or elevator. The front end of the stick can be used like the bayonet end, and the root knob handle of your walking stick is the butt stroke end. If you're lucky, the low life will try to grab the stick and pull it away from you. Let him have it. When he pulls, you go in with it and give him an "up from down under" butt stroke in either the throat or face. This is always a shock to them, and often is a fight stopper, depending on what you damage. A stick has two ends, use them. They both will work in injuring your attacker to where you can disengage and get out of Dodge.
I make all my sticks the exact same length. With the head of the stick resting on the floor, I have my better half mark it where it is even with the inside crease of my wrist. Do this with the shoes on that you wear the most. Since I wear New Balance cross trainers in the winter and Keen sandals in the summer, this works out even. The right length of the stick is important. This way there is no adjusting from stick to stick because of minor difference in size.
Probable the poorest use of a stick is to regulate it to a club.
Most people I know assume that a cane/walking stick will be used as a club due to the long length of it. After many years of practice, I like to always use the stick in a two handed riot stick way of blending very close range blocking and thrusts. Most street criminals like to close up to a very close range by surprise, and use a knife for a threat. In this area, (Washington D.C. and Baltimore metropolis) the cheap knife is a favorite weapon with the street punks. Cheap and easy to get, and just as easy to ditch down a sewer, the knife has the quiet threat of making some victim "give it up" as they like to put it. Cheap kitchen knives seem to be the most common knife, aside from box cutters. Guns seem to be held by the more serious criminal out to rob a convenience store or commit a drive by on a rival gang member.
It would seem like the most likely first use of a stick is to block an incoming threat to your health. Like a knife or bottle or club of some type. Combining a block and instant return strike is very easy to do using the army pugil stick way of bayonet fighting. This gives you two end on powerful stikes that are very hard to deflect or block, as well as blocking the first strike of your attacker. I admit I very well could be a bit prejudiced in my stick use, from both army and police experience, but both times in my life where I got formal training in use of a stick, it was always two handed. Never, in all my instruction, both in the army and in the Colorado Law Enforement Acadamy, did any instructor show any one handed use of the stick. In the 1970's when I was a police officer, the Koga stick was in vogue, and it was a smooth equal ended stick that was used for block and thrust moves. In real life in crowed bars, it worked great. Requires no room for a swing, can be used in very close quarters, is very hard to block an oncoming ram. It should work equally as well in a narrow hallway or elevator. The front end of the stick can be used like the bayonet end, and the root knob handle of your walking stick is the butt stroke end. If you're lucky, the low life will try to grab the stick and pull it away from you. Let him have it. When he pulls, you go in with it and give him an "up from down under" butt stroke in either the throat or face. This is always a shock to them, and often is a fight stopper, depending on what you damage. A stick has two ends, use them. They both will work in injuring your attacker to where you can disengage and get out of Dodge.
I make all my sticks the exact same length. With the head of the stick resting on the floor, I have my better half mark it where it is even with the inside crease of my wrist. Do this with the shoes on that you wear the most. Since I wear New Balance cross trainers in the winter and Keen sandals in the summer, this works out even. The right length of the stick is important. This way there is no adjusting from stick to stick because of minor difference in size.
Probable the poorest use of a stick is to regulate it to a club.
