Bando Form - the Hidden Stick

Just one morning, it happened.

My instructor Tom Lewis was friends with the founder of Amercian Bando Dr. Gyi.

While I heard stories about their system and training, and met several of their seniors at Sensei’s summer parties over the years, I never had the chance to train in the system.

When I was a brown belt, my then instructor in Isshinryu, Charles Murray, learned the Bando Staff form , The Horseman’s form (or the Horseman’s Foot soldiers Form), from another of my seniors Reese Rigby.

Reese learned it at a Bando summer camp when it was taught, and later competed with it in the Bando Nationals and won.

After Charles returned to the USAF and I was alone in my training. On those occasions when went to Salisbury I would stop in Dover, and also train with Reese. He would review my Isshinryu kata, and whatever else I was learning from my friends, and also help me understand the staff form better. Such as turning the hand over for side strikes to the hand would be behind the bo for a stronger strike.

On one of those visits he also taught me the beginning of the Bando short stick form, the Hidden Stick.

Of course I practiced.

Then from Lewis Sensei I received a form to attend the 1983 Bando Summer Camp, one weekend in Maryland at a Boy Scout Campground.

There were others in Isshinryu there, some from Dover I think, Anna Lockwood and some others from Salisbury, as well as others in Isshinryu. (Don Bohan’s Group). I was about san-dan at that time. At that time I was then teaching young through the Scranton Boy’s Club.

The Bando Camp was an experience. No one wore obi, all the same t-shirt. A wide variety of training was offered:

                Bando stick techniques (including impact training striking logs),

                Escrima stick training.                    

                 A demonstration of the effects of different bullet impacts,

                Choking techniques taught by Rick Nemira

                Bando kumite skills

                Breaking skills (where Rick wowed all showing slaps as a breaking technique)

                Don Bohan teaching Urashie No Bo.

                A Bando Woman instructor teaching a form        

                Saturday Night there was a Bando War Game of sorts

                Early morning runs.

                I am sure there was more , but this is all that comes to mind at this time.

During the Bando Kumite skills (such as leaping knee kicks) I asked a question of one of the Bando instructors.  He replied something then asked me what would I do. I admit I was far from impressive looking and as I wasn’t wearing any rank, I replied to his question by throwing a round kick over his head. He asked me how I could to that and I think I responded it wasn’t difficult with 15+ years training.

He remembered me and after the war game he and I talked for a long while, I explained the diversity of training that I was experiencing  and he explained many details of Bando training as he understood them

The next morning I was using the time after breakfast to practice those Bando forms I knew. I ran through the Horseman’s Form then started the piece I knew of the Hidden Stick. The gentleman from the previous night observed me and asked how I knew them. I explained. Then he said that his version of the Hidden Stick was different. As he was going to attend a Bando seniors training session with Dr. Gyi, something regarding Kukri Knife impact training against rocks, and cutting stones thrown at oneself or some such exercises) he was going to have several  Brown Belts from his school teach the form to me.

For the next two hours two gentleman from that school, worked to teach me that form and the meanings of the movements. It went piece by piece. When I took breaks, having had experience learning forms quickly, I used the time to share the Horseman’s Form with Anna Lockwood, as she had previously asked me to do so. The time went quickly. I tried very hard to remember that form.

Shortly after lunch camp broke up. I then left to drive back to Scranton back up 84. The entire time I kept going through the stick form. Then when I got home I went out back and practiced some more.

Then practice, practice, practice.

A number of month later, Once again I went on a trip to visit Sensei. This time I was asked to share with everyone there some of my studies.  With the class I shared the Goju Saifa, with Sensei I shared the Tjimande Tiger form I studied, and of course I spent some time with Anna on the Bando staff set.

On the way home I stopped to visit Reese Rigby in Dover. We compared our versions of the Bando stick form. After we had each done it, he felt my form was fine, but he wasn’t going to change his way of doing it. I recall I remarked I felt the same.

So more practice, practice, practice.

Around 1988 I began to share ½ of the Bando Stick form as a Brown Belt practice. I had decided that while I wanted brown belts to have some weapons training, I was going to reserve all Isshinryu Kobudo for Dan training. I felt the students had more than enough to work on, and that I wanted them to know more about the system so as Dans they could focus greater intensity on the Isshinryu forms. As to ½ of the Bando stick form, it was more that enough of a form in it’s own right.

 

An interesting thing occurred, each time we competed in a tournament where we had not been seen previously. When a competitor approached the judges you could see them speaking between themselves, as was the audience audibly remarking that did the competitor not have a weapon (as the stick in the beginning is up the sleeve. Then when they stepped back and pulled the stick from their sleeve, there would be an audible gasp from the audience. As I said this has happened several times.

From what I understood the stick was a back up weapon. If the primary weapon (such as a sword) was lost on the battlefield, the stick could be pulled from the sleeve and you could continue to fight.  Its primary relevance today still remains the same. It is a subtle weapon for defensive use on the street. It is not designed or trained for stick to stick combat as we use it.

The full form became a optional Dan study (though so far all have elected to do so). It provides a challenging study for the Dan.

I have no idea as to how much we vary from the Bando version(s) of the form, as I do not study with anyone in Bando. I am content with the study as we proceed. However recently Bob Maxwell (Bando) shared an older Bando Kukri form, and our stick is very close to the same movement. It is possible that the stick was a variation on this form, originally. Perhaps a preliminary study to the Kukri Knife, studied in the Bando system.