Pointers on equipment 

One of many good things about practicing either staff combat systems or swords combat systems that use staffs as a controlled practice tool, like it is common in the Fillipino Kali fencing, is that staffs are easy to come by.

Of course that there are traditional Portuguese staffs, and we’ll get into that in a bit, but if you really do wish to learn this fantastic art, don’t let small equipment imperfections hold you back. Use whatever staffs and woods you have in your country and, in time, perfect your knowledge and preference of wood type according to your own practice’s feedback.

The traditional Portuguese staffs and usually made of quince or lotus. Quince is a very good wood and it was frequently used when fighting several opponents. Other practitioners, such as Lisbon school’s combatants, elected lotus as their preferred wood due to its extra flexibility, which is beneficial when one stops performing in motion guards and starts blocking the opponents which direct parries.

Additionally, Portuguese staffs are built almost like baseball bats, having one extremity thicker than the other one. This enables one to have a thicker extremity placed forward, thus giving the weapon both added resistance when parrying and extra mass to help accelerate it when striking.

As stated earlier, staffs built for real life self defense combat also had one iron tip and one blade in each extremity. While the blade was concealed by a capsule that was removed only in extreme situations, the iron tip was at plain sight and commonly used to help while walking during daily living.

For effective and fun practice it is necessary to develop correct timings and distances. This training scenario requires some type or controlled environment, since beginners will invariably learn using, among other strategies, trial and error experience. To obtain such a training environment one either pads his body or the weapon (or a bit of both). I prefer padding the weapon (and head), mainly because it is cheaper to pad one weapon than the whole body. We’ve developed such padded weapons and we’ll put them available believing that they can be helpful in maximizing your training results. However, you’re free to use anything that makes sense to you or is simply more affordable to you at the moment.

Last but not least, I advise people to avoid training barefoot or on socks, unless you’re practicing on a very delicate surface that warrants that type of care. Otherwise, I find that training with (clean) shoes is more hygienic, safer in terms of injury prevention, and more combat specific for real life scenarios.

As for the shoes selection, it is preferable to use shoes with a straight sole. Avoid at all costs running shoes with a thicker and higher sole in heel, which aren’t even advisable for running, …, but that’s beyond our present focus.