Flexible Weapons

[Johnlogic121]

In ancient times, there was a need for bodyguards just as there is a need for bodyguards today. Many bodyguards developed a capcity to fight with flexible weapons so that they could capture an assassin more easily than they could with bare hands. Some of these flexible weapons are things like nets, rope weapons, and things like the Chinese Cord-and-Dart. By capturing an assassin instead of killing him, they could question the individual later by torturing him. Rope weapons include the Ninja weapons of the Kyoketsu-Shoge and the Kusari-Gama. Sometimes the battlefield versions of these Ninja weapons had chains instead of rope. Occassionally, the ropes were made of women's hair or horse's hair braided together. I had the opportunity to study a nine foot rope when I was training in Ninjutsu, and it is a fun weapon to use. Usually you dodge the attacker's punch or parry it with the taut rope and then you loop the rope around his arm and his head. Next you throw him and try to get a loop of the rope around one of his legs. Then you pull the rope and hope you don't give your partner a bad 'indian rope burn' around the neck. Getting entangled with a rope is easily done, but getting out is considerably harder. You can even use a rope weapon to defend against a weapon, and the judical system would probably be fairly amazed at accomplishing defense this way. You would have a high chance of capturing the oppoent but a low chance of really injuring him, so using a rope weapon is good for self-defense. Has anybody else trained in a flexible weapon? Nunchucks are a common flexible weapon, and not everybody knows that you can fold the nunchucks over somebody's wrist and make a painful arm capture to subdue the opponent. A lightweight cord can be folded up inside your pocket easily and should be legal everywhere. Girl Scouts used to learn how to tie a burglar up with just eight inches of cord - they would tie the fingers or thumbs together or something like that (it used to be a merit badge). Flexible weapons really teach how to move spontaneously to control the weapon. Whips take a lot of practice and can kill people. Lengths of chain need to be practiced over and over for proficiency. Japanese policemen used to carry a weapon called a manriki-gusari which was a chain weighted at both ends, and they used this in place of handcuffs. It is also called the "10,000 chain" because of the number of times you have to practice swinging it to keep it under control when making loops and figure eights with it in the air. The hardest part is keeping it under control after you hit something. Does anybody here do flexible weapons? I recommend them because they are fun. -JL

[ps1]

In Aiki Jujitsu and Chuan Fa we learned several methods of using the belt to control the opponent. The sash we wore in chuan fa was tied specifically to make it easily accessable for a weapon and it was encouraged we do so in training sessions.

I have also trained with nunchaku. There are some painful manipulations that can be performed with them.

In the military we were required to learn how to utilize parachute cord to tie up POWs.

[bushido_man96]

I think that I would rather learn how to incapacitate someone with a blunt weapon, and then tie them up. I think that would be a bit easier.

[ryukasagi]

Do keys on a jump drive cord count? If so i mess around with my keys just spinning them around, and a Philipino guy actually taught me a throw i could use with them though i'm not fast enough to pull it off yet.

[Ozpunker]

I haven't used any flexible weapons but recently in training we learned how to use our belt to defend ourselves and capture an attacked (maybe similar to ps1). In the same training session we used tea towels and plastic shopping bags to do the same thing. It just goes to show that just about anything can be used in defense.