Stick-fighting

Stick-fighting, stickfighting, or stick fighting, is a variety of martial arts which use blunt, hand-held "sticks" for fighting, most typically a simple, non-lethal, wooden staff or baton. Schools of stick-fighting exist for a variety of weapons, including gun staffs, bō, jō, bastons, and arnis sticks, among others. Cane-fighting is the use of walking sticks as improvised weapons. Some techniques can also be used with a sturdy umbrella or even with a sword or dagger still in its scabbard.

Thicker and/or heavier blunt weapons such as clubs or the mace are outside the scope of stick-fighting (since they cannot be wielded with the necessary precision, relying on the sheer force of impact for stopping power instead), as are more distinctly-shaped weapons such as the taiaha used by the Māori people of New Zealand, and the macuahuitl used by the Aztec people of Mesoamerica in warfare.

Although many systems are defensive combat techniques intended for use if attacked while lightly armed, others such as kendo, arnis, and gatka were developed as safe training methods for dangerous weapons. Whatever their history, many stick-fighting techniques lend themselves to being treated as sports.

In addition to systems specifically devoted to stick-fighting, certain other disciplines include it, either in its own right, as in the Tamil martial art silambam, or merely as part of a polyvalent training including other weapons and/or bare handed fighting, as in Kerala's kalaripayattu tradition, where these wooden weapons serve as preliminary training before practice of the more dangerous metal weapons.

Stick-fights between individuals or large gatherings between sub-tribes where men fight duels were an important part of the anthropological heritage of various cultures. On tribes such as the Surma people of Ethiopia, donga stick-fighting is an important cultural practice and the best means of showing off to look for a bride, nude or nearly so, and their more warlike neighbors, the Nyangatom people, Pokot people, Turkana people who fight duels bare-chested, the aim being to inflict visible stripes on the back of the adversary, using not plain staffs but sticks with a flexible, whipping tail-end.