harleyt26

http://www.weaponsconnection.com/

http://www.weaponsconnection.com/

http://www.weaponsconnection.com/

for the serious http://www.crane-mountain.com/

they are pronounced " Teh-Ko" like two words,We have a couple of welders in our dojo that make ours for us.Shureido sold us our originals,they may still sell them.Several companies make the wooden type,Crane mountain and Murasaki.

The three sectional staff is called "sansetsukun".There is also a three sectional nunchaku.

I would have to agree with Shorinryu Sensei a bo would generaly be the weapon I would bet on given equaly expeienced and knowlege and phisically comparable.But I would not necessarily agree that the bo is more of a long range weapon.As he said the sai can be thrown,originally the sai were carried in threes for this reason.If any of you have ever trained with a weapon makiwara you would find the range of a bo much closer than you would think.As Shorinryu Sensei said on another thread the bo should normally be held in thirds,that would be breaking the bo into two foot sections,two feet past each hand and two feet between them.Two feet of reach does not get you much more range than a nineteen inch set of sai.That is of course the average six foot bo.But with a bo you can let a little out by moving your hands more toward one end and gain some range.Try a makiwara it will teach you much about your technique and will automatically correct your hand positioning.I build mine using landscape timbers built like a cross set into the ground and wrapped with rope to help duplicate the feel of hitting a body and it keeps from destroying my weapons,I would recomend a very strong kumi bo and do not spend much on it it will be severely abused with time as your technique improves.

Hello Shorinryu sensei,What system of kobudo do you train in? Your description of how to hold the bo sounds more like the Taira/Akamine style of Ryu Kyu Kobudo than Yamani or Matayoshi.Just curious because some of your posts seem very similar to what we do in the Tesshinkan.I have friends that do Matayoshi they do not seem to stick as much to the rule of thirds and slide their hands over the bo more to produce a whipping action,I am not familiar with the Yamani Ryu system but from some old video I have seen it seems that they might prefer to stay to one end of the bo and use the length of it more.

OK you got yourself all loosened up now show us a few kihone or how about a kata.Show us some blocks and strikes.What stances do you use in your practice?Do you use hip to generate power?Do you practice for accuracy?Do you train with a makiwara so you will know what actual contact will be like?I am sure there is probably a forum for what you are doing but this is not it.Try "Toys Are Us"

Did he say what he meant by "a natural"?

I cannot speak for the rest of the lineages but I trained in Motobuha Shito Ryu. Shogo Kuniba, the founder of the system studied in many authentic styles but the main inputs to his system were Motobu Ryu directly from Choki Motobu which was Shogos fathers style of choice,Kenwa Mabuni and for weapons he studied with again Mabuni and Taira Shinken.There is not much better out there as far as self defence techniques than what Motobu Ryu could have offered.It is a system based basically on offensive moves,Choki Motobu did not beleive in defensive stances such as cat stance his thought was that if your opponent put you in a defensive stance you were losing.I would definetly check out your local Shito Ryu dojo,It is a very well rounded style and a complete system.At this point I am trying to go to Kunibas roots and study the styles that he studied to develope his system.To do that one must study the authentic Okinawan styles, the basics are almost identical to Shito Ryu, but I am getting the opportunity to see what Kuniba used and what he thought would not work for him then I can make my own decisions on what works for myself.Do not exclude kata from your training all you need is a knowlegeable instructor to show the proper application in the kata.Kata is intended to show the one training in it how to do the self defence applications from different stances and off of different attacks.Kata is nithing but self defence when taught properly.Self defence is not how I prefer to think of it though,most styles of budo were originated to use in combat situations.

My instructor has trained in kobudo for over forty years,his instructor trained for seventy years and his instructor trained for about the same,these people have spent lifetimes practicing and perfecting the weapons.I am glad I have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.As I progress thru our kobudo system it becomes more and more obvious that it just is not possible to learn a weapon effectively without knowlegeable instruction,and totally imposible by video.If you want to look cool and win shiny trophies then we are not talking about the same thing.If you want to learn how the weapon could have been used properly in a combat situation then you need a knowlegeable instructor.It says weapons an the top of my page not baton twirling. Just my opinion.

