I just buyed nunchaku! What's your thoughts on this?

lklawson

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Forever Student, the second
There were chucks in that clip? All I saw was a cheer-leader's chrome baton that had been busted and poorly mended.

and third clips
There were chucks in that clip? All I saw was... nevermind, my wife might find this thread. ;)

the way the weapon is actually used (the first clip, which was incredibly good, by the way) and the next two completely removed from reality clips.
That might be the way chucks are used, but that's NOT the way to use a knife. I pray to God that if ever (heaven forfend) someone attacks me with a knife, he uses it the way Uke did in that clip.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
 

lklawson

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In Hapkido we do with tonfa, knifes, short sticks, guns, and some basic circular drills with bokken. But it's mainly just how to defend from that weapon, not learning the weapon. Except short sticks, we learn how to defend with them.
Never, EVER, learn how to "defend against" a weapon from a person who doesn't know how to use the weapon as a weapon.

I see this a lot in martial arts. Folks teaching how to defend against knife or gun or whatever who've never learned more about a knife than using a steak knife at dinner and know less about guns than a Hollywood director.

If an instructor wants to teach you "gun defense" but doesn't own and shoot then it's, frankly, worthless. If an instructor wants to teach you "knife defense" against Jim Carry full arm extension ice-pick grips or full lunges from a rear chamber, then it's worthless.

It's worse than worthless, it's suicidal.

I could go on with this rant, but you get the general direction of it.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
 

bluewaveschool

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I don't own a gun, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.



The only gun defense I know is "Here's all my money and my car keys"
 

searcher

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I am not sure what you are wanting to do with them, but I will recommend Lee Barden's Chuk series,
. He is a freestyle guy, but his series is pretty darn good.


I am not a nunchaku guy and have no use for them myself, but please listen to these guys and keep yourself safe. Buy some foam nunchake to train with.
 
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punisher73

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Never, EVER, learn how to "defend against" a weapon from a person who doesn't know how to use the weapon as a weapon.

I see this a lot in martial arts. Folks teaching how to defend against knife or gun or whatever who've never learned more about a knife than using a steak knife at dinner and know less about guns than a Hollywood director.

If an instructor wants to teach you "gun defense" but doesn't own and shoot then it's, frankly, worthless. If an instructor wants to teach you "knife defense" against Jim Carry full arm extension ice-pick grips or full lunges from a rear chamber, then it's worthless.

It's worse than worthless, it's suicidal.

I could go on with this rant, but you get the general direction of it.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

What is interesting is if you give an untrained person a knife, they more likely than not use the step through lunge to stab or the overhand icepick grip. That is only based on my experience though and watching the participants.

So, I think that those attacks should be a part of your training. But, you also have to understand a trained attacker and how they use the knife and learn to defend against that as well. And both levels need to be discussed and talked about.
 

lklawson

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The only gun defense I know is "Here's all my money and my car keys"
To be honest, that's not an entirely bad defense. But it relies on the premise that if you give the BG your stuff he won't shoot you anyway. That may or may not be the case.

I recently watchted the tubed version of Penn & Teller's Bull---- Martial Arts. Their conclusion was that it costs less money over the course of a year or more comparing martial arts training (paid classes) to simply giving a BG your money. I agree with that premise, provided the stipulation that the BG won't shoot you if you comply; a condition which I'm not particularly inclined to stipulate. If the BG is willing to stick a gun in your face to take your stuff, what else might he want to take?

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
 

lklawson

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What is interesting is if you give an untrained person a knife, they more likely than not use the step through lunge to stab or the overhand icepick grip. That is only based on my experience though and watching the participants.
My experience is that folks are unpredictable. There's a certain percentage that will do as you suggest, but, at a guess, only about 1/3 or so.

There's also another percentage that when you hand the a trainer and say, "we're going to do 'knife defense' so attack me" will do the highly telegraphed stepping stuff but if you hand them a knife and say, "go kill that guy" will go all 'tard-with-a-blade (random, unpredictable, continuous flailing and stabbing). For some reason, in their minds, they have it that each are done differently.

