traditional weapon practice.

[tommarker]

Not so much a poll, but for those of you who do both empty handed techniques and weapons in the same school, how much time do you take to practice weapons? Some schools seem to have one or two classes a month dedicated to weapons, others do a little bit in each class, and some are probably very sporadic: only practicing them once in awhile or for several classes in a row and then not for a bit.

 

Do you practice the basics, or do you spend more time on kata? Do you practice a lot of techniques that aren't in your forms? Bunkai?

 

In our class, we tend to be somewhat sporadic. We may spend a month focusing on a certain weapon, and then set it aside for a bit (with the assumption that you are working on it out of class.) I'd say we spend about half the time working on basic techniques, then the other half practicing forms.

[TheDevilAside]

during the last ten minutes of class, we take the time to practice with escrima sticks, just to get the basics down, sometimes though we'll practice with different weapons (usually just for fun) like Nunchaku, etc. Then, the higher belts have to learn Bo katas.

[Shorinryu Sensei]

Good question Tom! We practice tradition (and non-traditional) weapons several times/month. I wish there was more time in class, but after 2 hours, most are about ready to call it a day and go hiome. Now that yu've brought it up however, I think I'm going to have my people (and myself) spend some more time on the weapons aspect.

[ZR440]

We dedicate most of the class time to a combination weapon/empty hand technique due to the fact that our system considers a weapon just an extension of the arm anyway. The other portion of class would concentrate on forms, joint locks, kicks, and hand strikes.

[DLopez]

We practice weapons training once a week - usually Saturday morning. Once a month our instructor does include one of the weekdays for weapons training.

 

Those classes are all weapons training, usually lasting about 1 to 1.5 hours, and we're not allowed to practice any of our forms or open-handed techniques during that time. Since our school is only two years old, we don't have any 'homegrown' blackbelts yet, so no one has progressed past the long staff and long sword yet.

 

I must admit, I really look forward to weapons classes!

[tommarker]

That's something I've always wondered. The Chinese arts that have like, 108 weapons, how often do they really practice all 108?