ORIGINS OF StickFit®
Personal Note from Andy Elliott, StickFit® Founder
Hi Fellow StickFitters,
I am extremely excited to introduce a new experience and unique workout to the fitness industry. StickFit® is a holistic, full-body, integrated workout, connecting the brain and body via challenging hand-eye coordination skills and drills, utilizing double rattan sticks.
StickFit® is inspired by Filipino Martial Arts (FMA). It is an aggregate of my diverse worldly education. My fascination with sticks started as a young child, combined with my extensive instructor experiences working in gyms and propagating Filipino Martial Arts and Combat worldwide.
How do I know the StickFit® system works? I have trained elite personnel globally over four decades, from Special Forces and Police to Combat Martial Artists and the general population, including children. The program shares the same universal benefits to all, regardless of age, gender, or fitness level. The results that I have seen over the years are amazing, with visible and credible improvement in movement, coordination, ambidexterity and multitasking from the very first lesson. The countless brain health benefits continue to increase as an individual regularly uses the sticks!
The key differentiator between StickFit® and other programs is the focus on training the brain as you exercise. What I have practiced on a daily basis for myself and with my students all of these years using my program and the sticks, is firmly supported by evidence-based studies which recognize how you exercise can impact brain health and function, cognitive skills and your ability to get fit. Understanding how and which part of your brain drives the brain’s integrated circuitry center to direct your body is a core principle of StickFit®. Without brain integration, we cannot expect to function at our optimum.
Training regularly with the sticks is what actually keeps me active and possibly alive! I suffer from a debilitating disease called Muscular Dystrophy (a wasting away of muscles). Most people have no idea how badly I’m afflicted from the disorder and have been since a child. To compound my health issues even further, I have also been diagnosed with a slight case of Multiple Sclerosis (a progressive, immune-mediated disorder which leads to diminished function in the brain and spinal cord). In 2017, I suffered a minor stroke then had major open-heart surgery six months later, due to an unknown, inherited genetic cardiac disorder. The sticks definitely helped my recovery and got my life back on track.
Training and teaching regularly with the sticks have maintained my capability to function extremely well, to the point that the effects of the diseases and health issues are barely discernible. This is not something that I normally reveal. However, at this juncture in my life, my career and with the global launch of StickFit®, I’m trusting in sharing this information, I can offer hope and a solution to others who are also affected and impacted by brain-related trauma or disease. I truly believe that training regularly with the sticks will improve the quality of life for so many who are suffering as well as for those who simply want a more benefit-producing workout which trains both, your brain as well as your body.
I am pumped to finally share my passion and introduce StickFit® into the fitness industry.
Let’s “STICK” together and get started! See you on the floor or anywhere you can train.
Andy Elliott
Andy Elliott | StickFit Founder
ABOUT STICKFIT®
What is StickFit®?
StickFit® is an evidence-based, whole body training exercise system of layered, integrated activities and techniques, in an aerobically sustained cardio-based format. The goal focus is to stimulate and improve cognitive brain function with multi-dimensional movements and skill patterns, core training and bodyweight exercises, all using rattan sticks as the tool for the entire workout, from start to finish. This neural-targeted workout design, along with the use of the sticks, is what differentiates StickFit® from any other program! We’ve put the Fun with StickFit® drills and skills back into Functional training. The proprietary StickFit® methodology is the future of contemporary exercise protocols, which targets training the brain as well as the body to enhance both getting more physically strong and brain healthy.
The StickFit® program includes the following activities, intermixed in both a 60- and 45-minute format;
[1] double stick partner interaction drills
[2] solo single stick patterns
[3] StickBlitz™ (Filipino Fight Flow Drills)
[4] Footwork drills
[5] Bodyweight and core conditioning drills, and
[6] Metronome and Freestyle partner training.
About the Sticks
The sticks we use in StickFit® are based on the eclectic fighting sticks used in Filipino Martial Arts, which can be referred to as either, Kali, Arnis or Escrima. They are made from rattan, which is a vine grown in the tropics. To formulate the sticks, the rattan is hardened over fire, to the point where it can retain some flexibility and yet withstand impact. The stick is lightweight, but strong and durable.
For StickFit®, we have made the sticks at 26 inches (normally 28 inches) and with a narrow circumference for an easier grip. Our sticks have also been further modified to suit our needs with grip handles attached for extra safety and various colored plastic shrink wrap applied at the main strike zone of the stick. These different colors, help in finessing hand-eye coordination of striking and also provides extra longevity of our sticks.
What Makes Us Unique?
- Utilize a Filipino rattan stick, based on indigenous, cultural Filipino martial art form they are known for.
- Integrated multi-modality training, using the sticks for the entirety of the class, from Warm-up through Cool-down and all phases of movement skills.
