I am thinking of messing around with some tomahawks/axes. It looks like tons of fun...but I am a sucker for flashy looking FMA techniques. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dlbC5b5JB4"]Chop, chop, stab[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrdOPUDglYw"]More...[/ame] Can anyone give me any tips (especially the FMA folk) about training with them? I'm probably just gonna buy a couple from a hardware store. Any ideas or suggestions there? What about the tomahawks from places like Cold Steel? Worth buying? Thanks.
Interesting thread, but I had to comment because of your thread title: as an American, I've never seen the word ax (or axe as it is also spelled here) pluralized as axs. I've only ever seen axes. Any other Americans on the board seen the former, as I am genuinely curious? Oh, and learning to use an axe, wow!
I have two CS Hawks - a trail hawk and a spike hawk. Both very good and you can pick them up for not too much coin if you shop around. As a fighting tool they are fantatstic with FMA - my bro P-Dog likes to drift them from a high horizontal into a downward backhand to the thigh...he is pretty damn fast with it too because of the extra weight in the head
Probably me being totally stupid!! I thought it was ax in the singular, axs plural. I apologise for my foolishness. As for the axe, it might be interesting to use it as both a striking and hooking weapon! I'll need a vict...training partner though.
The trail hawk looks nice. I might put that on my list. I actually don't own any "real" weapons, only training stuff. I have to shop around. Everything costs a fortune here and they are pretty strict about buying things from outside the EU....Paying 24% VAT isn't enough. Edit: Doug Marcaida seems pretty good.
Shame that. There's a guy who makes training weapons here in Virginia that I absolutely love. (The weapons. Never met the guy.) He does two variations on the tomahawk. I don't own one, but I have a couple of his other works. (Bolo and knife) And they're terrific. I'll PM you the site, just in case you can make the import work somehow.
If your UK which I thought you were, www.heinnie.com are really really good, and they ship from inside the UK so no surprise import taxes. Also check here re the law etc - http://www.britishblades.com/
As an American, I use the term "axe or ax" with the plural form as "axes". That short axe in the first video, I'd call a "tomahawk" (or maybe even a hatchet) - as a kid working in the woods, we used hatchets for cutting/trimming small branches when we cut wood and , of course, for throwing. I'd like a nice "tomahawk" like in this entertaining video: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8ADMTfSFWs"]How to Throw a Tomahawk | The Art of Manliness - YouTube[/ame]
Thanks. I have to add everything up and see if I can swing it. And sometimes you get lucky. Originally I am. I left the UK in '99. But EU shops are good. I think the laws are a bit different here regarding weapons. Perhaps not as strict as the UK. I'm not so sure of all the details.
I just found out that Cold Steel recently came out with a training version of their trench hawk, they are pretty inexpensive. http://www.coldsteel-uk.com/store/Trench-Hawk-Trainer.html Cold Steels "Axe Gang" trainer is rather brutal for a training weapon, you really did not want to risk getting hit by that thing, the head was really heavy. I am hoping that this one is lighter on the head making it more a viable tool for regular sparring. I have four on order, I can review them as whenever they get here.
I have only received minimal instruction in axe work, but in playing around with it, it is such a logical extension of my kali that it comes out pretty naturally. I will say that my applications tend to be far simpler that what Doug is showing in those clips, but that is probably true of the rest of my kali as well. My knife and tomahawk is more clearly influenced by my espada y daga training than what I have seen from some of the reproductions of the colonial era hawk and knife work from some of the authors out there.
I like this vid: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=gO6tYl4eAaU&feature=fvwp"]Kali Research Academy / Double Weapon Fighting (Knife and Tomahawk) - YouTube[/ame]
If I were to pick up the tomahawk for training, the first resource I would look for is Dwight McElmore's Tomahawk fighting.. He is a author of several books put out by Paladin press and also available through amazon.. Dwight McElmore is a reknown historian on the bladed fighting arts of Bowie, saber and tomahawk in the US.
The website I mentioned sells two training tomahawks. Polycarbonate blade, etc. One is patterned after Cold Steel's Vietnam Tomahawk. The other is patterned after McElmore's design. (I didn't know who McElmore was until I read this, but now it makes sense.)
There's a group here that practice primitive weaponry (axes, throwing axes, javelins, slings, bolo, bows). I wouldn't mind going and messing around with them. But I think I have to dress up as Robin Hood or at least an elf. Not really my scene at all. I have been watching that one too. there's some interesting stuff there and I don't think it would be too hard for me to get some ideas from them. Doug's stuff is awesome...but perhaps a little bit above my level.
Ok, just got them, not enough time to do a torture test or anything. They weight 14.5 oz/425g, so they have some good heft. They are made of santoprene, so they flex a little, not anything you would notice as significant if you impacted something. The head looks to be 1.5 to 2 times as thick as one of their standard training knives, and side to side flex on the head is negligible. I just tried hooking the axe head over a branch and hanging from it, I am guessing I put about 100lbs of body weight on it and the head started flexing upward, and I really didn't want to break a new toy, so I stopped. The head returned to its normal position by the time I got inside to compare it to its brethren. I suspect it can handle just about any drilling or sparring based applications for hooking, unless you wind up playing tug-of-war over something. And hooking works well, I was able to disarm my 6 year old numerous times. Said six year old is enjoying killing the box they came in, he particularly likes the spike head, it has no problem punching through the packaging. All in all a good training tool, I look forward to playing more with it in the near future. Oh, I bought four of these from an online store for a total cost of USD $14 each after shipping and taxes. At those prices it is a ridiculously good buy.
