tanjo

Tanjo, literally "short stick", otherwise known as a cane. Shindomusoryu is the staff style founded by the only man ever to beat Miyamoto Musashi. A couple of centuries later, after getting menkyo-kaiden (translation: ass-kicking license) in Shindomusoryu, Uchida-sensei went off and established Uchidaryu with an even shorter staff.
In those days (Meiji period, the beginning of Japan's modern age, just after sword bans and samurai regulation) the idea was an aristocrat would have his cane to fend off any would-be sword-carrying attackers.
Niina-gosoke is menkyo-kaiden in Shindomusoryu and taught us the more practical variations of some Uchidaryu, including defense against dude-swinging-baseball-bat and psycho-with-steel-pipe. The distance is SKETCHY; you gotta be right on top of someone to hit them with a stick 90 centimeters long, so it's fast and close. Kiyokawa and I made short work of his bamboo shinai -- splintered it in the first ten minutes, then went to town on each other. I got a nice lump on the head for being too slow, and he got a crack on the hip bone as well as a split fingernail. All in all a fun afternoon.