Eskrima Kombat

Rifle Grip

This summer I met a friend of mine that I hadn’t seen for years since I first met him in the Philippines. He’s a black belt in one of the Okinawan karate styles, and now he feels like he’s suffering for the hard training he did in his youth. He now suffers from arthritis in his hip and walks with a cane.

In order to visit a Filipino friend of his one night he had to walk through a narrow alley. Three Filipinos up to no good confronted him and demanded his money. He snapped his cane forward, slamming the center thug in front of him, and catching him in the throat with the portion of the cane between his hands. (GM Estalilla calls this strike a “slam.”) The three of them fled, and he arrived at his friend’s house unharmed.

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As he told me his story, he demonstrated how he held his cane in rifle grip, or bayonet grip, with the forward hand palm-up and the rear hand palm-down. I have become convinced that the rifle grip is superior to the staff grip, in which both hands are palm-down. His grip is very similar to that of Big Stick Combat, only I prefer to place the handle end at the right hip, not forward. But I hadn’t noticed one advantage of rifle grip until he showed it to me.

If you look at the rifle grip photo above, the elbows are tucked into the body (Elbows-in is one of the basics of boxing.) and the cane is held in tight. Very little of the cane sticks out for someone to grab, or to catch on something like a clothesline, windowsill, door jamb, etc. When you’re confronting 3 guys in an alley, you can’t afford to have the ends of your cane or stick jutting out where someone can grab them.

If you look at the staff grip photo below, the ends stick out widely. I can tilt the stick diagonally, but it puts the uppermost wrist in an awkward position.

Staff Grip

Look at the elbows and wrists, which are in an awkward position resembling a wristlock if I pull the cane in toward my body or tilt one end up.

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I should add that one of my friend’s preferred moves from the rifle stance is to shoot the handle end of the stick forward, catching the opponent in the throat. His cane handle isn’t curved, but is flat like ‘ Γ ‘ This presents a striking area almost perfectly designed to strike the throat.