An Maide Mear Eire Academy - Irish Swift Stick Distance Program

Introduction

For the first time ever any where I am now offering a distance learning program for the Irish stick (shillelagh) combat system of An Maide Mear.

"Maide" means stick and "Mear" means, quick, fast, swift, nimble, and spirited. In the Irish language the adjective comes after the noun. 

The crests are to honor my Gaelic heritage and any and all crests that have ever been on this site have been researched in Irish Genealogical Societies. I also give honor to John who is my teacher in Ireland.

I started learning the basic Irish stick from a man named John in Ireland who gave me a great base from his family system. Since then I have been going forward by researching the old insular ways from many sources which include word of mouth through various Irish contacts and through appropriate old writings.

I have incorporated those elements that fit within the system and therefore An Maide Mear Eire is a reconstruction of insular Irish stick fighting and lore and as such is my construction. This is important as the totality of the information for the art, how it is taught and all of the techniques as a whole must be learned from me as you will not find it anywhere else. I am the head of this particular system and whether a technique is right or wrong, appropriate or not, that question can only be answered by me first and then my students as they progress through the ranks. This art is a living tradition and living things evolve and grow.

I will continue to research and uncover insular methods and bits and pieces of family arts and techniques as I speak to many people. In the future more elements might be added to An Maide Mear Eire if they fit the mold and they add a benefit to the combat, culture, art and beliefs of the Old Irish ways.

 

 

Authentic Blackthorn Stick

Training Version Made by Cold Steel

The Blackthorn

The Blackthorn tree is a member of the ROSE family (you know the symbol of our art). Not only is it a member of the rose family but it is endowed with large nasty thorns as are Roses. The Rose flower drawing in the opponent only to find they can get impaled on the thorns. Of course that is, until now just a figure of speech, we use our elbows and such to represent the thorns.

Here you really can use the thorns! It gets better. The Blackthorn tree has a flower and it is a five petal flower. Any of you that know much about the internal aspects of our Art know at once we accept five petal flowers as power plants, each petal belonging to one of the elements and animals and the last to the spirit or Naga. So this five petal flower is at the top of our list as a power plant. One need only to do a search for the Blackthorn tree to find it is filled with magical lore.

The Blackthorn that I prefer has an end that is larger and heavier than the other end, made that way by the root ball of the tree it came from and carved by the maker to his fancy. This pendulum effect you get then makes the stick perfect for poison hand wrist strikes and bone smashing hits that can end a fight with one wrist flick of a blow, not fifty. On some of the sticks some of the thorns are left partially intact or fully intact and the art makes good use of them as well when needed for raking and ripping.

Of course as in all arts there is controversy over various things like how the sticks were and should be made, bark on or bark off, varnished or oiled, blackened or not. Frankly after speaking to a variety of people in Ireland at length who have had the art of the stick making passed on to them for generations it is very clear there is no one single answer to this question.

 As in all geographically separated regions in days of old, each local had its own way, its secret per say of making a good stick. My stick maker leaves some of the moisture in the stick and seals it like that, putting some oil in the head before sealing so as the water dries up a bit, by capillary action the oil from the head wicks down in the stick replacing the moisture. This came from his father and his so it is an old proven way of making the sticks. Some finish the outside with wood oil and my stick maker also does this.Some dip the stick in oil and let it soak up the oil but the problem with this method I am told by him may stem in part from the way the stick has changed. Balance and length over the years and how you want to use it.

At first the fighting stick was rather short, maybe 23 or 24 inches in length, Here one could soak the entire stick and get a decent result since it did not have a long handle that may send the balance the wrong way if too heavy. When the sticks out of necessity were made longer, upwards of 36 inches and more as the shorter sticks were banned, a new consideration was at hand.

This style of stick fighting uses a lot of wrist action and relies on the stick having a pendulum top heavy design. Saturating the stick with oil can often eliminate that effect in a long stick making the longer oiled soaked portion now the heavy end according to my stick maker.

I have no doubt in many cases he is correct as he has done it with these results he told me. So sometimes the finish has to take into account the length of a stick, and other factors so as I said I don't subscribe to the idea that there is only one way and all the makers I spoke to in Ireland agreed. If you find a way that suits you then enjoy the stick that way though. I do agree that shellac while good for sealing in moisture is not so good for banging on the sticks. While I firmly believe some in days past were probably shellacked, because that finish was in great use in Europe for wood of all kinds, gun stocks etc so it would be foolish to think no one ever put it on a stick for showing off the gloss! I believe the old smearing of butter and other external finishing oils were the preferred method however.

