✦ Member
← Arsenal

WABUKAN Arsenal · Staffs and sticks · Europe

Combat cane (canne)

A light chestnut walking stick, 95 cm long. French canne de combat and Edwardian bartitsu turned the gentleman's cane into a self-defence weapon.

Combat cane (canne)
Combat cane (canne) WABUKAN illustration

Also known as

canne · canne de combat; canne d’arme; walking cane

Origin and history

The French walking cane became a self-defence method in 19th-century Paris, taught alongside savate. Maurice Gruss codified it as the sport canne de combat in the 1970s, with rules requiring the cane to be armed (swung) before hitting.

Martial arts that use it

Canne de Combat Bartitsu

Construction

A tapered chestnut-wood cane of about 95 cm and around 100–120 g. Fighters wear a padded suit, gloves and a fencing-style mask.

Basic techniques

Training

Stick and staff training starts with grips, stances and basic strikes and blocks practised in the air or on a target, then two-person drills at controlled speed. Many schools use rattan or padded sticks for sparring, with a helmet and gloves.

Safety

Wear a helmet with a face grille and padded gloves for any contact work; hands and fingers are the most common injuries. Check sticks for cracks and splinters and retire damaged ones.

Legality (general information)

Sticks, staffs and other impact or flexible weapons are ordinary objects in some countries and restricted weapons in others (several European countries, for example, regulate nunchaku, batons or weighted chains). Carrying one in public without a good reason can be an offence even where owning it is legal. Transport it in a bag and use it in the training hall. This is general information, not legal advice: check local law.

Did you know?

In canne de combat a strike only scores if the cane first makes a wide armed movement: short jabs do not count.

More weapons

Cajado Shillelagh Makila Jo Jutte Bo

Sources

Original WABUKAN text, written from these cross-checked sources (facts, not sentences).

  1. Wikipedia — Canne de combat
  2. Wikipedia — Savate