ble knife; (5) single knife and empty hands; (6) empty hands; (7) short stick;
(8) flexible weapons; (9) throwing weapons; (10) projectile weapons like
archery and blowgun; (11) distance weapons like spear and staff; and (12)
double-handed long stick or healing arts.
The single stick (solo baston, garote, olisi) category includes the ax
and sword—when used singly. A single cane refers to a wooden weapon
about 1 inch in diameter and ranging from 22 to 44 inches in length. Sticks
are used to practice and are often made of rattan for safety. Rattan is a nod-
uled porous climbing palm tree with a tough skin. Some FMA techniques
are executed with either sticks or swords, but most techniques are oriented
to sticks, rather than blades. Practitioners seldom play with either blunted
or sharpened edged weapons, with the exception of aluminum sword
blanks and steel training knives.
A misconception on the part of some practitioners is that rattan is a
suitable wood for self-defense applications. However, rattan sticks are
merely used for safe practice; they lack the density needed for combat. Oral
tradition holds that Datu Lapu-Lapu killed Captain Magellan with a rat-
tan stick in single combat! This is absurd. Hardwood weapons made of
bahi(palm) or kamagong (ebony) are favored in fighting.
The varawas a Spanish unit of measurement about 31 to 33 inches in
length. The vara was also a wooden implement used for wrapping bolts of
cloth and so would be convenient to wield, say, in a marketplace. Thus, the
vara is plausibly the fighting stick length used by escrimadores during the
Spanish period. The vara is the length of weapon used by the Original Doce
Pares system.
The stick is held in either the long-range (largo) or close-range (corto)
grip. In the long-range grip, the hand is pursed with the hand held as if
wielding a screwdriver, while in the close-range grip the hand is clenched
with the hand held as if wielding a hammer. These two grips provide reach
and strength, respectively. A variation on the close-range grip is the reverse
grip (an “ice-pick” grip), which is used for infighting. This grip, however,
is more likely to be used in knife fighting, being impractical for swords.
Stick length varies according to personal style and with practitioner
morphology. An example illustrates both category one and category twelve
(single long stick) of the Inosanto weapons typology. The late Angel Ca-
bales, of Serrada(closed; Spanish, cerrada) Eskrima,who was 4 feet 11
inches tall and weighed 100 pounds, used a 22-inch stick to close with his
opponents. In contrast, Romeo C. Mamar Sr. of Tapado,who is about 5
feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 160 pounds, likes a 44-inch stick to strike his
opponents from a long distance. A stylistic difference is that while the Ser-
rada practitioner uses one hand to strike, the Tapado practitioner uses two
hands to wield the primary weapon.
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