Bō Staff

Origins

Staffs were among the weapons taught in Japan's earliest recorded martial traditions. Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū, founded in the fifteenth century and among the oldest surviving schools, teaches the bō alongside the sword, spear and naginata, and many other classical schools (koryū) included staff forms. The staff had practical reasons behind it: a spear or naginata whose blade broke still left a warrior with a shaft to fight with, and a staff could be carried where swords were not welcome. In Okinawa a separate tradition developed. The Ryukyu kingdom had close ties to China, and Okinawan staff methods, called kon in the local language, show strong Chinese influence. After Satsuma's invasion of Okinawa in 1609 the carrying of weapons was restricted, and the story that Okinawans turned to farm tools and staffs for self-defense became part of karate's history, although historians consider it exaggerated.

Design & Construction

The standard bō is the rokushakubō, six shaku or about 180 cm long, usually around 3 cm thick. Some are straight cylinders; others taper toward both ends (the kei-bō shape) to make them lighter and faster at the tips while keeping a strong center. Japanese makers use red or white oak (kashi), which is dense, heavy and resistant to splitting. Shorter staffs include the hanbō of about 90 cm and the jō of about 128 cm, which has its own art, jōdō. The fighter holds the bō with both hands and slides his grip along it, striking with either end, thrusting, sweeping at the legs, and blocking with the whole length of the shaft.

Combat Use

On the battlefields of the Sengoku period the samurai fought with the yari, the bow and later the arquebus, and the plain staff played a small part. Its combat value lay elsewhere: in training, since staff drills teach footwork, distance and the control of a long weapon, and in the everyday defense of travellers, monks and commoners who were not allowed to carry swords. Warrior monks and the police of the Edo period used staffs and related arms such as the sodegarami and sasumata to arrest armed men without killing them. The duels of Miyamoto Musashi, fought with wooden weapons as often as steel, and the historical jō of Musō Gonnosuke, who is said to have been the only man to defeat Musashi, show how seriously a skilled staff fighter was taken against the Katana.

Legacy

The bō is one of the most widely practised weapons in the world today through Okinawan kobudō and karate, where it is usually the first weapon a student learns, and it is still taught in the classical schools of mainland Japan. Its Western counterpart is the English Quarterstaff. Collectors of Japanese arms value it less than swords and polearms, but antique staffs fitted with iron bands and fittings do appear, and the related iron-studded kanabō club of the Feudal Japan era is a much rarer find.