It is recognized that the art of self-defense with a walking cane or sword cane differs basically from single-stick, for a man may be a adept in the use of sword or single-stick and yet unable to put a walking-stick to any efficient use as a weapon of defense. The simple cause for this is that both in single-stick and sword-play a cut is always taken up by the hilt of the weapon, whereas if you attempted to guard a blow with a walking-stick "which has no hilt" in the same way as with a sword, the blow would slide down your stick onto your hand and disable you. Therefore to make a stick a real means of self-defense it is necessary to devise a system by which one can guard a blow in such a way as to cause it to slide away from the hand instead of toward it, and thus obviate the risk of being disarmed by being hit upon the fingers.

In the art of self-defense with a walking cane or sword stick, the stick is held in the hand with the thumb overlapping the fingers with the thumb resting on the blade. The stick is tackled with the wrist and not with the fingers and the blows is given by swinging the body on the hips and not merely by flips from the elbow. In this way blows can be made so formidable that with Knob Sword Cane is possible to sever a man's jugular vein through the collar of his
overcoat.