Which stick are you using?

Discussion in 'Filipino Martial Arts' started by Jayevan79, Mar 16, 2005.

  1. Jayevan79

    Jayevan79 New Member

    I believe there is an assortment of arnis sticks available in different dimensions.

    The more common ones I saw being used in tournaments is of the palasan variety. These is the same specie used in the manufacture of rattan furniture, less dense, easily bent and is light. I saw more than once eskrimadors breaking them during bouts.

    The more preferred specie is the tumalim, which is dense, stiff, heavier and sometimes with hairline cracks. Some masters swear these cracks do not at all affect the integrity of the stick. Hard blows do not easily 'dent' the stick and often the 'skin' is not scraped off as they make the sticks stronger.

    Hardwood sticks, particularly the kamagong (ironwood) are very dense, very heavy, very strong, and very painful :) Other hardwood varieties include tugas, also known as molave, which almost as dense and as heavy as kamagong, but lighter in color. Bahi, another hardwood actually is made from really old and mature buri tree (same family as the coconut) trunks. It is also quite dense and heavy.

    Like in other sports, athletes more or less have 'favored' equipment. Which one is yours? Do you also 'personalize' your sticks?
     
  2. chenstyle44

    chenstyle44 Valued Member

    faves

    Hi,
    My favorites are the I&I silver tip sticks. Not sure which variety they are.
    I dont have a wholesale account like my training buddy had so my last pair is looking pretty bad right now. Tire marks, tape and one is actually bent. Have you ever smelled burning rubber during tirework, or should I go to a different tire??
    Does that mean Im having a stroke? No thats burnt toast I think.
    Gord :Alien:
     
  3. Peter Bradbury

    Peter Bradbury Valued Member

    I always liked skinned rattan sticks, that lovely burning smell you get when you start really hitting them together. just great.
     
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2005
  4. Pat OMalley

    Pat OMalley Valued Member

    I like the ones with the skins on because they smash yours to bits which means you have to buy more from my lovely wife:D

    Actually I prefer a heavier denser stick, but no so heavy that it cuts down on my speed hitting, but heavy enough for that final blow that finishes off the opponent.

    Palasan, Labsika, what ever, as long as it is dense and a reasonable weight. I tend to use the Kamagong for wirst strengthening and save my bahi for tyre work and those little people who have an ego and something to prove;)

    But I am all for testing new stuff as it comes in (one of the advatages of having a wife who owns an FMA company:) ).

    Best regards

    Pat
     
  5. shootodog

    shootodog restless native

    preferences...hmmm...

    though i do own a pair of kamagong and narra bastons (which i got from my friend's hard wood farm in bicol) i am somewhat faced with a bit of guilt since they're both endangered (even though i got them from my friend's farm, people buy the wild variety and contribute to the extinction of those species).

    i do prefer bahi (both types) but i find that cocolumber bahi is better.

    close node rattan is rare but preferred. i hate pat bec he's all the way in the u.k. and he has them. i live in the philippine and don't even have one! :cry:

    as for actual weapons that i use...hell any old rattan baston or lead pipe will do for me.
     
  6. Crucible

    Crucible Valued Member

    Hmmm, Lately I've been useing PVC pipes covered in padding, which I find slips the from the hand too easily, padded baseball bats with the core removed and replaced with thin rattan, short bahi 18-24in, short kamagong 18-24, and long rattan 30-48in. I have a bunch of yakal sticks floating around but I never use them. I have the standard 28in rattan sticks at home, but with only so much space in my bag I leave them at home to make space for sword trainers. One of my favorite sticks is close node rattan with about 15 nodes, but my grampa wrote "from Ondo Caburnay, to A.J." and crosses all over it. Thanks lolo(grampa) :rolleyes:
     
  7. Crucible

    Crucible Valued Member

    BTW, I completely agree with Krys and Shootodog that kamagong is endangered and we should move onto other materials like bahi. But if you've had the stick already for years like I have, you might as well use and enjoy it.
     
  8. John J

    John J Valued Member

    I like skinned or raw rattan for everyday use! The raw stuff tends to get very sticky during workouts causing you to lose a good chunk of skin. But heck, what's training w/o some quarter size blisters. For solo training I use Bahi while the 2nd choice is close node. The only problem I've found with close nodes is that they tend to be very dry and if you bang them hard, crack they go. I have 5 pairs in different diameters & weights and sadly, 3 are shot. I have yet to see close nodes that aren't dry. I like the look but would rather pass em' up.

    Hey Crucible,

    Your lolo is GM Ondo of Lapunti?..........KOOL!

    John G. Jacobo
    www.swacom.com
     
  9. Crucible

    Crucible Valued Member

    heheh, oops! no my lolo is the A.J. written on the stick, GM Caburney befriended him and gave him the stick. He wrote his name all over it. :D
     
  10. Pat OMalley

    Pat OMalley Valued Member

    Shootodog, it's your lucky day:) whilst trying to sweet talk my dear wife for you, she was actually going through our stick bags as were off teaching at the other end of the country this weekend and she to eagerly pointed out that I have way too many close nodes (I love testing her new gear;) ).

