Bastone Napoletano - an Italian fighting method

This method lays not much focus on the honor duel but mostly on self defense, wich was a fairly needed skill of a south italian carter("carretiere") in the 19th century. Most of the time alone in the backlands, they had to develop fighting skills with their common tools:various sticks, the knife and the whip, to protect themselfes and for defending their precious goods from the continuous attacks of bandits.

Due to the fact that the practioner was a hardworking man who could not spend much time for training or going through a complex long-time warrior education, those methods had to be funcional, simple and universal. These attributes make those arts so fascinating until now, because only battle-proved techniques survied and all unnecessary or complex ornaments had been removed.

This style was born somewhere in the rural area of Campania, Province of Naples, Benevento and Avellino, taught individually and fragmentary over centuries until it was systematized and standardized, after a over 10 years journey of research and studying almost every still existing martial art tradition in south Italy, to compare the methods and get a deeper understanding of the art.