The following is a partial list of western martial arts that use a stick in one hand, but should not be mistaken for each other:

  • Vigny’s Walking Stick
  • Savate’s La Canne
  • Singlestick

The list of Eastern martial arts that use a short stick is longer, but I don’t think there’s as much confusion about their difference from the Western tradition: escrima, kali, arnis, jo stick, etc.

Singlestick was featured on the television show Elementary (season 3, episode 3) which aired recently. StickGrappler.net has a series of animated gifs taken from the episode, which you can find here: Orphelia Lovibond as Kitty Winter with Singlestick (Elementary S03E03 GIF Set)

ElementaryS03E03-OpheliaLovibondAsKittyWinterWithSinglestick2

I hope Bartitsu students see some similarities between Vigny’s walking stick method and the singlestick, but also recognize that the hand is protected by a guard, and therefore more closely resembles sabre, broadsword and backsword than self-defence with a light stick.

I haven’t investigated the site very much, but there seem to be many well-written articles, and I would point my students especially to the category of Self-Defence: http://www.stickgrappler.net/p/self-defense.html

Next week, we’ll wrap up our series on the four component arts of Bartitsu. Come back for Vigny’s Walking stick and how Bartitsu integrates weapon work with the other unarmed arts.