Hello I have studied Shito Ryu for over fifteen years and it is a most excellent style.It was founded by Mabuni Kenwa,he was a kata collector the style uses kata from all the Okinawan systems.It has as many kata or more than most systems.There are several branches of Shito Ryu I probably do not know them all but the ones I am aware of are Itosukai Shito Ryu,Hyashiha Shito Ryu,Seito Shito Ryu and Motobuha Shito Ryu.I am not familiar with what organizations are in your area.You should screen the instructors carefully there are some very good Shito Ryu dojo out there but there are some very unothodox schools also.It is very easy for someone to throw a bunch of stuff together and call it Shito Ryu,most of the Japanese systems use kata similar to what Shito Ryu uses.So if someone had studied a variety of systems and then decided to start there own school the easiest thing to do is to call their style Shito Ryu.Check the lineage of the style then go on line and research the claims the instructor has made.I was very gullable and did not research my own instructors claim for a very long time.When I did I was very surprised to find there was no truth to the claims of my instructor.Please do not get me wrong it was not a waste of time I was still able to learn the basics and some advanced technique that has made it possible to quickly adapt to a true system.I had to break some bad habits but it was much easier to progress with the basics,stances and the large kata base the Shito Ryu system had instilled in me.Let us know what you find out.A couple of good scources of info on Shito Ryu I used were Rudy Croswell and Lewis Estes,I do not have access to there e-mail addresses but they are easily obtained in a web search.

I probably offended Spin on another thread when I said some things about the nunchaku not being the best weapon for street use.I stand behind what I said.I train hard with many weapons and we do armor up and practice kumite with them,it is my experience that the nunchaku is the hardest weapon to not have taken from you.But I would be glad to put my authentic nunchaku training against his flashy techniques any time,and I dissagree that you need a balance of flash,that could get you very hurt in a fight or combat situation.First you need to understand that kobudo translates to :art of war: not self defense,big differense.In a war situation I do not want flash I only have room in my arsenal for what works,leave the pretty stuff home for the kids to play with their toys.Mine are weapons and I train them like weapons.No offense intended but some people need to know the differense between weapons and toys.There are no foam weapons in my dojo but there is protective gear you can wear to help cushion the blows.

the purple,or indigo, wrap used by Shureido is made localy in okinawa.Okinawans consider this to be a sort of national color for them.Shureido does still make sai with the black wrap also,. you just have to be lucky to get the color you want.I beleive the old style,two piece, sai all come with black wrap the newer three piece design can come either color.In the U.S. we can not order direct from okinawa we must order from the California store,they order in bulk so it depends what color their bulk order was made of.I ordered through Kamakazi in Spain for a while,till the California store found out and shut them down on the Shureido stuff.I can still get stuff from Spain but I must have it sent to a friend in Canada who in turn sends it to me,this increases shipping costs but some of the initial prices are lower so its not unfeasable.I have a fiend who rewrapped his sai with black parachute cord,they came out very nice.Good luck finding a wrap you like and let us know what worked best for you.You know the Agena sai all come without wrap unless you specify differently. Thomas Hodges

you may be able to find someone to teach you the flashy hand manipulations they use for competition but to use nunchaku for self defence you need a strong foundation,stances are of utmost importance.I believe if you play with them on your own you will see what I mean ,once you split your own kneecap a couple of times and one or two good shots to the back of the head may help you see why they say it is a difficult weapon to learn.Myself I would only use them as a last resort I have been training with them for many years and can tell you they would be the hardest of all the weapons I train with to defend myself with,if you meet an opponent with the bo or sai or tonfa etc. that knows anything about what they are doing you will not be able to keep them from taking your nunchaku away from you.Even my Okinawan sensei says they would be the last weapon he would chose in a fight.Learn some authentic budo then study many weapons to find the one that best fits you. I bet it would not be nunchaku. Try the sai they are awesome.

for street use I would have to say my choice would be tekkos(similar to brass nuckels)they are small enough for easy concealment but can be used to defend against most weapons except firearms of course.Even some grappling is possible.My kobudo system uses all the normal okinawan weapons too,my favorite weapons to train with would be the bo followed by sai then tonfa then kama.We also do nunchaku,eku,tembei and rochin and the surruchin.The surruchin would also be easily concealed but it is not an easy weapon to become efficient at.