The most famous Japanese martial arts weapon is without a doubt nunchuck. In the 80s of the 20th century, these weapons came to the open spaces of the USSR along with karate and Hollywood films. Every teenager after watching the movie wanted to have nunchucks. Make them was simple enough, the main thing is to know the basic proportions. Naturally, few people knew them, and the nunchucks of those years more resembled flail. To learn how to properly use these weapons, you must strictly observe the dimensions of the sticks and the chain or rope. Having received several times on the head and having beaten off all the fingers, most of them stopped trying to master this type of weapon.
The history of nunchak
As written in most sources - the manufacture of nunchak is attributed to the Okinawan peasants, who have so modernized the flail for threshing rice. As it turned out, this statement is not true. Nunchaku invented at all not the peasants, but to protect against the peasants. In order to make sure that the nunchak is different from the flail, it is enough to hold this flap at least once. One stick is long, and the second is short enough. In addition, there is a battlefield flail technique, it really comes from a peasant agricultural tool.
Most of the Japanese Kobudu masters adhere to the version that nunchaku are a weapon that came from wooden horse. The books on karate say that all peculiar Okinawan weapons were invented by peasants. This statement is unfounded, as the peasants lived half-starving and had to spend all their free time at work. Tracking the history of any Okinawan style of karate or jutsu, it turns out that the founder of the school was either a nobleman himself or had learned from a noble person.
Service nobles in Okinawa lived only at the expense of the salary that the king paid them. And if the local feudal lords lived richly enough, then for service nobles salary was the only source of income. To correct the situation, in 1724 they were allowed to engage in trade and agriculture.
In the 70s of the 19th century, all Okinawan nobles were deprived of their titles, salaries and the right to bear arms. Began a massive resettlement in the village, to at least somehow feed their families. The locals accepted the former owners and policemen very badly. They tried at all costs to force the aristocrats to leave their land. Reached public massacres. The nobles, deprived of their usual weapons, remembered the forgotten skills of hand-to-hand combat.
A warrior, even unwittingly becoming a peasant, will try to turn any object at hand into a weapon. If the ninjas used any available items to kill, Okinawan nobility used them (items) for protection. Two wooden sticks tied with a rope in the hands of a warrior could turn into an effective weapon. So nunchaku took a worthy place among the improvised weapons.
For the sake of justice, it is worth noting that the nunchucks made of wood have never been particularly popular in Okinawa. They owe their popularity to Bruce Lee.
Nunchuck in our day
Modern nunchaku represent two sticks of wood, metal or other dense material, interconnected by a rope or chain.
Low-grade films of Hollywood directors propiaril nunchaku as the most effective melee weapon, owning which you can even beat the enemy with a sword. Any experienced fighter knows that any long weapon is superior to a short weapon, and a sword even more so. Yes, and spectacular nunchak rotations are not used in real combat, since rotating weapons are easily out of hand.
Nunchaku - a weapon that allows you to fight with several unarmed opponents or opponents, armed with knives. In this case, they are extremely effective. Against any long weapon, be it a pole or a baseball bat, nunchak has practically no chance (unless of course you are a master of nunchak jutsu, and your opponent is not a local gopnik).
A lot of modern karate styles use nunchucks for their practice, and sometimes even a black belt requires compulsory knowledge of nunchaku techniques.
Types of Nunchuck
Despite the apparent similarity of all nunchak, there are several types of them. Let's try to figure it out.
- The simplest and innocuous nunchucks are soft training ones. With their help, you can master the basics and give yourself the answer to the question "Do I need this?" Unfortunately, they are not very suitable for the study of real military equipment;
- Simple wooden nunchuck. Represent two sticks, connected by a rope or chain. Such weapons can already be hurt (unfortunately, usually the owner receives these injuries);
- Wooden faceted nunchuck. Despite the unsightly appearance, they have terrible destructive power. A face blow can be twice as strong and guaranteed to pierce the skull;
- Metal models. If they are made of thick steel, they can cause a lot of damage. At the very least, they break bricks with ease;
- These combat weighted models. Lead is poured into the ends of the handles or a massive bolt is screwed in;
- Weapons of ninjas or other extraordinary warriors. Ninjas had an impressive arsenal of transforming weapons. Their nunchucks could twist among themselves; chains and blades were often kept in a hollow handle. Moreover, these blades could be screwed into the ends of the nunchuck, turning them into deadly weapons (the ninja were generally great inventors who were ahead of their era).
Here is a list of the most common types of nunchak. Sometimes there are other patterns created by the imagination of their owners.
How to make nunchuck for beginners
In order to fight with the hordes of ninja, you need to make nunchucks. Before you make them, remember that wearing a nunchuck is equivalent to wearing cold weapons. The first training nunchaku can be purchased in sports stores. Fighting with such shells will not work, they are too light and unreliable. The training sample by weight must match the combat equivalent or weigh more.
There is an easy way to make the first nunchucks, which by weight will be close to the combat equivalent and will not cause great damage to their owner (both physically and financially). These are nunchucks from simple paper wallpapers.
To make them you will need a tube of wallpaper, a drill for wood, a handsaw and a rope.
- Wall-paper is rewound in a thin dense tube and fixed with tape;
- Then a length of two sticks for a nunchak is measured and wrapped with thick tape;
- This piece is sawed off and divided into two equal parts;
- The ends of the tubes are wrapped with tape;
- A through hole is drilled on each tube, at one of the ends, five centimeters from the edge;
- Through the drilled holes is passed the rope, which is tied in a knot.
On this production training nunchak completed. With their help, you can safely study the combat use of these weapons.
Technique of combat use of nunchak is simple enough, the main thing to remember is that spectacular cinema "turntables" serve only for testing weapons control and are not used in real combat.
