Curiously Specific Martial Arts Question

Would anyone here recommend one or two martial arts that ideally have to do with weilding a staff and kicking a lot, but not generally above the waist? The best I can think of is kickboxing and "Bo staff." But I don't think I'm going to find "Bo staff" in my local yellow pages.

It would be very neat to find these combined in one martial art, too.

And oh yeah... something flashy with lots of "whooshes" and twirling.

Please.

Because see what happened was last night I spent about an hour pretend fighting on my powerbocks and I was like "ha ha, I suck." But at the same time it gave me a sense of how I could be completely awesome.

couldnt you just jump on peoples heads?

Functionally, yes and it would probably kill or seriously hurt them and be like a crash for me. But I don't have much use for a "Surprise! You're dead!" type thing.

Even seeming to know what you're doing on these is scary as heck to an observer. I had a friend with me and I kept repeating "no, no, don't actually attack back -- you'll kill me..."

Because almost everytime I'd say "how does this look?" and twirl my pole and try some move like a jump kick or whatever (nowhere near close enough to hurt the guy), he consistently looked genuinely threatened.

And he actually expected me to be doing that stuff.

I at least need to study real staff fighting, though. I can probably manage the kicks just by practicing a lot. Just... enthusiasm, you know? It's intoxicating.

most martial arts have one form or another of bo fighting. . .or staff fighting. . .there are some specific styles that study only the bo. . .here are several good books. . .to give you an idea. . .personnally. . .the first one is what i use. . .

Books for bo fighting
Stick Fighting: Techniques of Self Defense - Masaaki Hatsumi, Quintin Chambers - 1981 - 116 pages
Modern Arnis: The Filipino Art of Stick Fighting - Remy Presas, Gregory Lee - 1983 - 164 pages
Complete Sinawali: Filipino Double Weapon Fighting - Reynaldo S Galang - 2000 - 114 pages

dc

Thanks, DC. Any advice about which of those styles is flashiest?

Tae kwan do has lots of kicks. They can be flashy I enjoy the martial art. As for the staff I cant help you out im not a huge weapon user. There is Muay Thai which has powerful kicks as well. Hope that helps

Can you actually forcefully kick with those Powerbocks without damaging them?

EDIT: I said Kick, not outward Stomp.

good movements can look flashy. . .most good lessons in bo try to keep flash down to a minimum. . .but good moves will look very sharp. . .controlled. . .authoritative. . .and effective. . .

side note. . .keep in mind a bo is nothing more than a long baton. . .

dc

Steel, yes, but there's no 100% guarantee of not damaging them. They're very sturdy, like hard rubber and some kind of steel alloy. Combined with some momentum it could be a pretty nightmarish attack.

Also you feel it. Kicking with weights on your legs is obviously harder (although I've only kicked at air so far).

And thanks, DC.

have you tryed kicking an object? seems to me like you'd fall after.

No, I've only just played around with kicking and such for about an hour last night. I'm thinking of working with some kind of improvised punching (kicking) bag type thing down the road.

However I did think about the falling issue quite a bit -- there are a few things I can do off the top of my head. One is establish an additional point of contact, like brace against a car or wall to do the kick. And there's basically training for it and being skillful -- you aren't clumsier with these things on, you're just dealing with different body physics than you're used to. Actually at this point (day 4) I can walk normally without thinking much about it and have a pretty good awareness of where my artificial "feet" are planted. I kind of realized that when I stumbled on some kind of crack once and caught myself and it was pretty much exactly how you stumble and catch yourself with your regular feet.

Something bad would be if an opponent successfully grabbed your leg... that would probably be bad for both you and him.

Play Kilik in Soul Calibur

Well, I suppose if you do a waist level kick, you could just use your Monopod as a extra point of contact to help you keep your balance.

I'm deliberately not going for anything more than waist level kicks, but in theory that would allow for a flying sidekick to the face of a 6' 5" opponent. In theory.

Taiho Ryu is an art that teaches both freehand and weapons techniques. The art is similar to Tae Kwon Do in the lower levels but changes as you advance. The style was created to train police officers in Japan.

Reading about Taiho Ryu I wonder if it's not similar to the US Army's "Combatives," which was also derived from Jiu Jitsu and then tweaked here and there for practicality.

You could try ninjutsu. The modern form is taught by the Bujinkan Federation. They have dojos across the globe with the head dojo located in Japan. They have a very good control on keeping those not worthy of a black belt from getting a hold of one unlike quite a few of the " McDojos" of recent years. The highest belt you can earn in the U.S. is a 4th degree belt before you're required to fly to Japan to take further belt examinations directly under Masaki Hatsumi, the grandmaster of the Bujinkan Federation, himself. Also all instructors of the Bujinkan and it's many worldwide dojos are required to go to Japan every 2-3 years to have their skills re-evaulated by the grandmaster to maintain their status as shidoshis. This tight knit monitering system is part of what drew me to the Bujinkan.

Taiho Ryu was actually derived from an art called Taihu Jitsu. It basically means "the art of policing" according to what I was taught. Its very practical for street and police/correction situations. The instructor that taught in Pne Bluff for many years was actually the designer of the PR24 baton. He was contracted to develop a better weapon for police officers than the basic nightstick and using the Tonfa as his inspiration he crafted the weapon now used by many police officers today.

One of the reasons I was so interested in the art itself was that the instructors were almost all police officers from the area and all of the officers attached to the school were the trustworthy and effective ones. My limited training with them has helped me through a lot of tough situations.

They taught the mindset needed to fight as well as techniques. I've found the mental training to be even more valuable than the technique training as I've been able to defend myself and others even when my physical ability was diminished (broken back, injured knee, etc) and even now when I am in poor fighting shape I am still able to hold my own and have a great deal of respect on the streets because of that mindset.

Also since you want some " flashy " bo moves try wushu. One of the best widely known examples I can think of that shows how flashy it can be is Ray Parks especially as Darth Maul with the dual bladed lightsaber. All of the movements used in those fights scenes by him are from wushu.

Ah... Wushu would probably be perfect. (not for like self defense, but exactly what you're saying)

Wushu + running stilts... *almost* equals Wuxia. Hopefully.

Also thank you for understanding that my question isn't about practical self defense, but rather about performance and presence.

I studied Escrima for a long time and it really helped at work. Me personally, I dont recommend Ninjistu while using the PowerBoks. Ninjistu is very heavy into stealth and balnce as well as maximizing the damge you do to an opponenent with minimum energy from you (Ninja had to fight Samurai, like a Jeep against an Abrams). Stick to functional styles. With the popularity of MMA now, a good percentage of your opponents may be MMA fighters. If you are going to use the PB's, you will have to train to adapt to close in fighters AND getting aways from praticioners of the click clack BANG style

Dark, eventually I'll have to work out a quick release for the powerbocks if I plan on doing real fighting much. Because in an infighting scenario I'd be toast.

I'm also practicing using them as clubs... an arm workout, if nothing else.

I loved reading this thread... How much weight can these powerbocks hold? Probably not enough for my fatass!!!

You just have to buy a higher weight class -- but if you're not a runner and your weight isn't pretty stable, you might slip into a lower weight class by using them... which would mean you couldn't jump on them effectively anymore. (the weight class mainly has to do with the tension of the spring type bow thingie - if you're not heavy enough to compress it you can't bounce upward)

If I may ask: Why the emphasis of flashy over functional? I mean, I get that cool moves are cool. I'm just curious if you have some other reasons for looking for one over the other.