Of course, there's a another set of untrained folks who seem to have at least given it some thought or had some "life experience" or something. They're not "good knife fighters" but they'll kill you dead if you try to use the "Dojo Attack" defense.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk
 

Bill Mattocks

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I am not an expert; please do not consider this as advice.

However, the thought occurs to me that a man armed with spinning nunchaku is at a disadvantage against an unarmed but trained martial artist.

Suppose someone comes at me with a spinning set of chucks in his hand.

Where is his attention? Unless he's a very accomplished expert, it's on his hand, not on me entirely. Advantage to me.

Is he going to kick me or punch me? No, he's not. He has reduced himself to one weapon. I do not have to worry about him kneeing me or tossing an elbow or a backfist with the hand that doesn't have the chucks in it, because he won't do it.

He also has to extend his self-defense area to include this foreign object, because he doesn't want me to take it away from him. So he's going to watch for any attacks on the weapon and not be able to pay as much attention to attacks on his legs or anywhere he can't easily defend with his spinning chucks.

He can cross his body in front, but not easily in back. So I can circle to his chuck-spinning side and make him constantly turn to face me and keep his weapon in play as a threat. But he can't turn fast while maintaining a controlled spin, at least not as fast as I can circle him. So he's going to have to play catch-up and hope I don't take his legs out from behind him.

Nunchucks are also a medium distance weapon when used as a striking weapon; that's why the first video shows how they are properly employed in close. If the attacker knows how to strike but not how to (for lack of a better term) 'grapple' with his chucks, I'm going to do everything I can to get inside his circle. He's not going to swing that thing at my head when I'm in his grill. The moment I cross his perimeter, he may as well throw that thing away, because now it's a liability for him except as a poker or a short club, which it probably won't occur to him to use that way.

Chucks in an attacker's hand sounds scary, and they spin around and look fearsome. I'm sure they can do real damage, even kill. But frankly, unless the guy really knows what he's doing, he's telling me what he's about to do and with what hand. Advantage to me. I can use anything I've got, he's stuck using what he has shown me already.

But I'm just a beginner, so this is not advice.
 

Josh Oakley

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Here are a couple of videos on nunchaku use. In the first video, it is how nunchaku were traditionally used.


Here is a video how most people THINK that they are supposed to be used.

Who we secretly wish was our nunchaku instructor whether it's traditional or not.

REALLY depends on what you are looking for. At the very least get a nice heavy bag and practice hitting the bag with your nunchaku, make sure you have some good head protection in case that nice rebound hits you in the noggin'. LOL

That first one makes more sense than anything I've ever seen on the chucks. I liked it a lot!
 
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Sukerkin

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Can Amy teach me staff work too :D. No criticism of the lady, she's an athletic stunt woman, that's her job i.e. look flash and cool for the camera.

I do agree very strongly with Bill about the distraction effect to the wielder of using an unpredictably moving weapon. I trained in nunchaku very briefly in my Lau Gar days. I didn't like them and they more often hurt me instead of the opponent or, at best, as well as the opponent as they bounced back from the impact.

They're one of those bits of a kit that succomb to what I call the "Enter the Dragon effect" - not always a bad thing as I got into martial arts in the first place after seeing that film :lol:. But Bruce made them seem one heck of a lot more lethal and easy to use than they are. I much prefer a sword - at least that was designed to be a weapon from the get-go :D.
 

Bruno@MT

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Obligatory 'she could twirl my staff all day' jokes aside :D: I noticed that she doesn't anchor the staff during her strikes. Is this done only in Japanese systems, or is this one of the liberties of movie fighting, where flash trumps function?
 

Chris Parker

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Honestly Suke, although I keep getting told I have impossibly high standards (who, me?), she doens't really do anything for me. So I could watch for the staff-work.

Bruno, there's a lot of Chinese-influenced stuff in there, rather than Japanese (mainly for the speed of it, taking advantage of the light staff she was using), but if I was her (and I wanted to be able to, I don't know, actually strike something), I'd look to some Makiwara training with it. A tyre actually makes a great impact device for weaponry, solid with a little give. Does have the down side of leaving dark marks on the items you hit it with, so I use some "spare" weapons for that. If young Amy was to do that, with the way she's striking here, the reverberations through her arm would likely have her lose her grip on the staff.

So no, it's not just you.
 
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