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Jogo do Pau
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Produced with the collaboration of Júlio Hopffer and his disciples
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This documentary, more than a cinematographic work, intends to be a record of the classes of STAFF FENCING
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As they were established after long studies by master Frederico Hopffer
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This photografs from an old album, represent a teaching that allow us to better understand a time
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when living in Lisbon was very different from nowadays.
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The suburbs were not very similar to the city houses
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this were fields and yards where the Lisbon men went horse riding on Sundays looking for better airs,
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wine, and outside guitar playing
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At this time, Jogo do Pau, exercise of the most useful for the health
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because of its diversity of movements
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powerfull educator of courage and virility, was the favorite sport
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Still today we remember the old masters
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Carlos Relvas
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Domingos Salréu
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José Dias
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Domingos Miguel
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master Frederico Hopffer
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and his son
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in the year of 1923, Jogo do Pau had a triumphal aura, blessing brought by the Ginásio Clube Português classes.
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In a old shed near Campolide, today still existing but transformed in a garage
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Frederico Hopffer gathered 7 masters and several disciples
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Meanwhile in Ginásio Clube Português, the practitioners where almost as much as the club members
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the staff fencing done there followed the Lisbon School
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different from Minho and Ribatejo because the strikes were done at one hand
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that gives more reach and obvious advantage
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Founded by master José Maria da Silveira, and later reformed and regularized by Hopffer
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the Lisbon school got its hight by that time.
With the help of two masters,
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one of them Júlio Hopffer, restless follower of the tradition imposed by his father
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and the colabotation of Dr. António Jales, old practicioner of the sport
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it is possible to demonstrate a small lesson, and what it is worth as dexterity and emotional spectacle
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the sport that was one day the king of sports of Portuguese athletes.
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First, the thrust to the chest and the corresponding parries
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in all the parries, the body never stays in the place that is targeted
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we have the the back stepped parry, then the exited from the left, from the right, the lateral parries left and right
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and finally the forward stepping parry
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and now, a vertical strikes with the same parries, with the different of the forward stepping parry, that is done from the left and the right
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the oblique descending strike from the outside has the same parries, but the the staff oblique
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still doing the parries exiting from right and lateral left with the crossed arms
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we have now the round (horizontal) strikes from the outside to try to hit the torso
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for this ones it is needed a parry to the point of the staff, that can be done with a back step, exiting from right or left.
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lateral left and right, and yet the forward stepping with the oblique staff
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also doing the back stepping parries from the left and right with the arms crossed
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the ascending strikes from the inside or from the outside have the same parries, expect the forward stepping parry
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and also the strikes to the ankle, also from the inside and the outside, with the same parries and the forward stepping parry.
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finally the cutting counter attacks that work against any strike
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the cutting can be done with step back, half step back, half step forward, lateral left of right
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and then by antecipation
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and in this formal assault by two disciples
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for the lay man, all seems hard and a constant danger with every thrust
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however, the boys of nowadays cannot forget that in this sport that is practiced
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without any artificial protection, everything can be learned, and as the knowledge is aquired
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the nervousness subsides, the confidence reborns and the enthusiasm springs
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and so it will be easy to give Jogo do Pau the place it deserves
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among the most virile and healthy sports
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sport that we don't know well why, stopped having the legion of adepts
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that had been generalized by Portuguese lands, the most Portuguese of the physical exercises
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The End
