Read an article in a magazine today that I just had to mention about a new gun design which allows you to shoot around corners!!
It has lots of pix! It was quite expensive [$80] but worth the money IMHO. There's a lot of obscure yet interesting stuff there. Will post details later. When I have time I will scan some of the pix and put them on my site with the bo katas.
The book title is: Classical Weaponry of Japan -Special Weapons and Tactics of the Martial Arts by Serge Mol ISBN 4-7700-2941-1 1st edition printed in 2003 I bought it in my MA shop, you may be able to get it thru Amazon or thru www.abe.com for a 2nd hand one later on - these guys are a good source of rare & out of print older books, I have bought many from them on other subjects. It has a lot of interesting things in it from Kakute, marohoshi, all sorts of small hand held weapons, bladed & truncheon weapons, through to things like tekken, musashi kaiken, konpi and kusaririyuta.
Call me lame but i find that many exotic weapons can be found in games like diablo 2 and soul calibur, i was surprised at just how many are authentic weapons not made up stuff. For example the Katars mentioned earlier and many variations of poleaxes, spears etc. and then theres the maul....................
well the maul in Diablo 2 is an exotic weapon as the head on it is metal. a real maul for fighting is an oversized wooden mallet. But yeah mauls are cool they smash things goooooddd
http://tfam.com/background/swords.jpg Check out the sword in the middle. It's used by Saito Ryu Ninjitsu according to this site. Looks like a mini-halberd.
You want crazy weapons? The Chinese came up with some very interesting stuff. Hmmm, where to start ok how about a three point lance sun and moon blade butterfly wing wolf's tooth club kwan do sometimes known as a Spring and Autum long handle knife sun and earth hammer rope dart others you can look for are the tiger head hook swords, tiger head shields (pretty unique to the ha say fu style), deer horn knives, nine pointed rake, monk spade and sky halberd among others. The Chinese were also particularly good at turning everyday items into weapons, the cane, wooden bench, hoe, oar, steel fan, flute and iron pipe those last three I've seen from the 8 immortal daoist system. A lot of these are just as dangerous to the practicioner as they are to the opponent, thus why they are usually reserved for the advanced students.
Here is another strange weapon that was used by the Japanese. It is called a Sode-karami. http://www.the-kura.com/items/128758/item128758store.html
check out www.gwangung.co.uk . lots of ...er ... fun stuff There was a fantasy role playing book i once saw on weapons that could be used in games with pictures, descriptions, 'ratings'... can't remember what it's called though... had LOADS of weapons from all countries.
Wolf Tooth club thingies Anyone any idea what these things are? http://users.skynet.be/chuefoundation/6b_1_b.jpg
They are a mix of a hook sword and saber tooth. i have trained in just about every exotic weapon imaginable.
Wolf tooth stick Any idea from where, what period? The general history eludes me... It's a photo from China I believe. Many thanks!
I'm thinking of a weapon that looks like a manrikigusari except that the chain is longer and one end has a sort of blade/ knife. I can't figure out the name, but I wish to train with it... Lol. Whoever guesses first gets a cookie
Thank you very much . Unfortunately, I already ate the cookie... I was getting a headache trying to think of the name of it. :bang: Kusarigama, Kusarigama...
Some schools of Classical Japanese martial arts. Some of the older bujutsu schools would specialize in certain weapons. For the most part, kusarigama was taught at jujutsu and naginata schools. Comprehensive bujutsu schools like Takenouchi-ryu, Kiraku-ryu, Araki-ryu and Shibukawa-ryu had kusarigama as one of the auxilliary weapons contained in their syllabus, alongside other weapons techniques. The ryuha listed above are also famous for their jujutsu techniques too. Schools of naginata like Tendo-ryu, Jikishinkage-ryu and Toda-ha Buko-ryu also taught naginata as an auxilliary weapon too.
It's not new, the German SS experimented with such barrels allso having a little mirror on the corner on their Sturmgewere (precursor to the very popular HK G3-rifle that some armies still use today), so that they could shoot around corners. This was back in 1945. If you scroll down on this link and look out for the name Sturmgewhere 44 /Assaulut rifle 44, you will see a picture of one with a straight barrel: http://www.carbinesforcollectors.com/slr.html
