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Espada Y daga is Filipino for Sword and Knife or long and short referring to fighting / training using the sword or stick and knife together. Long and short stick is the early training stages for sword and knife. This is advanced training after basics of single stick striking and countering skills are learned. There are twelve angles of attack in most Filipino systems and about five types of counters per strike. The student should be skillful at angles one through five and three to five counters; and have knife striking angles and knife defenses empty hands and knife to knife before starting Espada y Daga. Basically this training will allow the student to not only counter and move but manipulate the opponents body, do single and double holds and single and double disarms and tie ups. Basically if skilled in Espada Y Daga you would be skilled at double stick or use of two of any weapon or any combinations of weapons as well as sword or staff or spear and shield. You can imagine the hand skills one would have to have to be skilled at this level.
In most cultures having great expertise with swords including England, Spain, France the sword is backed up or supported if you will by a knife, long knife or shorter sword. Such is true also in the Philippines, in fact two sword fighting, two stick fighting, two knives fighting two is more about the two simotanious lines of attack then the lengths. But the lengths and where and what edges are sharp does cause adjustments in answering the attacks. There are single line capture or tie ups trapping the sword/ stick and now in Espada Y Daga or two stick there are double tie ups and disarms.
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