Applying Sword Form to Cane

[Permalost]

Thrusting. My advice get a stronger cane.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=2877555011687

I'll bet you would have bent that cane to a screwy angle a lot faster if you were using kinetic swinging motions (maybe even one solid hit). Something else worth considering with canes and such- whether or not they can withstand the impact of really whacking someone. Fairbairn had a series of strikes to be performed with an umbrella, a weapon likely to break if you swung it around like a sword.

[gregaquaman]

I have hit a matress with baseball bat style swings with that cane. I think a tree is pretty unforgiving.

Did feel like there was a lot of force generated by those thrusts though. The handle helped.

[realjanuary]

I've never tried sparring with a cane, but I have used a jo (short staff, reaching from the floot to around my armpit) in escrima style sparring.
I used a DIY smack-jo (hollow plastic pipe with foam insulation, all wrapped in tape).
My partners were using solo baston / single stick (less than an arm's length), bouble bastons / two sticks, or stick and knife.

The dynamics of each encounter were as you would expect and support much of what Permalost, RockApe and others are saying here.

Some things I learned as the jo player:

1. The bayonet style thrust / modified choku tsuki to the throat was the most useful tool to keep distance. Even with the bib of the fencing mask and padded weapon, the contact was enough to check an advance. Thrusts naturally came best from tsuki no gamae.
2. From most stances strikes were slower than the reacitive actions of the baston player. To make sure that they didn't defend and close from one of my strikes it was important to either change lines mid strike (high #1 to low #1 being a good one), set up strikes with a minor action like a thrust or have the major strike flow into a second strike.
3. Attacks on the low line without losing your posture are easier than with a short weapon. The thigh and knee got hit a lot.
4. Otoshi tsuki from ude hasso surprises most partners.
5. Although certain strikes come better from certain stances (e.g. wakai gamae for sweeping hit to low line) the jo player must be able to stike on a variety of lines from each stance.
6. Hand changes and sliding the hand along the weapon is difficult with some non-standard weapons, like on the grippy surface of my light, bendy smack-jo. The bayonet style choku tsuki came into it's own compared to the tsuki where the weapon slides through the front hand (if the front hand is open enough for it to slide, it's not closed enough to control it after a parry). This made me play more like I was using a short spear or sword than how I imagine I'd have used a jo.
7. As the jo player my priorities were to keep the fight at long range, protect my lead hand from getting hit. If the baston player closed I had to protect my head, try to regain distance and abaondon the jo in the grappling range.
8. I've only used the single handed strike once. It was when my partner thought he was out of range and had let their guard drop.

Some things the bason players learned:

1. If they got the jo player in the stick's largo or medio range they were at an advantage.
2. Closer is not always better, corto or shorter they lost the baston's relative advantage.
3. Relying on speed alone to close the range is foolish. The best time to close is after the jo has be neutralised by a hand smash, beat attack, missed hit, etc.

footnotes:
Mixed weapon sparring is a fun and natural way to force the players to work on particular aspects of their game.
Bastons were smak-stick style, knives were DIY foam and tape like the Tomiki tantos or rubber training blades. Fencing masks and lacrose or MMA gloves were worn in addition to normal training gear.


tl;dr Facing short weapons with a long weapon in sparring worked exactly like the people in the know say it does.

[NeilG]

Interesting, I've never seen half-sword techniques in kendo (this is kendo, right?)

No, they are using kendo gear but the technique shown is not kendo, in fact it is a penalty to grab the blade of your own weapon (or your opponents).

This reminds me of one of the few things a Japanese kendo guy showed me. It was a sort of thrust to the throat area of the headgear, which would cause the whole head to kinda rock back, setting up a good cutting followup.

Tsuki-men, standard combination technique, good drill teaching various stuff but very difficult to actually pull off in competition.

[Rene "Zendokan" Gysenbergs]

I respectfully disagree with this assessment. If you're thinking angles and parries then I suppose all weapon forms may be related in a sense in that you block someone's attack so they can't hit you and ideally you can hit them. However rapier and certainly smallsword do not typically attack like in legal canne de combat strikes using the elliptical hand motion and large arm movements.

Now singlestick from backsword I could see far more application.

I talked with my instructor and his Professeur last Saturday.
The phases in learning La Canne de Combat (at my school) are
- learning La Canne de Sport
- Relearning the techniques of La Canne de Sport with a combat cane, looks like Singlestick. This is the phase I'm in right now.
- La Canne Vigny
- Using La Canne if it was a swordcane, here it starts to look like Rapier and Smallsword and in a further stage using a (blunt) training swordcane.

Now since I only train 15 to 20 minutes a week in La Canne, generally as a warming up, it will take some time before I'm through all the phases of La Canne de Combat.

[BryanW]

I talked with my instructor and his Professeur last Saturday.

Using La Canne if it was a swordcane, here it starts to look like Rapier and Smallsword and in a further stage using a (blunt) training swordcane.

If you're using it as a sword (aka sword cane) then yes you'd use probably use smallsword technique if you were using period training. If you use it as a blunt object then you'd use la canne style (Vigny is one of the most complete for the street that Ive seen).

Your professor and I seem to agree.