Just thought I'd say hi- I've just joined this forum, after searching for something like it for ages! Anyway, I've been training with throwing knives and nunchakus for a good while now, and I've just invested in some sai. I know a lot of you wont think that this is right but I train with weapons mostly to be able to spin them round my head and do ticks with them that would obviously be totally useless in a fight situation. Why? Because I enjoy the satisfaction of being able to do it . One think I've noticed while briefly glancing over this forum is thata lot of the clubs you attend seem to teach weapon techniques very early on. I take it most of you are American, because I've never heard of anything like that in England, at least not in my area- and I'm so jealous!!! I've been teaching myself from books, videos, wedsites and making my own stuff up for 2 years! Christ if you can get tuition over there I envy you so much! Heh heh, still- anyone else in the same situation as me? Oh yeah, one last thing, do any of you practice western weapon arts? I'd love to give western medievil weapons a try in the near future, just wondering if anyone had any experience of it... Anyway, greetings all!
Greetings from across the pond, cloud. I'm new as well. It's not just us Americans here. Chumleys from all over. Cannot find a kwoon in GB? I thought the UK was blessed with many an instructor? When weapons are taught depends on the style or teacher. From my experience, in mantis we started right away. In Wing Chun we had to learn Siu Lim Tao and the survive our Ordeal before we started weapons (we learned Japanese sword as our sifu digs it and we are typical weapon-crazed Americans).
gidday! yes we are from all over the world! [I'm on the opposite side of the world to you guys.] Our MA system teaches arnis sticks from the very first level, then bo from blue belt level upwards. Other weapons are taught at the discretion of the dojo head instructors, so we are able to get used to using nunchaku and other weapons well before we need to learn them. By the time we are having to do kata with the weapons we are already adept with them. As a general policy of self defense, we now work with knives and train a number of disarming methods on a frequent basis. We are like the UK, no guns! however most of the crims use knives on a regular basis so we try to prepare all our adult students for this in the self defense portion of the training.
welcome, I'm glad to have you join with us! But I makes me wonder why you can't find a school. Do you like Jiu Jitsu? I heard there are alot of Jiu Jitsu schools over there. It doesn't surprise me you don't have to many schools in the uk that teach weapons, I heard it is illegal to carry a pocket knife in England. By the way I don't know if you get the history channel in England, but if you do watch CONQUEST, they show a lot of european fighting arts! I hope you like this site, I know I do!
Hi Cloud. I'm new too. I'm in the northeast and I know of two clubs that teach weapons. In fact most of the guys I train with have had some experience with weapons so the clubs are definitely out there.
mig, where abouts in north east uk are you from? we might be able to meet up sometime. hi cloud, theres definately clubs out there that teach weapons. our club teaches the okinawan kobudo ie sai, nunchaku, bo, kama, tonfa if we ask sensei.
I've made a healthy comprimise, I've found a Judo school very close to where I live (I did it when i was little so I'd like to start it up again) and I've taken up archery. Personally, I think the bow is a weapon that most people forget, but there's a range just down the road from me, and after another 5 lessons on recuve I'm moving onto English longbow. English longbow is, in my opinion, a martial art in itself. Heh heh, anyway, should keep me going until I run into a hand to hand weapons class:Angel:
*Waves two fingers across the channel. Last words of King Harold; "Ere, you'll ave someones eye out with that!"
