In recent years, there has been an increased interest in historical Western martial arts: cannes de combat, bartitsu, fencing, longsword and broadsword forms, dagger wrestling, and a julienne of others. Perhaps it’s mere academic curiosity, perhaps its an act of defiance in an age that belittles and emasculates white men. Regardless, it is a trend that I myself appreciate and support. Fencing, boxing, and wrestling schools certainly exist and can be found fairly easily, but the more obscure forms have few, if any teachers available, and thus must be learned from the few meager resources on them that exist—mainly ancient tomes and books.

Having always felt that you can learn just as much from a book as you can a flesh and blood teacher (provided that you rigorously practice what you read, of course), I looked into a treatise on broadsword and singlestick titled…Broadsword and Single Stick by R.G. Allanson-Winn. And having done so, I’m very glad I did so, for in writing the book, the preppily hyphenated Allanson-Winn gives an outstanding primer in basic Western weapon skills, interesting historical and cultural snapshots, and a dollop of high-larious old-timey racism, all in an easily digestible 60 pages.

Unlike some martial arts books we could name, Allanson-Winn puts the reader right into the good stuff immediately, discussing that most reliable of peasant weapons known as the quarterstaff. Eschewing the awesome but impractical flippy-doos associated with the weapon, this book goes right into easily applicable theory and technique: how to stand, how to hold the staff and angles of attack and defense. Much like your illustrious host, Allanson-Winn insists that the reading of his book must be followed by repeated sparring and practice, and advocates methods of training and protective gear for full-contact sparring to do so.

Most importantly, he informs us (correctly, I feel) that learning one weapon or martial art makes it much easier to learn consecutively more styles and techniques:

“Nearly all first-rate stick-players have served their apprenticeship

with the foils, and, where this education has been omitted, one may

generally detect the ugly carving-knife-and-fork style, so unpleasant to

watch. Whereas with a good fencer–“foiler” perhaps I should

say–everything is done with neatness, whether he has in his hand a

single-stick, a cutlass, or the leg of an old chair.

”

Thus he leads into discussing the basics of foil, rapier, and cutlass fencing (As well as discussing the protocols, salutes, and history of the sport), and then more obscure forms such as single stick, cannes de combat, cudgel fighting, shillelaghs, even bayonets and umbrellas. He even discusses weapons that are useless for self-defense (such as the vastly overrated cane sword, useless as a cane and marginally useful as a weapon; he instead advocates a proper cane as both a weapon and a tool). On that note he also goes into the proper manufacture of these various weapons

Naturally, the last of these is where delightful old-timey racism occurs, whether it be gently poking fun at the Gallic then-propensity for dueling, or discussing wacky anecdotes about those wacky Irish county fairs, all of which apparently ended with people hitting with sticks:

” It is extraordinary what a lot of knocking about a sturdy Irishman can

put up with, and what whacks he can receive on the head without any

apparent damage. One cannot help thinking that the Celtic skull must be

thicker than the Saxon. The brains in the former are certainly more

capable than those in the latter of producing brilliant and amusing, if

incorrect, ideas and expressions. The history of the Emerald Isle swarms

with Boyle-Rocheisms as the country itself has long been said to swarm

with absentee landlords.

”

Going back to our serious discussion, some of the weapons he discusses (like the shillelagh and the blackthorne cane) are rarely found in one’s daily life today, but applying a little imagination can draw parallels to weapons that you CAN regularly find today (Allanson-Winn himself says that the techniques of shillelagh fighting are immediately applicable to any sort of double handed blunt object, and you don’t need to be a genius to immediately think of a baseball bat or an axe handle).

And best of all, seeing as this book is more than 100 years old (like most books worth reading), it’s 100% free—I’d recommend the Kindle version, as it comes with pictures. There’s certainly a lot more to be said about the contents of this book, and I’ll eventually be doing videos on the techniques shown therein (and other, more formal weapons training I’ve had in my life). But if you want to begin learning weapon fighting, you could do a hell of a lot worse than picking up this bit of Gilded Age brilliance.