What’s Your Stick?

In eskrima, there are many kinds of sticks used.  There are some practitioners who use the hardy bamboo species that we in the Visayas call gu-od.  There are some who use the dark heartwood or bahi of various palm trees, such as the buli, patikan, sagisi, or even coconut tree, which can be fashioned into certain shapes, such as a blade-like espada or a round and slender daga.  There are some who make their fighting sticks from the near-hardwood trunk of the biabas or guava tree.  And many more practitioners may have as many more kinds of sticks. 

For some, the choice is made not because of preference for the kind of wood, but merely because of the availability of the material.

And then there is the matter of reach or length of the stick.  Some styles, like those which favor close range fighting, prefer shorter sticks because a shorter stick is easier to maneuver, less likely to break, much more versatile, and much more useful in tight spaces than a longer stick.  A longer stick, however, has greater reach and has greater weight behind every strike, which means that one can hit harder with it than with a shorter stick and one who is skilled in using a long stick can hit without being hit. 

This matter, however, would be better discussed in an essay on the qualities of weapons where one may compare using a knife as against a staff as against a sword and so on and so forth.  For this reason, I will leave this out of the discussion here.

There are some for whom the choice is a matter of what quality a practitioner values more or what one’s fighting style requires, such as power, or speed.  Although, perhaps, not to the exclusion of other qualities or requirements.

Between sticks, though, that which is harder will last.  And that which is lighter will be fast.  If you bang two sticks together hard enough that which is weaker will break or give way.  And that stick which is lighter will be quicker.  But if you know your stick, then you know what you should do and not do with it. 

I have a good stick made from the wood of the guava tree, of good weight and durable too, but I would not risk it in force-to-force blows against a stick of kamagong.  Rather, I would parry or evade with it.  As with using swords, you would try not to meet blade with blade.  And if the blade must be used, as much as possible it must cut flesh, not clash against steel.

With some people I’ve interviewed, all of them senior citizens who’ve observed some eskrimadors from their town, but not all of whom are practitioners, the impression I have had is that one usually begins learning eskrima using light sticks.  Some even begin with the stalks of banana leaves or the woody midrib of the lukay or the frond of the coconut tree.  Most, however, use a rattan stick or, in Visayan, uway.  Although there is another species of rattan too, called olisi, which is comparable in weight and hardness to a hardwood and has the nodes very close together. 

For this essay, though, uway will refer to the light rattan training stick which is commercially available.

As an eskrima practitioner, you can choose to have a hardwood stick.  And you have several to choose from.  There is the Philippine mahogany called bayong or balayong or the molave, called tugas in Visayan, and a score of other native hardwoods.  And then there’s the magkuno and the kamagong, both of which are called ironwood.  Although the latter is better known.

Of the many kinds of sticks used in eskrima, the uway and the kamagong may be said to be the most popular and, thereby, representative of two extremes of the art.

Speed is exemplified by the uway training stick, which one can wield with lightning dexterity, almost as invisible as a plane’s propeller in the hands of a master.  Power, on the other hand, is represented by the kamagong fighting stick, which bludgeons and breaks the enemy with heavy, fatal blows.

For me, a choice can’t be made between the two values of speed or power.  You cannot abandon either.  I will have to say that in a fight where lives matter, speed alone accomplishes nothing and power alone accomplishes nothing.

The word “become” is sometimes used in a context to mean that one thing is appropriate to or suits another thing, as when one says that grace becomes beauty.  In this same sense of the word, we can say that in eskrima true power becomes speed.

Let me use Manny Pacquiao as an analogy.  If Manny Pacquiao were all speed and no power, he would not be able to bring down his opponents.  He could hit them and tag them, but he would only sting and bruise them.  And if Manny Pacquiao were all power and no speed, he would not be able to hit his opponents for all his vaunted strength. 

It is when one has both speed and power that one is truly formidable.  Because power should explode with speed.

Since the uway does not have the potential for power that the kamagong has, an advanced practitioner of eskrima must train for speed in handling the kamagong, for while the uway may astonish the enemy with speed, it would just sting him, unless the eskrimador is very strong or uses the uway stick in executing grappling techniques, where the stick becomes far more important because of the leverage it provides and not the heaviness of its blows. 

Learning to use the kamagong fighting stick is like a new stage for the eskrimador.  I would say that it is much like a college graduate proceeding to undertake post-graduate studies.  Certainly, not one for the uninitiated.  Everything seems new again and the student must relearn the basics with a new tool, one which is harder to control because of its weight.  One that has far graver circumstances than a stick of uway, but which he must strive to wield with the same fluidity and precision as the old one.

If a stick is too heavy, you can’t be quick with it.  Which means an eskrimador must be stronger if he uses a kamagong stick. 

For one who has mastered the kamagong, the uway may then seem to be just as slight and flimsy as a twig.  And for them, it may be said that the kamagong is the best kind of stick, because, with it, every blow would be decisive.  In certain cases, I believe it is the best.  But one must never forget that the stick is merely a tool.

 For then, just imagine how, with one skilled in the use of the kamagong, what blinding speed he would have if he wielded an uway.  His stick and his hand would be fast beyond belief.  It would be like fighting with lightning.

But, in truth, this inclination to compare the qualities of sticks, is needless.  In photography, they say that the best kind of camera is the one that’s with you.  In the end, the same can be said in eskrima:  the best kind of fighting stick is the one you have with you.