I am not that certain about longer the better for self defense. I keep thinking in real life situation, like I said many times before, you are in a more confined space. Like it restaurants when you have tables and chairs and people all around. You don't have the space to swing a long stick. In another word, you do not have a 5 ft circle radius to work with. I asked the question whether my cane is too long because I don't think there is room for a long cane.
From what I can tell anything below 5" or 6" (depending on context / techniques used) really won't make any difference in the range. It just means you don't have to hold the cain at the very end. Hand placement is always going to be about the same distance You'll either hold it towards the end for longer range or towards the middle. After 6" you start to get some extra space on the cane to use. In my opinion should be long enough to get some additional space where you hold the cane. There should be enough room on the straight end to hook wrists and elbows.
I rather have something that is long enough. I can always "choke up" on a stick to decrease the fighting range, But there's not much one can do about increasing maximum fighting range for a stick.
Five feet is my jo almost to the millimeter.
Most people who hear staff training think of long distance striking and fighting. It wasn't until I started to seriously train to learn the staff that I discovered that there are a lot of close range stuff in there. There's a couple of techniques where I thought. Man this is slow. I'll get punched before I hit someone like this. Then it occurred to me that maybe the movement does something else. I did a gentle test on my son and asked him what did he feel. Then I had him do a similar test to see if I felt the same thing. It worked better against grappling which is probably why it's slow and powerful vs fast and powerful. But it was always taught as a strike. Can I hit someone in the head with it. Of course, but it's like a slow power punch and not a fast powerful jab. I now enjoy the staff more, now that I understand the close range fighting techniques.
Sorry I didn't make that clear. I didn't explain my thoughts well. I was referring to the size difference between two canes. For example, a cane that is 2" or 3" smaller or larger than another cane isn't going to have a big length advantage or disadvantage. The advantages and disadvantages really don't start to appear until around 5" or 6" inch difference in cane length. It's almost like boxing. Someone with a 2"or 3" longer jab isn't going to affect you that much. You can still work with it and deal with it. It's not until that jab length reaches 5" to 6" that the jab is going to have any real length advantage.
A way to spot good staff training is to watch the hands move effortlessly around the stick. A longer staff gives you a lot more room to extend and contract. Jow Ga's staff form shares a lot of common ancestry with the other Eight Trigram long staff forms, and it's not too difficult to translate it to shorter sticks. It's all in the hands.
I seen so many cane videos in the last 2 days I'm done lol. It will be interesting where Alan ends up with his training with the additional training. Unfortunately I couldn't fine many people sparring with canes except for the Irish stick fighting.
There are no short stick sets in Chinese that I know of. As in cane short.
Tai chi has cane forms. But I don't feel comfortable with recommending anything to Alan that I couldn't use or at the minimum teach someone else to use.. The rest of the videos that I saw are questionable. Most have never tried to swing a cane at someone or have someone actually swing one at them. A lot of crap evaporates once canes start swinging lol.
wow....just, wow.
Answering my own question here, I'm pretty sure "cane" forms in Tai Chi Chuan are actually jian forms.
The look like Jian forms with the exception of where they grab the blade and use it to strike like using a cane. A lot of one hand cane strikes
I am way behind all the posts, I need to read them after the new year as both grand kids are staying with us right now. I just want to come back to this first as I actually spent time on this, thinking about it and practice it.
A lot of his swinging techniques are those that would be used with a staff. This is what Oily Dragon was talking about in post #49. As for the video his form looks intimidating but it's mixed with some showmanship as well. There's nothing in this video that provides enough information on if he can actually use what he's doing. The most that I can say is that he has the body mechanics that would be needed to hit someone with that cane but that's about it. If he can fight with his bow then he should be able to fight with the cane as well.
The same movement in that video that I showed also works for people trying to rush in.
You probably didn't think about grabbing the cane because you were thinking about the cane smashing you in the face. Once you know that something can happen you will be less likely to do it because you know what the possibilities are. But it doesn't mean your other thoughts were invalid, because you are right not everyone is going to go for the cane., Which is why you always have to think. Well what if they don't go to grab the cane. In this case the same movement protects you against 3 possibilities. as explained above.
Your grand daughter doesn't know how to fight with a cane or a staff. so I wouldn't go on that feeling too much to define the weaknesses of using the cane, walking stick, or staff. However, What you feel may be what an attacker feels. and that felling will help you get a better understanding for the types of attacks you may get. This will help you improve your training.
It will be a liability if you don't know how to use that cane to fight close range which is what I've been saying for a while now. Using a cane for a long distance is an easier concept to understand. Using it in close range, not so much. That's the weakness of the cane, walking stick, staff that Dirty Dog and I were talking about earlier on.
