I have been practicing Iaidō (居合道) and Jōdō (杖道), traditional Japanese martial arts of the sword and the staff, for most of my life.
In Jōdō practice, the Shidachi (仕太刀, “performing sword”), usually the junior student learning the technique, uses a jō, a staff about four feet long, to defend against the Uchidachi (打太刀, “attacking sword”), usually the senior teaching the technique, who is armed with a wooden sword [3].
Together they practice Kata (型 or 形, literally “form”), scripted sequences of movement used to teach and refine technique.
In the Shintō Musō-ryū style of Jōdō, the twelfth and final kata of the Omote (表) set, the first set of kata, is Hoso-Michi (細道).
In Hoso-Michi, the “Narrow Path,” the Shidachi is walking up a narrow mountain path when he meets the Uchidachi, a swordsman. Believing he must act first, the Shidachi strikes at the swordsman’s wrist. The swordsman narrowly evades by turning to the side, draws his sword, and cuts down toward the Shidachi’s head while stepping back. The Shidachi pursues, striking through the cut, redirecting the sword, and thrusting the end of the jō into the swordsman’s solar plexus, then toward the swordsman’s eye.