When I first began using a cane some 6-7 years ago because of a trick knee, I walked 3-5 miles a day with a jaunty swagger, spinning the cane, throwing it into the air and catching it, just showing off really. Probably because I was embarrassed to have the cane.
Then came the increasing heart problems, and the limited ability to exert strength, and I took some cane training with an aikido some of you may know, Toma, down in the SF valley. Great guy, a follower of Canemaster training.
I bought the usual assortment of tapes, and watched some of them faithfully.
Some time passed, heart problems increased, strength and endurance went south. We moved up here, and I decided one day to practice my skills against my wife using one of those foam blocker thingies. Oh dear. She whipped me unmercifully, (But gently.) because I no longer had the strength in hands and arms, nor the endurance because of the pacemaker, to move the cane as fast as before.
Basically, everything Toma tried so hard to teach me became part of the used-to-be.
I haver tried to work out a few things of my own, and I have come to the rather sad conclusion that the cane's greatest use for me today, other than holding me up and making it possible to walk a couple of blocks, is as a mitsubishiroonie, or whatever you call it, a distraction. The only strike I can manage without a huge windup would be a two-handed bayonet thrust. Not one of the blocks from the videos, etc., works any more. Cane is relatively too heavy for my diminished strength to move it very fast. Overhand strikes ditto, they telegraph too much.
As a distraction, it works fine. I can throw it, brandish it, wave it around, and while the OG is focusing on the cane I am drawing a pistol. It is also part of an EWS. Almost everyone who looks at the cane, then looks at me and smiles, or else studiously looks away. Anyone who continues to focus on the cane is thinking it over.
I would be thrilled to death to find some training or picture book or video that took these limitations into consideration. While we're at it, how about some thing for using a walker as a weapon?
Couple of days ago I received another warning that the hourglass is running faster and faster. The doctor said they are signing off on a scooter for me, you know, one of this little electric go carts for me to ride around on. Hip joints are gone, and because of the heart, they will wait until I am immobile before operating to give me some mechanical ones.
God bless and y'all be mindful out there.
