For long that it has been stated by many, including myself, that Jogo do Pau is the traditional Portuguese art of fencing, having survived through the application to staffs and batons, but once also applied to medieval weapons.
However, I’ve recently changed somewhat my view on this subject, now being of the opinion that Lusitan Fencing (aka Jogo do Pau) is the Portuguese School of a much vaster European combat system, with its origins in combat in outnumbered scenarios, envisioned to be applied in battle fields.
It all started when my former instructor Nuno Curvello Russo, the ultimate Portuguese reference in Lusitan Fencing, told me that, while living in France during the seventies, he came in contact while an individual named Maurice Sarry.
Maurice Sarry was none other than the French version of Nuno Russo, having travelled throughout his country in order to study and salvage the technique of the French combat system Jeux du Baton, and whose work led to the creation of the Canne de Combat sport.
These two Masters trained together frequently and according to Master Russo, the French Jeux du Baton was at the time focused on (reduced to) single combat with a staff. Nevertheless, the techniques were, according to Master Russo identical, which I was later able to have confirmation of. This happened in 2008 at the Dijon HEMAC event, where I met a much an individual who claimed to have trained with Maurice Sarry. He was kind enough to show me what he was able to remember and, apart from being a bit rusty, it was clear that the techniques were identical.
These events have led me to believe that the Portuguese Jogo do Pau and the French Jeux du Baton weren’t national arts in themselves, but schools that resulted from the creation and development of an international military combat system of European culture.
Later, as I came in contact with medieval revival groups, it was obvious to me that the waiting guards trained by their practitioners were similar to old style Jogo do Pau waiting guards.
As seen bellow, pictures taken from an old Jogo do Pau manual (Master Caçador’s manual published in 1963), show that these waiting guards with the weapon pointed backwards (such as those practiced by medieval revival groups) were once used in Jogo do Pau.
There is also another manual, Hopffer’s manual from 1940, in which descriptions of these guards can be found, as presented bellow.
However, since Jogo do Pau never stopped being practiced, we were able to receive its technique from Masters and many practitioners, which can present clear advantages over manuals. One of these advantages was the fact that the survival and practice of the combat system against several opponents, has allowed us to understand the origins and development of the art, among which are the reasons behind the creation of these guards with the weapon pointing backwards for single combat in times when combat in outnumbered scenarios was the main focus, as well as their replacement, as industrial cities appeared and the practice of the art started to revolve around the more leisure oriented single combat, characteristic of this new social environment.
This being said, I consider that Jogo do Pau’s potential to help interpret armed combat systems of the past has yet to be fully explored, mainly due to the erroneous idea that it is just a staff combat system with no relation to sword combat, as well as due to our own difficulty in accepting and assuming that it this school product of a vast and slow European interaction, forever impossible to determine its exact origins.
