ARADOX

What are they and how the hell do you form them, I know ki techniques and this sounds fun. I though George Dillman's thing was pressure point fighting?

http://www.trocadero.com/noamin/items/630284/en1.html I believe Jitte were a blunt with a pointed tip for thrusting. The prong that ran up was used for catching a sword and twisting it out of somebody's hands, or in the hands of a skilled practitioner, even break them. http://www.wle.com//products/w104c.html Butterfly knives were are essentially heavy, single-edged knives that were for the most part chisel sharp. I believe the prong on a butterfly knife can be used the same way as the jitte. They are much heavier than a jitte so techniques would be completely different. Butterfly knives are also used for strength training. Strength training?, yeah that's interesting, I am still at a loss to know what these things were actually usd for as i've said they really aren't big enough to make for effective military weapons, but the jitte was always a police weapon, and the butterfly knives are WAY more lethal that a jitte, so probably not a law enforcement weapon, they don't really strike me as very heavy though, perhaps they may have been used by the law enforcement as a deterent or a threatening weapon much the same as the old English policemen carrying sabres?

I wonder if anyone might be able to tell me more about this, there is no-one in my area that really studies this weapon enough and I'd like advice, links, vids, techniques whatever, thank you all very much in advance

I always thought that the butterfly swords (or bulls ear sword whatever you wanna call them) were more of a Chinese variant of a Japanese weapon called a "Jitte" if you look it has the sword catching bar thing on the back, the only difference is that it's sharp, I wonder what kond of people actually used these, it looks too, sort of, proffesional if you like to be a street weapon, but it's not really big or heavy enough to be an effective military weapon, perhaps an assassins toy, oooooohh , nice stuff, if anyone uses these I'd like to know more about the actual techniques and see if they ARE assassin-like.

Yeah, well that is a shame, the idiot that watched too many movies yeah don't let him do that again for goodness' sake, er what's XMA or have I mised something?

Do you think there's anything y'know significant about these left then right thing maybe like a ... er, symbolism thing?

Unfortunately there seems to be no formal kata or equivalent and no Internet sources besides membership to the SCA, which to be honest is far more interested in ancient codes of pomp and chivalry rather than how to actuall USE the war tools of our ancestors, you woulden't think I'd have this problem living in England and Scotland where we're quite proud of our martial history but there is never an opertunity to practice thie martial traditions. Annoying

Yeah that's one solution BUT, it might be good to introduce a weaopn kata or two into your dojo, since weapons and unarmed combat has been described like two wheels of a cart, one does not funtion properly without the other, also i believe that anyone who does not know how to handle a weapon is unqualified to defend against it, just er, my two cents there, if your dojo is highly opposed to such things completely ignore me, I've been known to make little sense before anyway.

It isn't a bad thing for her, it's a bad thing for the martial arts, if people want to dance they should not learn to fight, in fact the two are almost completely opposit, I might go as far as to say she has completely misunderstood the martial arts and their meaning, The footwork learned in martial arts goes a long way to understanding and ultimately performing danceing techniques (I've recently started to learn ballroom dancing) but such flashyness and inefficiency as no place within a martial artists head.

Never bought one myself but if its aesthetics you're looking for you can't go wrong with kit rae, just google him, you'll find something, but martialartssupply.com has lots of stuff,is money a factor, coz a good katana can cost upwards of £200,000, and yes I do mean pounds not dollars, so it'd be around 300,000. Mind that these are VERY VERY VERY good quality, and not ebay rubbish.

Having said that though you WOULD prefer a weapon that has a chance of causing only light damage to an enemy rather than heavy damage to yourself, frankly stunguns are better, I do confess though that when I clicked this topic I though it was going to be about the massive old eauropean ball and chain spiky thing mace, and not the spray, still, good topic, not an advocate of the stuff myself though

As a (hopefully) proficient wielder of the bo myself, I would have to say that, judging by the kata (or equivalent) that I've seen people do with the chinese spear, that it's completely different, that said my bo work come from okinawa and not china but still, there seems to be many disagreements between bo kata and chinese spear forms, however in regards to the balance of the weapon I can concede that in actual fact wielders of the bo were supposed to be budoka of above average strength, so I din't belive that the wieght of the spear tip, would have much bearing on the actual use of the thing, that said, a japanese yari, is actually significantly longer than the okinawan bo or the chinese spear, so that lends itself to more battlefield orientated applications wheras the bo and the chinese spear (who by the way are more or less the same lenght and wieght i.e. round about six shaku) are more orientated to personal defence and combat between one or up to about four attackers. The japanese equivalent of this use is the naginata which is obviously a completely different device altogether, what flummoxes me to some degree is that the chinese (or indeed any other culture with the possible exeption of the more scientifically directioned koreans) didn't develop a double ended spear i.e. a point or a small blade at both ends, this, I feel would make for a more balanced anf generally more rounded thing tht the common zulu style one pointed spear, what would also be cool, was if someone came up with a double enden naginata!, unfortunately my carpentry skills are perhaps not up to the task of crafting one, and without a kata or at least a sparring system, I could not begin to form an actual combat system. Back to the bo vs. spear argument however I don't believe it was commonplace for a proctitioner to throw a spear, since none of the forms I have seen dictate this action, and it would have been impractical to carry around more than one spear if one was to use it for any purpose other than hunting, and if hunting was the primary use for these weapons then there would have been no need for a kata or forms to demonstrate to striking/blocking action commonly used with this weapon. and in answer to the thrown bo movement proposed by DWx, no, I really don't believe so, after all why would one simply throw away thier weapon, and if one was into using a ranged alternative, you'd use a bow, crossbow or shuriken (possibly kunai however I don't belive these were practical at all). and you woulden't throw away your sword in combat unless you were absolutely sure of a devestating strike. and this would have been better achieved if you were still in possesion of your weapon, insofar as I am aware the only culture to have ever used throwing spears as a viable alternative to the sling/bow is the greeks and trojans (same people pretty much) and I cannot see why they believed that to be a primary use for such a weapon, however judging by the samples of the mediterranean spear heads, they were much smaller in diameter than the bo or chinese spear, and so much better suited to throwing. Anyone who took the time and energy to read until this point gets my authorisation to have an extra cookie thank you all for your time and patience.