One type of finishing oil I like is Tung oil, although not necessarily soaked through for reasons described. I also far prefer the bark on sticks for weight and feel and of course the nubby thorn stubs that are so effective and give the stick its character. I feel removing the bark removes a certain intrinsic aspect of the stick, as I said its character and while I have one such stick it is NOT my favorite by any means.

I want to add that any person with Irish Ancestor who does the Martial arts should look at this system, especially if they already do our Silat art. You don’t need any other stick arts but the Trumbu and the Bhata to have a fiercely effective system that operates inside the Eleven Principles and with the Shillelagh blackthorn walking stick length stick you can stroll down the street with your walking cane without raising many eyebrows as you would if you were twirling Kali sticks or flashing a Nunchucka about. These sticks really bring home the message, talk softly and carry a big stick! If you are Irish and have never been interested in a Martial Art come and see this one! Once you learn it you will have no problem slipping into the Silat class if you so choose to as well. These are stick arts for fighters who want to end the confrontation FAST without learning countless angles, locks and complicated multi step attack drills that require close cooperation from your partner to work most of the time!

Also I urge all others who are lucky enough to have found a real Irish stick fighting teachers contact us so we can all stay in touch and help each other promote these very rare arts.

Mission Statement and Beliefs

• I recognize the art of the Irish stick as a true Irish art form.

• I believe that the sticks were in use in Ireland before the arrival of the swords from England etc and so a manner of use was already set down.

• I believe that the population at that time did not even speak English and even later many could not speak English so the later English texts were an afterthought forced on them.

• I believe the Irish stick as time went on picked up what was useful from all invading armies but those were additions to an existing system that by necessity was veiled and passed on from word of mouth from teacher to student.

• I believe the mention of the Irish stick and the interchangeable sword work in many English texts was an attempt at another form of eliminating all that was Irish and giving it the good old English white wash as they did with religion, language and every other aspect of the culture they attempted to squash in the reformation and from the second they arrived that the Irish were smart enough to use what of it they liked is to their credit.

•  We realize it was an add on to spear, axe, and previous existing stick work that had to be there as indicated in the first place.

• I am adding the Gaelic word “Eire” after the name in parenthesis which simply means Ireland. I am interested in all things pertaining to the stick from Ireland and that includes early Ireland before the reformation and before the Christian missionaries arrived as well as during and after.

Why is it so hard to find references to actual Irish stick fighting?

1. All form of Irish resistance with weapons was forbidden with the invasion of Ireland and the reformation and forced assimilation, destruction of the language and all things Irish to the extent that some people in Ireland today are shocked that a method was in use for the stick thinking it was just a brute force weapon like a cave man club. Of course not only is that demeaning to the Irish people. It is silly demanding proof from written texts is also bound to fail unless old Gaelic texts can be found which discuss it that predates the ban on weapons.

2. All books that have been so far discovered cite English influence from other weapons like swords which to me only prove they were instilling their own 'take over " of any remnants of Irish individuality and putting their brand on it and as time went by it became excepted by some of the people. While that then had a later influence I believe the real insular Irish stick fighting that I have seen, and others have, survived by word of mouth as a family tradition and as such was very closely guarded, at first to prevent being killed and later because of negative connotations. As an example we know druids existed. Try and find a real druid text book from that period. You can’t, because those were also destroyed and a lot of that tradition existed from word of mouth. Because it was so widespread however it remains known that something existed even though it was effectively wiped out but for the little that remained here and there and went through a reconstruction much later by interested people as well as they could.

3. When I was exposed to this art it was a close family system that not even the other family members but the one son had any interest in and that the father taught. To the reason the teachers name is no longer used, which by the way was not the situation at the start is because he and his family were threatened for opening up about it, as well as the other members all of a sudden got angry they were not the ones getting the information. He met with the family and got over that issue but the threats became too much from outsiders. If it did not exist no one would care or be upset it was being given out of course. Therefore to me the core of real Irish stick fighting still lies not in old books with propaganda implanted by invaders, reformists and assimilators (who are sometimes quoted as Irish, but then found to have only lived there a short time or were later in the period and assimilated themselves ) but with the people, a few who still may remember all or parts of what was passed on to them as family methods to use. The Irish stick which hung by the door always ready if needed was guided by the ways and means of the locals who each developed their ideas and so systems of its use among themselves.

