Tonfa

[Shorinryu Sensei]

-What i meant was using them as karate enhancers, like for blocking and punching with. I do use them as they are intended with tonfa techniques as with every weapon but they were originally designed for use with karate without adapting karate techniques.

 

Well, with minimal adapting...yes, this is correct.

But anoather perception of what i meant was, They have low risk to self low legal interest if unused and yet at anytime you could just, with one rotation knock someone dead, if needed (Which would almost never be neccessary) but there if you need it.

 

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that the law isn't as concerned about tonfa's as they are of nunchaku. Yes, this is also correct. And I doubt if you'd be able to kill someone with "one rotation". The tonfa doesn't generate that kind of power.

[Sauzin]

Uh...well I could see how one would see the tonfa as a "karate enhancer" but I would be interested to see any reference material that pointed to such intention in their development. The use of this weapon exept for the very most basic punching and blocking techniques bare little resemblance to empty handed techniques in the style I practice. I mean sure the punching and 2 of the blocks (high and low) are nearly the same as empty hand, but this is maybe 30% of the techniques that you generally see. The rest is a series of swinging, grappling, striking, and tai sabaki that bears more resemblance to nunchaku or sais then empty hand. Even the stance has to be a lot narrower then most empty handed sanchin or front stances seen out there. Otherwise you need to be really good at avoiding your own knees.

 

As far as the tonfa not generating the kind of power that would kill in a single strike well I guess the only way to really prove or disprove this would be for someone to try, which I haven't, but I have seen only one weapon that generates more velocity and since it is on a string (nunchaku) and weighs less then the tonfa it has less driving force behind it. Don't get me wrong you can generate a lot of power with the bo, but the swing of a tonfa simply seems to reach a higher velocity faster. I don't know if you've ever seen a video of Seikichi Odo or Oyata using the tonfa but the way we do our swinging, we use our whole body and have a tendency to almost fall into our swings as we whip our hips around. It is possible to generate a lot of power with this weapon used this way. From my observations it would be more then enough to nearly take a guy's head clean off his shoulders. At the very least I would think it would crush a skull or collapse a rib cage.

[Taku-Shimazu]

Its not much but you might be interested in https://www.ironcrane.com

 

As a trained user of Tonfa have you noticed how similar Tonfa demonstrations are to Nuchaku demos? but it would be speaking wisdom to say "The skill of a weapon can only be measured by the skill of the user."