Thanks to John Wick

This weekend in Kali class as well as stick and knife sparring I got to revisit padded nunchuck sparring (coach had seen John which 4 shockingly the day before)

I had forgotten how much it sucks sparring with those things

That is all

 

Nunchuck v nunchuck is fun but bruising going against sticks though you realise how limited they are for any form of defense

 

My Shotokan instructor told me when I was young and eager that the weapon is mostly for training hand-eye coordination, which I can buy, but someone very skilled with it can use it effectively for defense in maintaining distance (which also makes sense), and offensively as a locking and grappling weapon, even for strangling.

Sure enough, nunchaku do have a relatively good reputation when used by police forces around the world. And while they were banned in many places after the 70s/80s martial arts movie craze, they are still being banned in other places because people have been murdered with them (in Germany for example, they are considered an illegal garote).

OPN was one example I found online of a police force using the tool for arrests. It was effective but caused a lot of limb injuries, so some agencies like the LAPD dropped the program in the 90s (apparently too effective at injuring protesters).

 

That looks like a desperate attempt to get tax payer money using martial arts skills that have never encountered reality.

 

Well, that goes for practically everyone here, weapons or no weapons. But blackjacks, flails, rods, billy clubs...all of these have a history of being "police" weapons.

I for one fully believe it's possible to, for example, kill anyone by strangling them with "nunchucks". Or break their ankle. But I also think it's important to separate the movie fu from reality fu. In reality, anybody can be brained with a flail, or have a wrist, ankle, or neck broken with one.

Haven't seen John Wick 4 yet, but knowing what I know about the excellence of the stuntwork, and the absolute dismissal of reality, I'm wondering why people are so bothered.

Let's say they turned UFC into Thunderdome, and allowed weapons. You happen to grab a relatively short flail. What do you do next?

 

No bodies bothered simple observations were being made.

As for your test I'd put the flail down and pick up a more suitable weapon

 

I'm not trying to sell weapons training to police departments.

It was a weak video, that's all. The ankle lock could be done a lot easier without any weapons. The low kick counter was silly and would most likely end up with the opponent punching you in the head or getting on top of you, or both.

The fact you can kill anyone with almost anything isn't in question, but you're more likely to kill someone with a rock than nunchucks.

Throw it at them and go for a takedown.

 

I'd probably hold it in my back hand and try to get one really good shot in (they can deliver good impact) but after that it'd just be a liability, it'll get grabbed or tangled up and I'd be better off relying on my (such as they are) empty hand skills.

 

But a well made flail, end of day, is still a lethal weapon which is why it's banned in half the civilized world. It's specially designed to bash skulls, bones, etc. Strangle people.

That's why the whole "bad weapon" theme fails. People make fun of nunchaku, but they are dangerous. A Nerf baton is a bad weapon. A steel nunchaku is not a bad weapon.

I personally would choose the spiked baseball bat.

 

Yep even against a simple stick it has real issues
Let alone a purpose built weapon made for fighting and not farm work

 

Don't forget the rebound factor.

Ed Parker wrote about having people come to his training hall and doing all their spinning/twirling etc.When he asked them to hit a post they invariably didn't know how to handle it and oftimes got smacked with their own weapon.

Requires much much more expertise than a simple stick- or machete.

 

I don't know how they were used in Asia, but flails in Europe were used against armour. They are designed to impart kinetic energy through stuff that blades can't penetrate. They sacrifice a lot of factors that make a weapon effective against unarmoured people in order to fulfill a specific role.

Oh, and I'm talking about full-sized flails used in war, not steel nunchucks, which are pretty useless against armour as well because they don't have the mass needed to do serious damage through it.

 

Scratch that. Just read up a little...

Experts don't even agree if one-handed flails were very rare, or purely decorative: https://publicmedievalist.com/curious-case-weapon-didnt-exist/

Two-handed flails, basically a pole arm with a hinge, were not designed to combat armour, they weren't designed to fight at all. They were repurposed agricultural tools used because peasants had no weapons to take to war.

 

So we played John wick rolling as a warm up last night, using rolled up paper and tape as knives, I can confirm it escalated Far too quickly, and was probably a bad idea, (especially considering the NHS strike) but everyone soon got the idea of standing up and running away. So it did have a positive outcome!

 

Hinged flails and clubs have been used as a policing weapon in a lot of countries, especially in Britain. Seems like the same basic concept to nunchaku to me. Antique but probably pretty effective for their purposes, crowd control, beating suspects, etc. Not for warfare etc. Either way I wouldn't want to be on the business end of any solid, weighted anything.