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THIS IS A MESSAGE
weapons
Weapons are a lot of fun. But at the same time they are a lot harder to train in, mainly because of the equipment needed, the danger involved, the law, and the unavailability of classes teaching to use weapons in a wide enough range to give people a choice.
But, good news! Weapons are actually a HELL of a lot easier than you might think. Even seemingly hard weapons such as Nunchaku (Is that spelt right?) are actually quite simple. For this reason I would not suggest going into a class specifically on how to use them. If you want to get good with a weapon, buy the weapon (Or a practice version, or even better both.) and just practice with it. the mistake that people can make is that they are only interested in being taught rather than learning to use weapons. The effect of going to a class is that they will teach you the basic moves of a weapon, and make you practice them until you become good with them. If you do the research yourself to find out the basics you can work out the rest for yourself.
Of course some weapons are much better to have a partner to train with because they rely on contact being made, and an exponents reaction to the movement. In this case it is best to find class, or alternatively find one more person who wants to learn this specific weapon and train with them.
Of course, I should tell you that using weapons in a public place is pretty risky. AND illegal. Me and my friends found this out the hard way. Train indoors in a big room, a sports hall or in your garden.
Nunchaku
Training in nunchaku is easy, and you get a HUGE ego boost out of it because it looks so cool. (I'm being honest.) Training requires what are called 'cycles', a short movement that can be repeated gain and again, like a transfer from one hand to another. Then once you're actually capable of performing a cycle, you can link them together so the nunchaku flow continuously around your body. The cycles are to numerous and detailed for me to list out for you now, but if you have a pair you can just practice with them on your own and experiment. It's quite astonishing how easy it is to get the majority of them. Just be creative. After a while they shouldn't hurt you at all if they hit you accidentally. The shape of them insures that they circle around your body and when they do his you the energy continues in the direction that they were heading, they to not hit you directly.
I started off with a foam and plastic set that my step brother lent me. At first i hated using them because I thought it was one of these crappy Bruce Lee mannerism that people cling to. But I practiced them for a bit and I found that they were actually quite fun to use. I would only play with them for about half an hour at a time, but gradually I could use them to could replicate any move I saw. Later I swapped them for a wooden pair linked with a steel pair, the real deal.
I would advise you to maybe look up a few simple techniques in your local library or just buy a book about them. There's a movie of me using them on the 'media' section which might help you get the basics down. By the way, when you get good, they have a tendency of snapping off at the joints, which can be pretty damaging to everything around you. So either practice in a safe place, or practice at a slow speed.
Swords
Actual sword fighting doesn't really have many techniques to it, at all. You have your basic four direction attacks, from above, from bellow and from either side. The same attacks that you use end us up your main defence also, you meet your opponents attack with your own to parry it. It's stupidly simple you just have to practice it. Generally, like with empty handed fighting being aggressive throws your opponent off, but seeing as your range of attack is far greater now because of the length of the sword and your arm, your at (what feels like) a safer distance.
Your grip on the sword should be your right hand as high up on the handle as you can, with your left hand on the bottom. The reason for this is to get the maximum leverage out of movements, as one hand pushes down the other pulls up, it's just more powerful. Also your basic forward strike (Man - which is just a quick, straight attack) should rely on you rolling the sword around your wrist in a 'flower' motion. This isn't a regular flower though, as in it pauses towards contact very briefly for your bottom hand to come into play and increase the power in the strike.
Footwork is important in sword fighting, as you'd imagine. After parrying stepping 45 degrees of your opponents opens them up to other attacks, as well a adding leverage open their sword. More often then not actual contact will be made from moving to the side of a defending opponent in order to exceed their defensive range and pass onto attack their sides. This is normally the idea in fighting with bokkens, because obviously you don't want to SMACK SOMEONE IN THE FACE, it's just nicer.
Poles/ staffs
Coming soon.
