Kobudo

[The BB of C]

At my Isshin-ryu school we cover three bo forms, three sai forms, one nunchuck form, and one tonfa form.

There's also kumite drills. Bo-Bo, Bo-Sai, and Sai-Sai.

[Erin]

Yes, we do incorporate kobudo. Formal weapons training begins at purple belt, but depending on skill level it may be introduced before then. We use nunchuks, bo, tonfa, sai, and eku. But we're always taught for promotion purposes, its' empty hand first, kobudo secondary.

[Traymond]

I prefer the angled kai myself because it has a slight characteristic of the Naginata when you do some of the movements.

But its good that your experiementing after all all Bo's have the same characteristics.

[bushido_man96]

But its good that your experiementing after all all Bo's have the same characteristics.

In Medieval Europe, many of the movements of the quarterstaff also translated well to the movements of the sword, too. Its a good weapon to learn, becaues so many movements transfer so well, and you can't really beat the range.

[Traymond]

Im not quite sure about Europe cause its not my specialty, but I know that alot of the samurai started training their children with the bo to build up some muscle in their forearms for better slices using the katana, then it went to the Bokken.

In Kendo and Iaido we learned that most samurai did not carry the daisho until after they have successfully mastered just the katana, im not sure how accurate this is because of the amount of time its been since this has truly happened.

But the staffs are pretty much the base of all the kobudo weapons, thats just my opinion but I prefer to teach it first, so it builds the muscle mass in the forearm.

[BDPulver]

Same here Traymond. We train bo first to build not only the proper strength but timing as well. Also to get use to have something in your hands since the first part of your learning is empty hand.

[Traymond]

Yeah, and if you drop a bo on your foot it won't go through it, but the only kobudo problem I have with the bo, is that I always get stuck with oiling them every month...no one else does, haha.

[bushido_man96]

Many of the Filipino styles are the opposite; you learn with a weapon in hand first, and then work back to empty hand.

[Traymond]

Many of the Filipino styles are the opposite; you learn with a weapon in hand first, and then work back to empty hand.

Yes, Pentjak Silat Is like that. You start with the wooden machete, then to the Stick then to the empty hand, the to the live machete.

[still kicking]

In our school we go through all of the ranks in weapons separate from the ranks in open hand. We do bo, sai, tonfa, and kai bo. You have to more or less have reached the same rank in weapons in order to get promoted to that rank in open hand, but this is pretty flexible until you get to shodan. In other words, you have to have reached shodan in kobudo in order to test for shodan-ho in open hand. The first test is on the 1st bo kata (bo no kihon kata), the second is on the first sai kata, alternating between bo and sai until 2nd kyu kobudo, then you start kai bo and tonfa. I like bo the best, it seems easier to keep track of only one weapon, as opposed to sai!