Seanbhata Close Fighting

In the normal course of events, unless you are attempting to control an opponent, it’s not a good idea to move into close combat. Your main advantage is your stick and the length of your stick, your ability to inflict strikes while simultaneously avoiding strikes, using your footwork,  but if it becomes a close combat situation a multitude of other elements come into play.

Other skills such as kicking and wrestling, the reach and size of your opponent, and their ability to control your primary weapon—the stick—are all involved.

Typically if an unarmed individual attempts a “bull’s rush” on you, or tries to run past your guard and wrestle or grab you, the best defence is a sharp thrust with the sléa, or spear, a sidestep and a strike into a vulnerable area, or a two-handed strike while attempting to control distance.

However if you do get into a close-combat situation while sparring, here are some techniques to help.

The initial stance to take is An Cosanta Dúnta, the Closed Guard. This allows you to move into the adharca tairbh if needed, into the high or low sléa very quickly, keeps your hands on the outsides of the stick, ensuring superior leverage if it is grabbed, and allows other attacks.

As always it is vital to keep the stick moving around so your hands don’t get struck.

Avoid the temptation to hold the stick in the middle—you will lose leverage and striking power as well as making your hands an easy target.

Under no circumstances should you attempt to put more effort behind a strike using your elbows or forearms, unless you want fractured forearms.

While in an Cosanta Dúnta the stick may be rotated  up and down to any angle, even to the vertical. The stick itself serves as a full-body shield.

Strikes may be inflicted by simply punching forward while still  holding the stick, whether with the fist or with the protruding end of the stick, as illustrated.

You can also attack by snapping the stick quickly forward through one of your hands, then snapping it back afterwards, called shortening the stick.

From the position of holding the stick by either end, as depicted below, quickly slide the hand holding the striking end of the stick down the length of the stick, whipping the stick forward in the same movement.

A rotation of the torso from the leg will add extra power to this strike, as will leaning in from the shoulder. An impressive amount of speed and energy can be generated in this way.

Such attacks can come from any angle, up, down, left, right, or from the diagonal, and the angle of attack can be changed in an instant.

Your hands are kept protected behind the length of your stick, or widely separated. These attacks also work well as feints before using the sléa.

It is important not to allow the stick to rest after striking, but pull it back as quickly as you struck, in case a target might attempt to grab it.

A few comments on shortening the stick

Several long stick close fighting techniques advocate holding the stick in the middle. We don't suggest this is a good idea for various reasons.

• Firstly it makes your hands, close together and not moving around all that much, a really easy target. If you lose your hands, you lose the fight.
• Secondly when striking you need to extend your arm to get any leverage - which in close fighting puts your stick within easy grabbing distance. Also you can't generate much power anyway, what should be a solid punch becomes a slap.
• The alternative is putting your forearm or elbow behind the stick to add power, which may work with wide rattan, but will cripple you at the same time as it cripples an opponent if you try it with hard blackthorn. Also a good reason why it's important to train with blackthorn - material matters.
• Thirdly, if someone grabs your stick by the ends and you're holding it in the middle (a serious consideration in close fighting), they get better leverage than you over your own stick and can twist it out of your hands.
• And fourthly when holding the stick in the middle it's easy to strike from the left and right, but almost impossible to strike from the top or bottom. This removes around half of your attack options.

None of these problems apply to the shortened stick technique depicted above.

Other useful attacks include simply striking from a standing position:

Or jabbing with the buta from the chosanta droma.

Jabs, or smitíní, are usually accompanied by a push from the offhand, with the intention of making some space between you and your adversary.

Push once, jab once, push once, then strike with the stick overhand.

Other attacks may be made from the chosanta droma, including high outside strikes to your opponent’s joints and head, reaching back , over and around them as it were.

These are unlikely to cause much injury but are useful distractions.

There are a variety of other techniques illustrated here, such as locks to control an opponent and leg sweeps to knock them down. These can be very dangerous, so please use great caution and only train for them while wearing head protection, front and back, preferably on soft mats and with an experienced trainer.

Stick strikes and blocks can also be combined with kicks, elbows, punches and headbutts. If facing superior numbers, whirling the stick around rapidly overhead or horizontally in figure eights may allow an exit.

Chapter List (click to read):

1. Foreword
2 The Irish Language
3. Reading
4. Making and Shaping
5. The Physical Gael
6. The Warrior Gael
- The Crios Belt
- Open Hand Traditions
- Collar and Elbow Wrestling
- Gaelic Weapons
- Seanbhata
- Seanbhata Basics
- Seanbhata Guards
- Seanbhata Strikes and Blocks
- Seanbhata Close Fighting
- The Heroic Feats
7. Tradition and Culture
8. Organisation