Jogo do pau translates from Portuguese as “stick fencing.”

This art is commonly considered a Portuguese-Spanish martial art that originated in the northern regions of Portugal — Minho and Trás-os-Montes along the Minho River. Today, it is promoted and cultivated as part of Portugal’s national heritage.

The official history of Jogo do pau is, in its approach to historical facts, is very familiar and almost brings tears to your eyes: poor peasants who were forbidden to carry swords… And the rest you already know — by pure coincidence, they did not happen to have at hand two short sticks tied together with rope for threshing grain, pitchforks for separating straw, or L-shaped handles from hand mills, but full-length staffs, roughly the height of a man, were readily available.

The necessary antiquity is established just as simply. Portuguese Wikipedia cites the first references… not to the art itself, of course, but merely to the use of improvised weapons by peasant infantrymen during the Battle of Aljubarrota in 1385 between the forces of King Juan I of Castile and the army of João I.

Then comes a more substantial claim: that the art of Jogo do pau was included in the medieval equestrian treatise Livro da Ensinança de Bem Cavalgar Toda Sela, compiled by King Duarte I of Portugal around 1437. A treatise, as you understand, is already serious evidence, so I could not resist using my basic knowledge of Portuguese to examine it myself.

As it turned out, the explanation was quite simple. Naturally, the treatise contains no art of stick fighting whatsoever. Sticks are indeed mentioned there in various terms, but they refer either to spear shafts or to riding whips. However, in 2005, a Portuguese commentator on the treatise — who happened to be a practitioner of Jogo do pau — noticed that the sword techniques described in the text bear a strong resemblance to the methods of stick use in Jogo do pau: in both cases, wide circular strikes are employed, as well as vertical downward blows from above.

The commentator reasonably assumed that, since peasants were not allowed swords, they adapted sticks instead and swung them in the same manner as King Duarte — from side to side and from top to bottom — which he happily reported to fellow practitioners of the national art.

More serious sources, however, cautiously note that the true origins of Jogo do pau remain unknown.

If we separate fact from fiction, the following can be established with confidence. Sticks, as probably everywhere in the world, were used by fighters in Portuguese guerrilla units resisting French forces during the Napoleonic Wars. But far more information about the use of sticks in Portugal — again, as elsewhere in the world — relates to the activities of robbers.

What truly deserves attention are the numerous references, including those found in novels, to spirited popular entertainments involving mass stick fights, known as “fairground clearances,” as well as to the poor reputation earned by those who participated in such activities.

Most likely, it is within this historical framework that Jogo do pau should be understood — an art practiced in Portugal, if not since the Middle Ages as often claimed, then certainly since the Early Modern period, the era of, ahem, the Great Geographical Discoveries.

It is telling that the old Jogo do pau system specifically emphasized fighting multiple opponents across a full 360 degrees — something highly characteristic of genuine battlefield arts.

In the nineteenth century, the art was brought from northern Portugal to Lisbon, where it was blended with sabre fencing and transformed into a more demonstrational discipline, while gradually losing its original emphasis on dealing with multiple opponents. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, Jogo do pau masters were in high demand and earned substantial income from teaching.

By the late 1970s, only a handful of elderly masters remained in Portugal, many of whom had not practiced for decades. But, as so often happens, the situation was saved by a young and passionate practitioner, Nuno Russo. After studying the remnants of the old masters’ knowledge, he restored the art’s focus on fighting multiple opponents, improved the technical system by developing a new methodology, and thereby preserved this traditional heritage.

From a historical perspective, researchers have cautiously pointed out that despite the claimed Portuguese-Spanish origin and the cultivation of the art in Minho and Trás-os-Montes, nothing comparable to Jogo do pau is found in neighboring Galicia in Spain, despite its closely related linguistic and cultural ties.

Yet something very similar can indeed be found 8,000 kilometers away from Portugal — in places where the Portuguese, including those very peasant infantrymen, maintained a presence for more than five centuries.

In the Portuguese video, pay attention to the way the practitioner exits an attack using spinning jumps. In the second video, it becomes clear just how much richer and more technically sophisticated the original system is.