The short, tapped up stick is something we use to simulate large knife combat. With training gloves on you need a longer blade to practice hand cutting with meaning.

When a fighting stick frays it gets taped and becomes a sparring stick.

When the sparring stick breaks, it gets cut down and becomes a knife stick. We use 10-18 inch knife sticks, which means at the high end we are practicing for machete duels.

I mumbled during my description of the second stick, which we call Pins” after the belaying pin used by sailors and age of sail dock workers to fight with. Old Smoke” a famous bareknuckle boxer one a belaying pin fight against two gangsters. When we spar or fight with one of these short batons in each hand we call it stick boxing.

This review falls short of depicting many of the blunt weapons I use, which we will seek to remedy in future videos.

It is important to remember that at least one of your fingers must be able to touch the meat of your hand after wrapping around the stick in order to maximize use. If all of your fingers can wrap than you will have maximum dexterity but the top part of your hand supporting the longer fingers will cram earlier. Using a thinner stick also blisters the palms more quickly. I recommend training with all thicknesses of stick, including “logs” which are too thick to warp but are good for retention.

Any weapon that a reader wishes me to handle on video, send me a description via email and we will get on it.

Fighting Smart: Boxing, Agonistics & Survival