Karate weapons: Just for fun or practical?

[ShadowGoomba]

While I find sword training fun and interesting, I would hardly consider carrying a sword around for self defense. Is there any modern validity of karate weapons(unless you go to the grocery with your trusty Sai by your side)? Or are they just for looks/fun/tradition?

[Shorin Ryuu]

This issue comes up a lot, I'm feeling lazy right now, so I'll just give a brief justification. I usually stick to the "jackie chan" defense, meaning that he can use anything as a weapon even though he hasn't trained it table fu or shopping cart fist. Weapons training teaches you to be able to use and defend against weapons. It also lets you use these principles to use and defend against other random objects with similar characteristics. And of course there are physical benefits as well (coordination, strength, the like). Any good weapons teacher will teach you grappling with the weapon (as there is more to a weapon than just hitting and parrying), and principles will transfer to and from empty hand to weapons use. In short: you can learn a whole lot from weapons training.

 

To be honest, I do them for both reasons.

[ShadowGoomba]

true, you can easily use keys, chairs, even pepper(for blinding opponets during those all too common restraunt brawls). But those are not MA weapons.

[Shorin Ryuu]

Those weren't the ones I had in mind specifically, but even stuff like keys...you ever train with the tekko?

 

Anything relatively cylindrical will benefit from bo, jo or nitonbo (they differ only in length) training. That could be a pipe, a bat, broom, anything of that nature.

 

nunchaku=belt, jacket, the like (use more of the practical grappling applications as opposed to the flashy movie stuff)

 

Sai - Shorter, cylindrical objects.

 

Kama - a lot of things. The kama has a lot of weapons principles embedded in it due to the perpendicular cutting surface (in relation to the handle) that make it pretty multi-use. Therefore the principles can be applied to shorter objects with or without a perpendicular part at the end.

 

And so on...

 

The issue isn't specific MA weapons (that's focusing too much on technique) but characteristics (that you can manipulate because you know weapons principles). As usual, I go back to my techniques vs. principles soapbox...

 

I also think a lot of those weapons really force you to employ both hands, if you don't already, in your fighting. If you do, it increases that even further.

 

Another benefit in my mind is that practicing with weapon to weapon or weapon to body contact increases your ability to sense changes in body momentum/position/mechanics in yourself and your opponent, as you have to sense through the weapon in addition to your own body...

 

Bleh, you got me into discussing this deeper than I intended...

[ZR440]

As the old saying goes, weapons are just an extension of the hand/arm. Especially in Filipino MA. Yeah, some weapons aren't too practical or legal to carry, but knowing the concepts are what's important.

[Rotten Head Fok]

IMO weapons from the martial arts realm will always be practical weather we are allowed to carry them out in public is another question. I worry about my own weapons training in that I'll not take it serious enough.

[gcav]

I agree with the above posts. Of course you can't walk down the street with a sword on your back or chucks stuck in your belt. But the techinques you learn from those weapons can be used by everyday objects that are readily available. So in that aspect, traditional weapons training is viable to todays MA students.

[delta1]

What most of you are saying, in a nutshell, is that the principles learned in training traditional weapons can be transfered to improvised and/or modern weapons. I agree with that. Further, the principles used in weapons and empty hands are interchangeable. Weapons generally add extension and points of articulation, but those only enhance effectiveness, they don't change principles.