    Well to cut a long story short, I have come across one I forgot I had, nice and heavy (it has a small crack near the top, but rare Rattan can be like that eh) and it has the lucky 12 nodes on it.:eek: I always tend to test the ones I know I am gonna really like.

    I've PMed you earlier regarding this subject as I feel you are not complete without a good close node for those much needed demo bout's:rolleyes: .

    Mail me with you know what, and it will be winging it's way to you some time next week.

    Mabuhay

    Pat
     
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2005
  11. moe389

    moe389 Valued Member

    I like raw rattan for my everyday beating on stuff. I also like my close node sticks and I even have a pair of sledge hammer handles that work realy well especialy when you get them moving. :)
     
  12. Damien Alexander

    Damien Alexander New Member

    hhhmmm...............
    I have a pair of 28' north american oak sticks that I have had for close to a year now and for training,they are great!

    I like to fight with labsikas and I am looking forward to trying out the bahi.
     
  13. shootodog

    shootodog restless native

    will email you.
     
  14. Scarmiglione

    Scarmiglione Valued Member

    I tend to lean toward skinned stix, but its hard to find a good pair here in Canada (so far :bang: ), I use the skinned ones for pair training, but opt for a lighter pair for solo training, ( i have wicked bad tennis elbow.. any thoughts on that {cause/ solution}?) For the tire ive been forced to resort to a pair of iron rods, as i usually tear thru a pair every hour when i use rattan. The kicker is that I'm 6'7" and have crazy long arms and cant find stix that fit me properly, so i have recently been buying rattan bo's and cutting them to size.
     
  15. El Tejon

    El Tejon MAP'scrazyuncle

    Raw rattan, buy them by the bundle.

    Kamagong is what Yoda hits me with over the net. :cry: :love:
     
  16. RedBagani

    RedBagani Valued Member

    I think most arnisadors have already experienced using rattan and hardwood for both training and fighting. Hardwood like Kamagong is dense but tends to break when the sticks are over 26 inches long. The same with bahi, although bahi is less brittle than hardwood owing to its fibrous composition. Unskinned rattan canes are more resilient but often lack stopping power. (I am referring to the ones commonly encountered, with nodes at least 5 inches apart and skin partially polished to give it an aesthetic look.) When I choose a fighting stick, I go more for resiliency "Kunat" in the vernacular, rather than hardness. If hardness was my main concern, I would choose a lead pipe but I want a weapon that has some quality of shock-absorption. Rattan and Hardwood are fine, but for those who want to experiment using other natural/native materials, I suggest...
    Coffee Saplings for long staff used by styles such as Tapado, Sampaloc (Tamarind) or Bayabas (Guava) for arnis. These woods are not as hard as kamagong but they have a springy quality, they are from common (not endangered) trees and r easy to treat. For those of you who question the stopping power of such a stick, I suggest just cut off a short section of a small bore lead pipe, attach to business end of stick, and viola! ... If you are wary about the ability of such a stick to withstand a blow, then maybe you are practising a wrong kind of arnis. Real arnis never really goes force against force
     
  17. shootodog

    shootodog restless native

    great info! we were trying to experiment with some of the less exotic wood sor our bastons.

    coffee?
    sampaloc?
    bayabas?

    are they dense enough?
     
  18. Jayevan79

    Jayevan79 New Member

    I think I saw a VCD of a Filipino Martial Artist ably using a rolled up magazine as a weapon. Density didn't seem like an issue, but skill was... With the right skills, anything you could lay your hands on can be a powerful weapon.
     
  19. RedBagani

    RedBagani Valued Member

    The original question was "What kind of stick do you use?" I say that the type of stick shall depend on many factors such as intended use (sports? self-defense? killing?), stylistic preferences (thrusting? block-oriented? striking? etc) and personal attributes (big? heavy? short?etc). Your question "Is it dense enough?" should be qualified. Dense enough to do what? I think for general purpose, coffee, sampaloc and bayabas are hard enough to inflict damage. Unfortunately, I have VERY LITTLE FAITH in a rolled up newspaper. A guy may look good on video performing on a cooperative partner, but on the streets I would like to get hold on something more substantial. I almost got into a fight with a drug-crazed guy in Quezon City but I chose to move away quickly and avoid a confrotation. A more hot-headed guy, a jeepney driver, decided to teach the trouble maker a lesson. He got down from his jeep with a lead pipe and started hitting the addict. After 3-4 blows, all of which landed on an upraised forearm, the addict was still standing! The driver turned tail and drove off as fast as he could. That was very funny, I think. Maybe, if he had applied a choke...I was a little tempted to try but that would no longer have been a case of self-defense.
    Going back to the choice of sticks, there are still other factors to consider. Do you want them tapered at the business end, or do you want it heavier? How long do you want them? Are you going to carry the stick concealed, in a bag, a case, on your person (there are ways, you know)? As I said, different stylists will have different preferences. If you want a stick for self-defense, you won't want a lead-tippen rod as this can qualify as an illegal weapon. I suggest you research on the type of sticks the old-time duelists used in juego todo matches before WEKAF, NARAPHIL, ARPI and even the Dog Brothers came into being.
     
  20. shootodog

    shootodog restless native

    sure, but i wouldn't be caught dead holding a rolled up newspaper in old school sparring.
     

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