Feb 12
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Tolete Canario: Club of the Canary Islands
“Es un arte marcial que viene de muy antiguo.” It’s a martial art that comes from the ancient past.
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Tolete Canario is an intriguing martial art from the Canary Islands, a Spanish-speaking part of Spain that is actually closer to Africa than to Spain. One meaning of “tolete” is a policeman’s billy club. A more obscure meaning is an “oarlock,” which as far as I can tell from photos, may have resembled a belaying pin, the famed club in the pirate movies.
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What is unusual about Tolete Canario is that the stick is grasped in the middle. With a light stick, I would dismiss this method out-of-hand. But with a heavier stick, or a club, such a method might make sense. There is a video available from Budo International. Reportedly the style has caught on with law enforcement agencies in Europe; however, we must be careful not to read too much into this because police tactics are often more about controlling a drunk without hurting him than crushing the skull of someone with a 
knife (in which case a cop would be justified in shooting him).
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“La mas brutal de las varitas.” The most brutal of the sticks.
In the second video the man refers to Canarian immigrants to Cuba successfully using the tolete against machete-wielding Cubans.
