Weapons Training???? Why is your Karate not good enough?

[Jeffrey]

Using weapons to compliment your training gives you a understanding of weapons and how they are used. Knowing how weapons work can give you an edge on defending yourself vs a weapon carrying baddy. Example: Training with a Bo stick can help you vs a bat weilding foe.

Just my 2 cents.

[tallgeese]

Thre are actually several places civilians can go to learn "gun-fu". Some of them very good. Even Paul Howe teaches civilian course in tactical pistol and rifle at his facility in Texas. Gunsite, Sig Acadamy, and Thunder Rance all come to mind as well.

At a more accessable level, even the NRA has some good basic pistol and rilfe courses these days that will give you really good and current information. We've even sent guys from the department to a few of their schools.

They are availiable enough for those who want to add that diminsion to their training.

[DWx]

Using weapons to compliment your training gives you a understanding of weapons and how they are used. Knowing how weapons work can give you an edge on defending yourself vs a weapon carrying baddy. Example: Training with a Bo stick can help you vs a bat weilding foe.

Just my 2 cents.

Good point. I did a TKD self defense seminar a while back and the first bit we did was how to use a knife. You have to understand what you're dealing with to defend against it. Its not a million miles away from standup MMA guys learning ground work just so they can stay standing or ground guys learning striking so they can avoid the strikes before takedowns.

[wildman1717]

If you don't wan to learn the art for things like weapons, kata, then you should just join a boxing or kickboxing gym. Because in a TMA your going to do kata and some dojo's weapons.

[mudansha]

I have enjoyed your posts

But the one thing that comes to mind (note this is to open discussions only) is we don't have Snooker-Que-do or Baseball-Bat-do or even Gun-Fu available. One issue is why teach bokken or Bo/Jo kata if you can't carry them on the street. I agree that there are some decent knife fighters and styles out there. One of my students (taught by an SAS instructor his father knew in the Army) demonstrates how he can cut 6 times to major arteries around the body before the “victim” has time to move. The “trick” is how the knife is held.

I recall seeing an add for Le Canne, a French style derived from Savate. This I can see as a worthy art to learn in today's society as walking sticks are legal to carry (not too sure about the ones with hidden daggers in them).

I believe in my own unarmed skills, my life is in God's hands and if it’s my time then my God ease my suffering or help me run as fast as I can outta there Amen

Do you think that proficiency with a weapon ends when you place that particular weapon down??

You think someone proficient in bo staff cannot defend himself with a broom stick, a walking stick, a PVC pipe, a chair leg, et cetera?

What about tonfa, sai, or cama??? Don't you think that someone who is proficient in any of these weapons cannot pick up an object and wield it in a similar fashion??

That is the beauty of traditional Okinawan weapons. At the time they were adopted, they were not weapons, they were common tools. Had they invented screwdrivers in feudal japan, I have no doubt people would be studying screwdriver katas.

Proficiency in Okinawan weaponry will give you the ability to pick up things around you and use them as weapons to defend yourself.

[Toptomcat]

Do you think that proficiency with a weapon ends when you place that particular weapon down??

You think someone proficient in bo staff cannot defend himself with a broom stick, a walking stick, a PVC pipe, a chair leg, et cetera?

What about tonfa, sai, or cama??? Don't you think that someone who is proficient in any of these weapons cannot pick up an object and wield it in a similar fashion??

That is the beauty of traditional Okinawan weapons. At the time they were adopted, they were not weapons, they were common tools. Had they invented screwdrivers in feudal japan, I have no doubt people would be studying screwdriver katas.

Proficiency in Okinawan weaponry will give you the ability to pick up things around you and use them as weapons to defend yourself.

A staff is one thing, but what common everyday objects resemble a tonfa, sai, or kama sufficiently to make training with them, specifically, useful?

[tallgeese]

tomcat, I agree.

It's alot of time invested in something that you're counting on somehow "crossing over" into whatever you happen to be carrying or happen to find.

If your focus is to be sd, cut the filter out and train what you might actually be using.

[Toptomcat]

tomcat, I agree.

I find that you and I agree on a lot of things. You've got a good head on your shoulders.

[still kicking]

Quoting Toptomcat:

I find that you and I agree on a lot of things. You've got a good head on your shoulders.

Tomcat, that was really funny! Of course, I tend to think that the people on here who are into traditional Japanese MA's are the smartest, wisest, and most correct thinking. Well not really, I am an open minded person, I am open to all opinions, even if the ones that don't agree with mine are wrong.

Anway... I practice kobudo because it is an integral part of my school's curriculum, and if I want to train there I have to -- nothing more and nothing less. We have to work our way through 10 levels of kobudo, with 14 kata total in bo, sai, and kaibo, before or simultaneous with earning shodan in karate-do. It takes forever. Of course if I didn't like, agree with, and enjoy my school's curriculum, I would be training somewhere else! I happen to love kobudo, and I'm not even sure why. I am very drawn to the aesthetics of all of the Japanese arts, so that's part of it. As a short person, I enjoy the feeling of extension of power that I get with weapons. Whether studying them and practicing them is helpful to me in terms of defending myself, I don't know. Certainly I think that the practice of handling various "implements", using them with power and focus, can be translated into using objects in a self defense situation. But then self defense is only a part of why I train -- I can't really put a percentage of importance on it -- so I would probably enjoy training kobudo even if it was useless for self defense. But that's just me, and of course everyone who sees it this way as well is a genius!

[mudansha]

Do you think that proficiency with a weapon ends when you place that particular weapon down??

You think someone proficient in bo staff cannot defend himself with a broom stick, a walking stick, a PVC pipe, a chair leg, et cetera?

What about tonfa, sai, or cama??? Don't you think that someone who is proficient in any of these weapons cannot pick up an object and wield it in a similar fashion??

That is the beauty of traditional Okinawan weapons. At the time they were adopted, they were not weapons, they were common tools. Had they invented screwdrivers in feudal japan, I have no doubt people would be studying screwdriver katas.

Proficiency in Okinawan weaponry will give you the ability to pick up things around you and use them as weapons to defend yourself.

A staff is one thing, but what common everyday objects resemble a tonfa, sai, or kama sufficiently to make training with them, specifically, useful?

Ever trained in weapons???

Techniques learned with a sai could be easily adapted to a stick of the same size. This is true of nunchaku as well.... ever heard of a sap??? Take a sock and put something heavy in it... a rock, a bar of soap, a lock, even change.... Then wield it like nunchaku; it is a very effective weapon.

Techniques learned on a cama could very easily be adapted to a standard hammer. It has the same basic shape with a lot more weight.

Techniques learned on tonfa could be adapted to any T shaped device... a breaker bar with an extension on it... a ratchet with a deep socket attached, a chair leg....

Techniques learned with a bokken, or oar, could be easily adapted to a bat, or any straight hard object.

The list goes on and on. Proficiency in weapons is always better than nothing.