Nunchaku insights

[HanshiClayton]

I don't know what kind of nunchaku insights you might want to share. Anything is fair.

As I said in Shotokan's Secret, Expanded Edition, I really don't believe that the nunchaku was present in classical Okinawa at all. There is no evidence of its existance prior to about 1920. It was never a weapon. It is a juggling toy.

And juggling it is a lot of fun. No doubt of that. Right up to the moment when you crack yourself in the skull, or knee, or elbow with it. That really hurts.

Nunchaku interact badly with fluorescent light fixtures.

And mirrors.

And on one occasion, I created the sound of a high-speed train wreck by whirling the nunchaku above my head and stepping backward into a set of aluminum wind chimes.

Nunchaku come in different lengths. The smaller nunchaku spin faster than the big ones. However, if you are a big guy with a few extra pounds, the little nunchaku can't reach around your body to the place where your other hand is waiting to catch it. You have to use the big, slow nunchaku instead.

In California, at least, the laws against nunchaku are so florid that you can be arrested for tying any two sticks together with a bit of string. Presumably you could tie a bundle of sticks together and be guilty of multiple offenses.

If you swing a nunchaku at a heavy bag, the stick rebounds off the bag and hits your wrist. Some weapon. It bites the hand that feeds it!

But it is fun, and it looked so cool when Bruce Lee used it in Enter the Dragon.

[milmascaras2]

From my experience, the weapons construction plays a significant role in it's usage. A six inch chain and a pair of metal hollow rods with a swivel, has more follow through than lightweight materials, such as wood and cord, reducing the rebounding effect when hitting somthng solid. The PR24 baton is a much more useful weapon by far.