Dictionary:
nun·cha·ku (nən-chä'kū)  or nun·chuck
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[Okinawan Japanese, probably from Chinese (Taiwanese) neng-cak, type of farm implement, equivalent to Chinese (Mandarin) liѡng, two, paired + Chinese (Mandarin) záo, to dig, digger.]
| Word Origins: nunchaku |
How do you arm yourself when you're disarmed? How do you defend yourself when you cant even have a knife around the house? For several hundred years, the people of Okinawa needed to find answers to those questions. It is said that under the Ryukyu Kingdom, which began in the fifteenth century, only soldiers and nobles were allowed to carry weapons. Under Japanese rule, which began in 1609, even iron household tools were supposedly prohibited. Each village was allowed only one knife, which was kept at the town square and lent for short periods to individual households. How could citizens defend against robbers and worse?
Their response, we are told, was to fight barehanded (a skill that developed into today's karate) or make weapons out of household implements. They learned to fight with a staff (bo), a sickle (kama), even the handle of a millstone (tonfa). And then there was the lowly nunchaku, two curved sticks tied together as the bit for a horse. The descendant of the original nunchaku, now made of straight rather than curved wood, has become one of the major martial arts weapons. In the 1970s Chinese-American actor Bruce Lee spread its popularity far beyond Japan and east Asia, demonstrating in his action movies the awesome efficacy of nunchaku in the hands of a skilled fighter. The word was used in English as early as 1970.
The nunchaku has advantages over the traditional police baton, not the least that it's folded over and thus easier to carry. In the United States, more than two hundred police departments now use the Orcutt Police Nunchaku system, developed by police sergeant Kevin Orcutt in the 1980s.
Okinawan is spoken by about 900,000 people on Okinawa and the other Ryukyu Islands to the south of Japan. Though Okinawa, now a Japanese possession, has early historical ties to China, its language is closely related to Japanese, not Chinese, and belongs to the Japanese-Okinawan branch of the Korean-Japanese-Okinawan language family. No other Okinawan words are widely used in English.
| Wikipedia: Nunchaku |
Nunchaku (ヌンチャク, 双節棍, English spelling variants include numchucks, nunchucks, chucks, chain sticks) is a traditional weapon of the Okinawan kobudō weapons set and consists of two sticks connected at their ends with a short chain or rope.
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The word nunchaku comes from nun (ヌン), meaning "twin" and shaku (尺), the approximate length of each arm of the nunchaku.[citation needed]
The popular belief is that the nunchaku was originally a short Southeast Asian flail used to thresh rice or soybeans (that is, separate the grain from the husk). It is possible that it was developed in response to the moratorium on edged weaponry under the Satsuma daimyo after invading Okinawa in the 17th century, and that the weapon was most likely conceived and used exclusively for that end, as the configuration of actual flails and bits are unwieldy for use as a weapon. Also, peasant farmers were forbidden conventional weaponry such as arrows or blades so they improvised using only what they had available, farm tools such as the sickle.
However, it seems that mythology surrounding the origins of nunchaku has little historical accuracy. Unlike Okinawan rice flail (utzu), original nunchaku had curved arms, resembling an Okinawan horse bit (muge), which gave rise to the theory that nunchaku was originally a horse bridle.[1] Yet another theory asserts that it was adapted from an instrument carried by the village night watch, made of two blocks of wood joined by cord. The night watch would hit the blocks of wood together to attract people's attention and then warn them about fires and other dangers.[2] On the other hand, associating nunchaku and other kobudo weapons with rebellious peasants is probably a part of romantic imagery. Martial arts on Okinawa were practiced exclusively by aristocracy (kazoku) and "serving nobles" (shizoku (士族)), and commoners (heimin (へいみん)) were prohibited to do so. Furthermore, Okinawan disarmament was never total; nobles were still allowed to carry their swords and members of the royal family and princes were even allowed to have rifles for hunting.[1]
Whatever its origins were, nunchaku was probably not a popular weapon, since there's no known traditional nunchaku kata. This was possibly a result of its lack of efficiency against weapons such as sword and staff.[3]
A nunchaku is two sections of wood connected by a cord or chain, though variants may include additional sections of wood and chain. Chinese nunchaku tend to be rounded, whereas the Okinawan version has an octagonal cross-section (allowing one edge of the nunchaku to make contact on the target increasing the damage inflicted). The ideal length of each piece should be long enough to protect the forearm when held in a high grip near the top of the shaft. Traditionally both ends are of equal length, although asymmetrical nunchaku exist. The ideal length for the connecting rope/chain is just enough to allow the user to lay it over his or her palm , with the sticks hanging comfortably and perpendicular to the ground. Weight balance is extremely important; cheaper or gimmicky nunchaku (such as glow-in-the-dark ones) are often not properly balanced, which prevents the artist from doing the more advanced and flashier 'low-grip' moves, such as overhand twirls. The weight should be balanced towards the outer edges of the sticks for maximum ease and control of the swing arcs.
