Jogo do Pau (Portuguese Stick Fighting)
The Portuguese art of the long staff from the north of the country; its hallmark is fighting one against several.
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PortugalCharacter & Origin
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Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
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About Jogo do Pau (Portuguese Stick Fighting)
Jogo do pau, literally the game of the stick, is the Portuguese martial art of fighting with a long wooden staff held in both hands. Its home is the mountainous north of the country, the provinces of Minho, Alto Douro and Trás-os-Montes, and a related practice existed in neighbouring Galicia. For centuries the stick was the ordinary tool of the shepherd and the traveller, so it naturally became the weapon available to everyone; it served for self-defence and for settling questions of honour between individuals, families and whole villages. The art is recalled in connection with the foot soldiers at the battle of Aljubarrota in 1385, when common fighters had no proper weapons to hand. The turning point came in the 1830s: liberals who were barred from carrying swords took up the staff instead, and with them the art spread across the social classes while northern masters carried it to Lisbon. Technically what marks jogo do pau is fighting one against several: the practitioner keeps moving in a circle, holds his opponents at the range of the stick's tip and delivers fast cuts to the head and hands, changing the leading hand as he goes. In the twentieth century the art declined through migration to the cities and the availability of firearms; its revival began in the 1970s with the recording of the surviving northern variants, and jogo do pau is now practised as a sport and a piece of heritage under two federations.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.