sai flipping

[true_practioner_of Kokoro]

hey need some advice from my other friends in the world of martial arts. I've recently started learning the sai, I know my main techniques and am getting fairly good at flipping them. But can someone explain to me how to spin them around really fast as far as the fancy part goes to it. Sai is the weapon I want to learn most so I would love to be able to know how to do the cool flipping techniques with them to.

thanks

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[AikiGuy]

If you are pretty good at flipping them already, then just keep going. Speed comes with coordination which comes with more practice. Also, flipping while moving your hand/arm gives the illusion of flipping faster. So on the movements where you move and flip together (example: moving the sai from your left side to your right side while flipping it from pointing in to pointing out) will be more of a speedy blur to an observer even if you are not going any faster than you would when flipping it in one place.

[true_practioner_of Kokoro]

thanks alot for the advice been waiting for someone to reply to it.

[Neo Dragon]

As far as I can tell flipping really fast is more of an illusion like what Aikiguy said. I don't think its physically possible to acctually spin it around like the old gun slingers in the west.

If you can do it right then you can make it look like thats what your doing even though its only one rotation.

[IRKguy]

Depending on the make of your sai, you can spin them them 720. Some sai flip faster if you throw the pommel out and catch the handle. You can retract them faster by using nothing but wrist. You can even wrap a finger over one of the prongs and flail the weapon like chucks. This is fun to do, but remember it is not what the weapon is for. It's good to learn these things because you really get to know the weapon toying with it, but these are not effective techniques.

The effective technigues are not fancy at all. When you spar with the weapon, you want control, so even when you are switching grips you have your fingers on the grip. If you play with the weapon you will learn certain things. If you practice hitting things really hard, you will learn other things. Both have their place.

BTW, spinning like a cowboy should be just about impossible with good sai. 270 is easy (bump the prong with your middle finger), but 360 or 720 would be more trouble than it is worth.