Bo Staff Grip Techniques

Series Summary

Various martial arts styles employ weapons for fighting and mortal combat. Martial arts weapons such as the bo staff, escrima sticks, the katana and dagger require practice, care and the ability of self-restraint. The bo staff, whether a double headed staff or a tapered staff, can be a dangerous weapon. There is a wide array of bo staff techniques that a kung fu student can use to fight with a bo staff. Learn bo staff techniques for training and sparring in this free video series on bo staff techniques featuring National Kung Fu Champion Sifu Dan Schmidt. Sifu Schmidt demonstrates bo staff techniques such as the single-handed downward flower, the single-handed upward flower, the upward rowing block, the downward rowing block, the overhead block, the pressing block, the downward smash, the upward strike and many more bo staff techniques.

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Dan Schmidt from the Chinese Martial Arts Center in Seminole and today in this clip we are going to be discussing various staff grips. So with the staff what technique you will be doing determines what kind of grip you will have. The most basic grip is this one and this is called the yin and yang grip. One hand is up and one hand is down. Usually the way it is this hand will be at the waist or somewhere near there very closely. Then you want to twist out and have the front end higher than the back end but usually no higher than your old head level and so this way. Another type of grip is the overhand grip also known as the thumb to thumb grip. You want to slide out a little wider than shoulder length. This grip is usually used for different strikes of this nature keeping the fingers clinched together. Same thing with the rear hand keeping it at the waist. Also from here you perform different what is called flowers, techniques like this for different sorts of strikes, sliding, striking also hitting low. Now when you hit low you use this type of grip. This is called the duck's head because it resembles a duck's head. So when you strike low like this you want to keep this hand right to the solar plexus and you want to dip your elbow down, keep it close to your ribs. So it is used like this see if I was just going to step in I can hit low like this. Now it is very important that this hand is in the proper place because if not, like if he does it wrong it won't be as tight as it is supposed to be so if I'm fighting I want to strike down and see I can strike him right there and his staff will hit the ground and then he is open for attack. But if he does do it properly see he is here and I can hit the staff it doesn't really go anywhere and then he can come in and strike at me in various ways. Those are some basic staff grips."