The traditional nunchaku is made from a strong, flexible hardwood such as oak, loquat or pasania. Originally, the wood would be submerged in mud for several years, where lack of oxygen and optimal acidity prevented rotting and caused the wood to harden. The rope is made from horsehair. Finally, the wood is very finely sanded and rubbed with an oil or stain for preservation. Today, such nunchaku are often varnished or painted for display purposes. This practice tends to reduce the grip and make the weapon harder to handle, and so is not advised for a combat weapon.
The modern nunchaku can be made from any suitable material: from wood, metal, or almost any plastic, fiberglass or metal material, commonly covered with foam to prevent self-injury or the injury of others. It is not uncommon to see modern nunchaku made from light metals such as aluminum. Modern equivalents of the rope are nylon cord or metal chains on ball bearing joints. Simple nunchaku may be easily constructed from wooden dowels and a short length of chain.
The Nunchaku-Do sport, governed by the World Nunchaku Association, promotes black and yellow Styrofoam nunchaku. Unlike readily available plastic training nunchaku, the ones they promote are properly balanced.
There are some alternative nunchaku, made solely for sporting such as:
There are also some types of nunchaku with no sportive use noted, such as:
The most common martial arts to use nunchaku are the Okinawan martial arts such as some forms of karate/kobudo, but some Eskrima systems also teach practitioners to use nunchaku. For its part, Taekwondo teaches how to use one and two nunchaku. Nunchaku is a part of weapons training in Hapkido. The styles of these arts are rather different; the traditional Okinawan arts use the sticks primarily to grip and lock, while the Filipino arts use the sticks primarily for striking, while Taekwondo and Hapkido teach a little bit of both.
Bruce Lee, a Wing Chun and later Jeet Kune Do practitioner, was the most influential figure in making nunchaku popular around the world. Note that there is a difference between Bruce Lee's two-section staff (mostly known as nunchaku, but it is not). The two-section staff is derived from the three-section staff (traditional weapon); its chain is a bit longer than the nunchaku. The way of holding the sticks are a bit different. Bruce Lee's flashy and fluid style was emulated by a number of Wushu practitioners, which gave rise to a distinctive Chinese style represented by masters such as Li Yancai.[6]
There are some nunchaku disciplines that combine nunchaku with unarmed techniques:
In the early 80s, Kevin D. Orcutt, an American police sergeant, holder of a black belt in Jukado, developed the OPN (Orcutt Police Nunchaku) system[citation needed]. Since then some American law enforcement agencies employ the Nunchaku as a control weapon[citation needed] instead of a straight baton, tonfa or side-handle baton, also adapted from the Kobudo weapons family. This system emphasises only a small subset of the nunchaku techniques, for speedier training[citation needed].
Nunchaku training has been noted to increase hand speed, correct posture, and condition the hands of the practitioner.
Freestyle nunchaku is a modern style of performance art using the nunchaku as a visual tool rather than as a weapon. With the growing prevalence of the Internet the availability of nunchaku has increased greatly, combining this with the popularity of YouTube and other video sharing sites many people have become interested in learning how to use the weapons for freestyle displays. Freestyle is one discipline of competition held by the World Nunchaku Association. Some styles of modern martial arts teach the use of nunchaku as it may help students improve their reflexes, hand control, and other skills.
Since the 1980s, there have been various international sportive associations that organise the use of nunchaku as a contact sport.[9][10] Current associations usually hold semi-contact fights where severe strikes are prohibited as opposed to contact fights. Full-Nunch matches, on the other hand, are limitations-free on the severity of strikes and KO is permissible.[11]
Possession of nunchaku is illegal in a number of countries including Belgium, Germany, Norway, Canada,[15] and Spain. In the United Kingdom it is legal to own for martial arts purposes, although public possession is not allowed unless transporting between a place of training and a private address; its usage was, in the 1990s, censored from broadcasts of American children's TV shows, such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.[citation needed] The UK version of the Soul Blade videogame was also edited, replacing a character's nunchaku with a three-sectioned staff. In Hong Kong, it is illegal to possess metal or wooden nunchaku connected by a chain. It can be possessed by obtaining a license from the police as a martial arts instructor. Any rubber nunchakus are allowed. However, possession of nunchaku in Mainland China is legal.
Legality in Australia is also determined by individual state laws. In New South Wales, the weapon is on the restricted weapons list, and thus can only be owned with a permit.
Legality in the United States varies at state level, e.g., personal possession of nunchaku is illegal in New York, Arizona, California and Massachusetts, but in other states possession has not been criminalized. In New York, attorney Jim Maloney has brought a federal constitutional challenge to the statutes that criminalize simple in-home possession of nunchaku for peaceful use in martial-arts practice or legal home defense.[16] As of March 2009, the case was awaiting the filing of a petition for certiorari for review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nunchaku has been a popular weapon in movies related to martial arts.
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Information and techniques
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Copyrights:
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Word Origins. The World in So Many Words, by Allan A. Metcalf. Copyright © 1999 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Nunchaku". Read more |
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