Actually this guy sounds kinda like me at the moment I am ashamed to say, except I try not to show off and to actually research and find out proper movements rather that auditioning for the majorettes like this guy seems like , If you can convince him to try to learn proper movements, and not twirl his weaponry around all the time thaen maybe, the people at your dojo might learn to respect him not for having cool weapons but knowing how to use said cool weapons, if there is an accident with a live blade, it can get VERY nasty, my sensei woud say; if you carry on with all that useless crap, how in hell do you expect to be able to defend yourself in a proper combat situation. This sounds like it could actually be a good thing as it could bring your dojo into a new field, but please don't let him try to teach anything that looks too flippy and flashy as it simply aint gonna work

I think i'm gonna differ a bit here, if you're a karate practitioner, tonfa, if you are familiar wih karate then you will be familiar with tonfa, also, I believe that sai are a very similar weapon to tonfa and since karate isn't exactly difficult to use, I would advocate using a weapon similar to tonfa, failing that of course you could always go for the knuckle duster (don't see that much point in it myself but there ya go), the escrima has a fair few locking and throwing movements that may seem offputting to someone who considers themselves good at using a similar weapon, if you ever get bored of knuckledusters of tonfa get some mandarin duck razors, (or rooster knives as they are sometimes called) now THOSE do damage I'm gonna agree that chained weapons or sectioned weapons are very difficult to use effectively, and that's AFTER you get past the stage where all you can hit is your own head

I dunno about all this 2000lb of power, I'm not really a big advocate of the nunchaku myself although if you REALLY wanted to do some damage with a similar weapon, get yourself a sansetsukon (sometime known as the nunchaku's older brother ) but the question WAS about nunckaku sooooo, I bet if you were to hold both sticks in one hand and thrust to the groin that'd do some damage, at that point you could swing pretty hard to any point you liked. but the good thing about nunchaku (and indeed any chained weapon is that there really isn't much vibrating you have to deal with if you hit something hard at VERY high velocity, unlike a bo. my two cents

I'm an aikido practitioner, I've gotta say I prefer my karate training, the thing to bear in mind with aikido is that it relies too much on pressure points, there are the minority of people (quite a large minority too) that these techniques don't work on, that said, aikido also focuses too much on standing wristlock and armlocks, for a karate practitioner such as me, I will always go for the quicker more simple option, aikido is sort of, fiddly in that there is much twisting and turning to actually get a movement to work, once the hold is on there is no question, it works, and without a doubt it will help you in trining for a striking art as there are many moves in the kata I know, (bassai dai comes to mind) where a highly effective aikido movement is used, in fact in the kata it has been changed recently to an ugly grab and pull but it was in fact a nikkio wrist lock, this is definately an art for the patient yet determined, but remember always throw in a strike somewhere at the beggining or middle of a throw to distract you opponant or else the movement simply won't work. But you WILL have fun having your arm bent into positions it really was NEVER meant to have even heard of before, experiencing tons of pain and then moments later it is forgotton as you twist your parteners arm into yet more unholy positions

Pestering You all again for info on this wepon, does anyone know a site that has good kate, preferably not video as crappy dial-up loads video slower than a TKD practitioner with concrete shoes under a lake (appologies if that offended any TKD practitioners or people wearing concrete shoes at the bottom of a a lake), so picture and accurate descriptions only, i'm pretty good at working out bunkai, but that would be a nice thing to have as well cheers again.

I've heard of this style only in passing, I heard someone mention a style called drunken boxing or drunken fist, looked aroung and eventually foung a wiki that called it Zui Quan, if there's any practitioners of this art who would like to elaborate on this art I would appreciate it greatly as I am considering studying it, thanks in advance.

*Shudders violently* Mantis practitioners scare the living crap outta me, they NEVER blink during combat and they look so calm It's just like they're dead or something, scary stuff, fought one once, not pleasant experienc, thought for some reason i wanna do it again

Question: is this chi sao stuff anythink like ki coz if it is all you really neen to know is the movements and ki should flow of it's own accord, I think people tend to put a bit too much emphasis on this subject, no doubt it works Ive done stuff like unbendable arm and becoming suddenly REALLY heavy using ki but I do wanna learn some more ki techniques, On a side note, those mantis practitioners are REALLY scary coz the never blibk during combat, I was fighting one once and nearly wet myself coz of the sheer expression on the guys face, it was like fighting a zombie or something, me being mainly a karate man just tried to puch or kick my way into his guard but something in his eyes was too..you know eerrr, i wonder if that's something to do with extreme ki training as well, either way it would be a treat to fight someone like that again just for the experience, now that I'm a bit older and everything, man they scare me

I got two kubatons coz I thought I saw someone dual wielding them once, I don't really know how to use them, I will strike with them like to the temple or something but i'm told on good authority that they are quite complicated throws and flashy stuff with them, don't like all the flashy stuff, just wastes time and energy

Hi I'm new here, hey I was looking at random martial arts websites (as you do) and found this great new thing, called itself a Nunti or a Nunti bo, t'was like a cross between a bo and a manjii sai, these are two of my favorite weapons and I was wondering where I might get a Nunti bo from