Martial arts or river dancing

[gojuman]

Martial arts? Or , River dancing?
What's your pick?
http://www.nunchaku.tv/entertainment/

[YODA]

I see no river - I see the dancing though :D

[kobudo_tob]

Those are the type of 'things' that give nunchaku a bad name.

[gojuman]

Maybe I should have asked if this was baton twirling instead of river dancing. When I saw this I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever seen and also the furthest thing from martial arts and kobudo I have ever seen. I can not believe that these people are seriously competing with this type of display. If someone showed up at a shiai or tournement that I have been apart of these guys would most likely be laughed out of the place. Not , really because it would be rude and disrespectful to do that , but they certainly would not receive high scores for this type of suto kata dancing.

[Matt_Bernius]

Originally posted by gojuman
If someone showed up at a shiai or tournement that I have been apart of these guys would most likely be laughed out of the place. Not , really because it would be rude and disrespectful to do that , but they certainly would not receive high scores for this type of suto kata dancing. I dunno about that. In recent years flash has replaced substance in a lot of competitions. IT's sad but we have been living in the age of techno kata, glitter wrapped weapons and the "Wu Shu"ization of kata (and traditional Chinese forms). And I've seen judges and instructors buying into it.

Yeah, I wish this stuff would be the exception, not the rule. But I've seen a lot of demo teams doing exactly this. And I've seen forms like these (Especially with the flipping) beat well executed traditional forms.

- Matt

[gojuman]

Speaking as a judge myself. This would not happen at the tournements that I judge at. But, I realize that thisis what has become the norm in many instances. We have a musical forms devision and this type of dancing is more acceptable , but I do not see any technique in this type of performance. I see plenty of juggling, but what has juggling got to do with kobudo.
When weapons are taught we stress that to be able to use a weapon you must become comfortable with it. To become comfortable we practice dexterity drills which invole flipping and juggling and fancy spinning, but then we learn how to use the weapon properly. What I see in this video are people who only learned how to do this preliminary tachniwue and then have the nerve to compete with this.
If someone came before me while I was on a judging panel I would say "nice flipping. Can you show me the art of nunchaku now please?"

[Matt_Bernius]

We need more judges like you Gojuman!

- Matt

[47Ronin]

Haha mannnn, I nearly puked up my pizza laughing. Looks like my old *** school I attended...........

[Poop-Loops]

I see the substance behind it. If you saw someone flailing nunchuku's around like that while running at you and screaming, IN UNISON with 3 other people, wouldn't you just crap your pants and run? I know I would.

PL

[Serpico]

That Bruce Lee fellow is pretty good. He should be in the movies. Except he screams like a female monkey. ;)

[Kwajman]

I agree with poops, nunchaka's sort of make me nervous. If someones good with them, they put a knot on your head. If someones bad, they can nail EVERYONE around them. Tho the guy doing back flips sort of made me laugh. I could just imagine, when he jumps in the air to do a back flip, Yoda and all those MMA's guys tackling him and jamming his head into the floor....