'By the 19th century, the walking stick had become the hallmark of
distinction, authority and strength. For the gentlemen of the era, it
was not only an indispensable fashion accessory but also a source of
confidence, security and nonverbal deterrence on the streets of Europe.
In its various designs and configurations, the walking stick was also
valued at home, where it served as an objet d’art and an effective
weapon against invaders.
The French developed the walking stick
into a formidable self-defense tool that became known as la
canne.Adopted into the traditional savatetraining halls of the 1800s,
it’s remained by the side of the kicking art for more than 200 years.
The Birth of La Canne
Pierre Vigny was one of the most innovative masters of la canne. Born
in France in 1869, he began training in savate, English boxing and
fencing at a young age. During his teenage years, he often ventured from
one academy to another, learning new martial arts techniques and
testing his skills against anyone who’d pick up a sword, stick or pair
of boxing gloves.
In 1886 he joined the army, where he served as
the fencing master for the second regiment of the French artillery at
Grenoble. After leaving the military in 1889, he moved to Geneva and
opened a combat academy. During this period, he devoted several years to
the perfection of his own method of la canne.
Pierre Vigny
devised a system that could be described as a mixture of several
indigenous European self-defense methods. Many of the passes, thrusts
and wards resembled fighting techniques from German swordsmanship, and a
collection of the foot skills were borrowed from savate and French
boxing.
Upon receiving an offer from Edward W. Barton-Wright to
assume the position of chief instructor at the Bartitsu School of
Self-Defence, Vigny relocated to England in the late 1890s and
introduced la canne and savate to the British. During his time there, he
met and trained with two celebrated jujutsu instructors: Yukio Tani and
S.K. Uyenishi. From them, he acquired new martial arts techniques for
his already efficient repertoire of self-defense skills, after which he
formulated his method of personal combat, which included moves from
wrestling, savate, jujutsu and sword dueling. The addition of the new
techniques was deemed necessary because of the rise of hooliganism
throughout England.
Perfecting La Canne
Pierre Vigny’s
skill as a fighter and teacher attracted the attention of both the
working class and the aristocracy. He served as a coach at the London
Boxing Club and instructed at Aldershot Military School. Seeking better
business opportunities, he moved to London, where he opened a school in
1903 under the patronage of Grand Duke Michael of Russia and became
director and manager of the New School of Self-Defence and Fencing
Academy. Interestingly, his wife also taught there, offering ladies
instruction in the use of the parasol and the steel-spiked umbrella.
The syllabus at the school catered to students who were interested in a
variety of fighting arts. Even though he conducted classes in the
fencing foil, sword, savate and self-defense from morning to night, la
canne remained Vigny’s pet project. He taught courses that lasted 12
weeks, a length of time he believed was sufficient to give the average
person the ability to handle almost any emergency.
Shunning the
lighter assault canes that were popular in the academic training
halls—Pierre Vigny referred to them as “chopsticks”—he believed that a
true walking stick should be rigid and sturdy. Because of his dislike
for the less-functional models, he had one produced to his own
specifications. Termed the “Vigny self-defense stick,” it was made from a
medium-weight Malacca cane with a metal knob mounted on the end. The
heavy ball served as the point of percussion, thus adding instant
knockout effectiveness to the weapon.
La Canne Goes Global
By 1912 London held little interest for Pierre Vigny, so he returned to
Geneva, where he managed the Academy of Sports and Defence for a number
of years. He put the finishing touches on what is arguably the most
complete and effective stick-fighting system ever devised. Several
police, military and martial arts academies adopted his syllabus.
During the 1920s, Superintendent Henry G. Lang, an English officer of
the Indian police, was required to search for a less-than-lethal
equalizer to oppose the commonly carried lathi. While on leave, he
traveled to Europe to learn the Vigny system, and upon his return to
India, Lang produced a syllabus that he documented in the now-classic
book The “Walking Stick” Method of Self-Defence.
In 1941 Henry G.
Lang’s manual was translated into Hebrew, and for a time it was adopted
into the kapap curriculum, later to be included as part of the training
undertaken by an Israeli spec-ops unit known as Palmach. It’s estimated
that up to 50,000 Israelis received training in the walking-stick
method.
Pierre Vigny’s influence also reached the United States
through jujutsu and fencing instructor Charles Yerkow. By the early
1940s, Yerkow had written a series of books titled Modern Judo: The
Complete Ju-Jitsu Library, which served as a supplemental manual for
American hand-to-hand combat teams. The section on stick play is based
on Henry G. Lang’s “Walking Stick” Method.
Today, practitioners
of Vigny la canne are privileged to be able to tap into a system that’s
time tested, versatile and still very workable on the street. Anyone
looking for a backup to his or her unarmed skills would do well to
consider it, for it’s as relevant now as it was 100 years ago.'
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