young martial artist demonstrates the use of TMNT weapons

[Spartacus Maximus]

It's only exploitation if the kids are pressured into it by adults. If the kids are enjoying themselves playing ninja turtles there is no harm in it. It probably doesn't take much to get a kid who already loves martial arts to swing weapons around an pretend to be a mutant ninja.

[simonlok]

Am I the only one who noticed that the turtles are supposed to be ninjas yet all except one use a weapon originating in okinawan kobudo? Maybe that is because those are the most popular and easy weapons to recognize. Interesting

For those that are interested in the composition of the material:

The bo and sai techniques are almost 100% Yamann-Ryu (Toshihiro Oshiro lineage), those there is a very short sequence of Matsubayashi-ryu strikes thrown in there. So yes what you are seeing there is Okinawan Kobujutsu.

The double sword is contemporary / creative (Kalmon Csoka lineage). To my knowledge all of the traditional Japanese double sword uses the short sword and long sword but if somebody knows something about double long sword in traditional do tell, I'd love to find out about that. There is of course double sword in Chinese / KungFu / Wushu but I don't have any formal training in that art.

The double chux are also contemporary / creative though only a single strike made it in there. It's really hard to balance the creative and traditional aspect of that weapon is what I realized when I put this together. I need to work harder to figure that out for sure.

The high energy body movements are from Peking opera / Wushu as well as contemporary tricking.

Thanks for the interest! If you do like what you see please support his efforts by sharing and reposting with friends.

Thank you!

[simonlok]

It's only exploitation if the kids are pressured into it by adults. If the kids are enjoying themselves playing ninja turtles there is no harm in it. It probably doesn't take much to get a kid who already loves martial arts to swing weapons around an pretend to be a mutant ninja.

For those that are interested in Aidan's background information:

http://www.qchron.com/editions/south/meet-the-karate-kid-from-howard-beach/article_fec1cfb3-2432-5006-a842-056c226963c6.html

Thanks for supportive words!

[simonlok]

Hey Simon - very cool!!

keep them coming!

Welcome to the forum!

Here is a demo reel of him from last year... though this has a lot of empty hand in addition to some weapons. Everything that's weapons related in this demo reel is 100% Yamanni-Ryu Kobujutsu. You can see how it evolved over the past year to what's in the TMNT weapons demo.

[bushido_man96]

Of course there is exploitation. It couldn't be a movie without it . It is definitely something to see for anyone who was a child in the 80s and 90s. When I grew up every kid in my class watched TMNT on TV after school. We even played it on Nintendo and Super Nintendo. It was everywhere! How many of us got involved in martial arts because of it? Even the most casual fan had his favourite turtle! I still remember watching the first movie at my neighbours birthday party. I loved Leonardo because his mask was blue and I thought his double swords were the dogs bollocks! Totally awesome, dude! I even collected action figures. My first one was Leonardo and I ended up with most of the characters and several accessories and vehicles. I still have them intact somewhere and they must be worth something by now.

I watched it as a kid. Loved the cartoons. Still got a rather large collection of the toys back home at my folks' place. I played the games on NES, too.