Hi! I?m a student of PALO CANARIO (D?niz Style) since eight years ago. Also my family has a strong relation with this tradition and my grandfather was a teacher in the island of Tenerife. First of all I have to apologize, I hope you will forgive me because my English is not so good as I would desire (there is a lot of years since the last time I wrote something in English).
For me this is not a surprise to watch that some people say that the origin of de Juego del Palo of de Canary Island is the eskrima, or Kali, or Arnis, from de Philippine Islands, I did read this article some months ago and I found very interesting its conclusions. About the origin of juego del palo, however, the autor only express a theory, he offer some data but he don?t know the reality of juego del palo, only say that, assuming that the FMA was led to the Canary Islands the only person ho could do it was de Governor ?de Corcuera?. This is a logic conclusion if we see the two systems, because are very similar. However this conclusion is not correct if we make a deeper analysis, based in the following facts:
1.- We have to count with the fact that all the systems of stick fights of the world supose the handling of a tool. Every agression is a problem that we have to solve using a tool that, in this case, is the stick. So the solutions of this problem will necessarily be not infinite. There?s movements that an experimented fighter never would use (for example it?s stupid to defend your legs when they are attacking your head). So, with the process of evolution there is another process of erosion when we let of using some movements that aren?t practical. If you agree with me you will come to the conclusion that is not estrange that the solutions of the Kali are almost the same to the palo canario?s solutions.
We have to see that, when the system is based in some beginnings all the develop of the system will be affected for that beginnings and in the juego del palo and the kali the beginning is hitting with the stick, we have not based our systems in the ?estocada? as did all the European systems after the XVI century. Then our solutions will be very similar.
There?s another fact in this sense. There?re more systems of stick fight in the world that are very similar to the juego del palo canario. I?m talking about almost all the african sticks, the mahori stick fighting, the aikido system of stick fighting. About the systems from Africa they are very similar to the PALO CANARIO, and there never was the governor de Corcuera. I don?t think that is logical that they didn?t affect to the juego del palo (for example the sticks from Morocco, that is to no more than 200 km from Canary Islands) but it was the sticks from Philippines, that is to more than 2000 km from de Canary Islands, for example.
2.- The people of the canary islands suffered the same process of conquer than the people of the Philippine Islands and the guanches did get, in that process, great victories over the Spanish armies using only the stones and de sticks (even one of the great defeats of a Spanish army it happened in the island of Tenerife, in a town than, since then, has de name of LA MATANZA). As it happened in other parts of the Spanish empire we suffered the visit of pirates for centuries, and to fight them the persons who lived in this islands had, only, their sticks. That?s not all, during the XVIII century Spain made the war against England and, again, the Canary Islands had to suffer too much attacks of the English army (we don?t have to forget that Horatio Nelson lost his arm in Tenerife and that the English troops suffered a defeat in the island of Fuerteventura). It was too expensive to have an army armed with modern fire weapons, this was the reason why in the Spanish territories was used the militia, not professional army.
The militia of Canary Islands got a great fame in the times of empire and they was sent to all the territories of the empire (for example the ?isle?a? militia was very used in America, for example, in Louisiana or Texas (St. Bernard, for example was a town founded by the militia of Canary Islands in order to defend the city of New Orleans, and there?re a lot of examples like this one). An important data is that the weapon of this militia was some modalities of stick.
Then, in this side of the world we have a people with demonstrated a great use of the sticks and had an evolutioned system of defense based in that use.
3.- We have news about the way of use of the sticks in the moment when the Spanish armies arrived to the Canary Islands (there?s pictures of the XVI century) and we have found people and references that demonstrated that the modern people of the canary islands practised the juego del palo in a similar way since not too much time ago. It?s more logical thinking that there is the same line of evolution in the same geographic space than that there are two lines of evolution, one of them came from de another side of the world.
4.- As happened with kali, in the juego del palo there?s some influence from the Spanish Sword (we still are Spanish people, as was the Philippines in the XIX Century). There?s influences from de English Stick and from de Jogo do pau, from Portugal too. However there is not any reference about any stick player from Philippines, or Japan, or China.
5.- About the governor de Corcuera we have to take it carefully. He was a person of de hight society here. In the years when he was in the Canary Islands was very estrange de contact of that persons with the ?low people?. It would be an exceptional fact that a Governor teach to the people from field how to use a stick. If it was so there would have to be news about it and there?s not anything, and the people that live in the field in the Canary Islands doesn?t trust the people that come from other places of world (even from Spain) when we are talking about our customs or our defense. Even more, the juego del palo has always practised for de lower classes of society from canary islands, the people from de higher classes did use other weapons (swords, sables,?).
6.- There is other forms of self defense, that come from de times of the guanches, than are practised today, as is de Lucha Canaria. In this case we have the same times of silence (the XVI, XVII, XVIII centuries) but there is not any doubt that it come from the times of de Conquer of Canary Islands. Of course it could happen that, in the years when there?s nothing written about this themes, the original practice disappeared and it was changed for another one that was the same but this is not a logical explanation, it would be very, very estrange. So it?s easier to assume that the same system survived in this islands than think that it was replaced for another one that, curiously was affected for the same influences than the juego del palo.
To conclude I have to say that is not probable that the origin of juego del palo is in the Kali Filipino.
Sorry for the extension and, if you have any question about this theme I will try to solve it if you want. it. Thanks
