A bō (棒: ぼう) or kon, is a long staff, usually made of tapered hard wood, for example white oak. This name derives from the Japanese words roku (六: ろく), meaning "six"; shaku (尺: しゃく); a Japanese measurement equivalent to 30.3 centimeters and bō. The Japanese martial art of wielding the bō is bōjutsu. The basis of bo technique is te, or hand, techniques derived from Quanfa and other martial arts that reached Okinawa via trade and Chinese monks. Thrusting, swinging, and striking techniques often resemble empty-hand movements, following the philosophy that the bō is merely an "extension of one’s limbs". As in Okinawa-te, attacks are often avoided by agile footwork and returning strikes made at the enemy’s weak points.

The earliest form of the bō, a staff, has been used throughout Asia since the beginning of recorded history. Used for self defense by monks or commoners, the staff was an integral part of the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu, one of the martial arts’ oldest surviving styles. The staff evolved into the bō with the foundation of kobudo, a martial art using weapons, which emerged in Okinawa in the early 1600s

Although the bō is now used as a weapon, its use is believed by some to have evolved from non-combative uses[citation needed]. The bō-staff is thought to have been used to balance buckets or baskets. Typically, one would carry baskets of harvested crops or buckets of water or milk or fish, one at each end of the bō, that is balanced across the middle of the back at the shoulder blades. In poorer agrarian economies, the bō remains a traditional farm work implement.[citation needed] In styles such as Yamanni-ryū or Kenshin-ryū, many of the strikes are the same as those used for yari ("spear") or naginata ("glaive").[citation needed] There are stick fighting techniques native to just about every country on every continent. In England up to the late 1920´s, the Oak staff was considered a gentlemans first choice.

A jō (杖:じょう?) is an approximately 1.276 m long wooden staff, used in some Japanese martial arts. The martial art of wielding the jō is called jōjutsu or jōdō. Also, aiki-jō is a set of techniques in aikido which uses the jō to illustrate aikido's principles with a weapon. The jō staff is shorter than the bō. Today, the jō is still used by some Japanese police forces.

The techniques for jō were reportedly invented by Musō Gonnosuke Katsuyoshi (夢想 權之助 勝吉, fl. c.1605, date of death unknown) after he was defeated by the famous swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi (宮本 武蔵, 1584–1645). They fought each other in a duel sometime between 1608 and 1611, according to Kenji Tokitsu. The record mentioning this duel, the Nitenki, recounts:

"When Musashi was in Edo, he met an adept named Musō Gonnosuke, who asked to fight him. Gonnosuke used a wooden sword. Musashi was in the process of making a small bow; he picked up a piece of firewood. Gonnosuke attacked him without even bowing, but he received a blow from Musashi that made him fall down. He was impressed and left."

The usage of various stick weapons has existed in one form or another long before Musō Gonnosuke invented his techniques, but his school, Shintō Musō-ryū, was probably the first known professional school that dedicated itself to the art of using a jō against a swordsman.[citation needed]

Several traditional Japanese koryū ("old schools" of martial arts) used the jō like a sword. The added length of the jō was meant to give it an advantage over the sword. Further, its wood construction allowed a fighter to improvise a jō quickly from a tree, branch, or other pole.

Our school's forms within jo-staff have much in common with Kukishin Ryu and its applications