My mission is to return with dignity the value of Irish stick fighting with as much material obtained from folk sources as possible so as not to further contaminate a true Irish martial art. This involves field work not book work and the English were known to burn and destroy every aspect of the culture they could and replace it with their own. It involves working from the past forward and not from more recent books on broadsword work etc backwards which are highly skewed as indicated. Anything else in my opinion contributed to the destruction of the true Irish martial art making the Irish seem incapable of having their own art until the English "educated" them and is demeaning as well to all Irishmen and I won’t contribute any more to it. I am constantly searching for more information on the old techniques, the lore and the systems much as I found my first teacher John.

My search will be in those areas. Glen Doyle and my teacher are proof these existed, certainly more did as well then as the law of probability would not follow that the only two known systems came about that way and they are the only ones that ever did! You won’t find that these were taught in schools or written in the normal books but taught in glens and forests. We must accept this to perpetuate it and research it properly while keeping the ones we find alive by practicing them.

Rank in An Maide Mear Eire

Here is the explanation of what the ranks are, how they were determined and what they mean. This is necessary as there always those who try and make things appear something they are not. To standardize a way of ranking these titles were then chosen. Remember at that time we were responsible for teaching this. and these old Gaelic terms were picked.

Maister Munteoir is for the main head teachers of the system who had to pass it on.

Munteoir is for those who we teach that want to go on and teach the system, who we can later advance to Master Teachers if they are chosen to hold that by us.

Maclienn is for our students.

Rank Requirements

• The DVDs must be purchased in order, but you can purchase them 1 at a time or as a package.

• If you are in a study group and learning from someone else you must have your own paid copy of the required materials. By doing this we can make sure that you are a learning the material directly from Pendekar Sanders with no alterations. The exception to this rule would be for families that live and train together. In that case one set of required material is fine.

• Required Materials can be found at this link.

Maclienn (Student)
Required Materials	Enroll as a student, $25.00 one time fee Join the Irish Stick Distance Discussion Group Purchase the 39 Thorns DVD
Registration $25

 

Maclienn Num Aon (Student Level 1)
Required Materials	DVD 1 Holding the Stick Stances with the Stick Butting Ram Blows Swoop of the Hawk Lark in the Morning Slash of the Stag Hooves of the Horse Three Blows Elbow Blows Stoop of the Eagle Three Ram Blows Hawk and the Eagle Back to Ready Arcing High and Low Strike Behind Charge of the Bull Complete Sequence DVD 2 Branches and Trunks Stitch Step Salmon Leap Step
2 DVD $80 Testing and Evaluation Fee $100

 

Maclienn Num Do (Student Level 2)
Required Materials	DVD 2 Ranges and Transitions Boughing the Branch Scraping the Branch Attacks from Behind Swaying the Tree Whirlpool Strikes DVD 3 Both Ends of the Stick Taking a Walk / Skip Step Whirlpool / Skip - Partner Climbing Up & Down Tree Cradle the Baby Cradle the Baby - Partner Blackthorn Hedge Hedge & Partner Brining the Stick Up Stick vs Punches Stick vs Kicks
1 DVD $40 Testing and Evaluation Fee $100

 

Munteoir (Teacher)
Required Materials	DVD 4 Audio and Photo Lecture Stances & Energy Footwork & Music Blows, Steps & Music Steps Up and Down the Stick Solar and Telluric Steps Steps With a Partner Stick Sparring DVD 5 Stick vs Knife DVD 6 Seated Stick Work Blackthorn Legend and Lore
3 DVD $120 Testing and Evaluation Fee $100

Notes

Testing

To test you will submit a DVD demonstration of your understanding of the required material. Some tests will also include a written portion that will be emailed to you.

At the start of the DVD please state your name clearly and the material that you are testing on.

You should then demonstrate the techniques from several angles and at several speeds so that both combat effectiveness and subtle details can be clearly seen.

You should include some partner drills so that your level of judging distance, timing and speed can be clearly seen.

Grading

Within 2 weeks of viewing your work Pendekar Sanders will send you detailed comments and scores on your presentation and whether you have passed that test or not.

Each test is graded very specifically using the following categories

Overall understanding of the material
Execution of the techniques
Footwork
Back hand position
Flow
Partner Work
Overall impressions

Each category is graded from 0 to 100 and is then averaged. If you get under an 80 on any category you are asked to retest. A 70 may be ok in the class in high school or college for a bare minimum pass but not with us. We want more out of our students.

Not Passing

If the student fails the test on the first time Pendekar Sanders will allow a repeat testing after the student has studied the test evaluation papers and has worked on the suggested material. There is no charge for the second testing.

If the student fails a second time then the fee must be repaid for the third try.

Passing

Once the student passes all of the tests that are required for that certification they will be awarded the rank, given a certificate signed by Pendekar Sanders and allowed to test for the next level.