- Simultaneous tactile partner strike interaction; at the same time, applying offensive and defensive moves.
- Create identifiable patterns from sounds of the stick.
- Connect various Metronome speeds to synchronize the timing of partner stick drills.
- Utilize peripheral vision effectively as a training mechanism when interacting with a partner, as you won’t have the time to always look at the sticks for every action. The eyes will focus on a central point to have more comprehensive vision.
StickFit® Roots | Our History
The beginnings of the StickFit® legacy began with the founder, Andy Elliott, a world-renowned Grandmaster in Filipino Martial Arts, FMA International Hall of Fame Inductee (2007) and International Combatives and Defense Tactics Instructor. Martial Arts and Combat have been the primary focus of Andy’s life work. He has been passionately involved with gyms, sports, martial arts and combat training for over 40 years, conducting seminars and combative trainings worldwide in over 30 countries.
Through training with double sticks in Filipino Martial Arts, Andy realized decades ago, the enormous value stick training offered to impact both cognitive and physical development.
Andy began to implement fitness-based exercise programs using double stick training with great success nearly 20 years ago in his own club calling the class “Escrimacise,” a combination of the words Escrima (Filipino Stick Fighting) and exercise. However, classes were offered solely within the confines of his own martial arts community in Melbourne, Australia.
Filipino stick training is not your typical, traditional Martial Art. Unless you have trained with sticks, it’s difficult to fully comprehend the amazing benefits they present enhancing advanced skillsets. He consistently noticed over many years of teaching at his club, that, many skilled martial artists came in to try out the Filipino double sticks; even though they may have trained for 20 to 25 years, they struggled to coordinate the sticks efficiently. Andy initially found this to be very intriguing, which led him to analyze – why did highly skilled martial artists struggle with stick skills? He recognized that it was a completely new cognitive skillset being introduced to these martial arts veterans. He also noticed, it was easier at times to train people with no prior experience as their brain was more receptive to not performing premeditated tasks.
A New Fitness Program Introduced!
Andy came to realize, that the value of using the sticks as a physical and neural skill training modality, could influence a far larger scope of individuals, expanding to a global scale. He felt the best way to do this was through the fitness industry— by training professionals who actively are teaching the very people who could massively benefit from stick training.
In 2018, Andy put a sticks-accomplished training team together, called his revamped, new fitness program “StickXfit®” in Australia and introduced this fantastic, fun-filled, high-energy, brain recharging workout to the world stage for the first time at the Asia Fitness Conference (AFC) in Thailand, where it was extremely well received. Since 2018, StickXfit® instructor training and education for establishing StickXfit® classes is exponentially growing worldwide and in 2020 became registered and trademarked as StickFit in the USA.
StickFit®| Mission, Vision and Philosophy
Our Mission
The StickFit® Training delivers an innovative neural-based group exercise program, on the cutting edge of introducing exercise-induced neurogenesis classes to the masses. This is a new and exciting opportunity for fitness professionals like you, seeking to be progressive with non-traditional, contemporary programming to expand your career into the future of fitness.
Our global mission is to expand our reach with your help, to teach as many individuals as humanly possible, how they can be brain-fit at every age and not only retain brain function as we age, but continue to improve cognitive health. We do not have to buy into agedness and its debilitating effects on the brain.
Our over-arching umbrella message is the brain has the capacity to grow and adapt with the right neurosensory stimulus. Our science-supported, contemporary, total body training protocols are based on fundamental, functional movement patterns that anyone can do to enhance being more ‘body and brain fit,’ regardless of age, gender or fitness level.
Our Vision
The StickFit® methodology was created with the purposeful vision to support every individual to increase their cognitive abilities, initiate physical fitness and emotional well-being for a healthier and fulfilling lifestyle. We aspire to introduce the Filipino culture through our classes, imparting their century’s old training tool, rattan sticks to the rest of the world, to those who are unfamiliar with their cognitive-building power, transforming lives by improving brain health every day!
Our Philosophy | Our Belief
We believe in the value of what the sticks can teach us!
We believe at StickFit®, the right kind of exercise, in the appropriate dosage at a specific intensity, is nourishment for the brain to stimulate better cognitive function. Regular engagement in StickFit® classes delivers the ability to literally re-wire and transmute the brain through distinctive movement patterns using the sticks, coupled with multi-dimensional, dynamic exercises.
This provides every individual with a new and unique kinesthetic awareness, a focused mindset to respond to reactionary brain re-setting, and the ability to equalize the use of both of the brain’s hemispheres to improve both physical and mental development.
We believe cognitive transformation is in direct relationship to the STICKS
Sensory
Training
Induces neurogenesis
Cognitive multi-tasking &
Kinetic reactionary
Skills
Connect With Us
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