Weapon Twirling

An increasing number of tournaments feature weaponry displays, in which a student will (often to music) spin or twirl the weapon and simulate strikes against multiple opponents. This weapon can be a staff, a sword, a Chinese traditional weapon, or the famous nunchaku.

If a person has even heard of nunchakus, odds are significant that he will instantly picture someone twirling this weapon around the shoulders and head. Perhaps more than any other weapon, the nunchaku is foremost a twirling weapon.

The irony in this is that the nunchaku is actually a superb little weapon provided it is used in almost any other context.

Twirling itself is the problem. Chongdo believes that a weapon is a tool to expedite combat. At that, a weapon is either attacking or defending. If attacking, it should be striking the opponent; if defending, it should be blocking an incoming strike. In either case, it should be moving toward its target, whether that target is the opponent himself, or merely his weapon to intercept it. Any other motion by the weapon is superfluous, and consequently putting you at a disadvantage.

For example, picture a person twirling a nunchaku. It passes over the top of the shoulder, then passes around the shoulder and under the arm. It then moves into the other hand which takes the weapon over to the other shoulder, and so on. None of these motions are delivering the weapon toward its target. In effect, virtually all of its motions are missing the target. This would be equivalent to firing a gun in various directions away from the target, and hoping that there will be a bullet left to strike the target when actually aimed.

Fans of twirling provide one of two explanations for this:

The weapon twirling is a drill, and is intended to familiarize the student with striking from a variety of flexible positions. However, none of the twirling motions can be turned into a strike unless the far end of the weapon is heading toward the target in a line tangential to the twirl. This means that of the thirty or so basic twirl “partials,” only two or three could be turned into a strike with no warning. The rest will require the student to interrupt the twirl, reset, and then strike.
The weapon twirling is intimidating, and that can be enough to dissuade an attack. However, it is not guaranteed to do so. Indeed, there is no rationale to think it most probably will. Therefore, the bulk of training time with this weapon is oriented toward a scenario of possible non-attack: if the other person will be intimidated by the sight of the weapon, then merely readying the weapon will provide the necessary intimidation. No twirling is necessary.

Sadly, the real reason people twirl the nunchaku is because that is how it was taught. Step-by-step, the instructor of the school taught those techniques over several weeks. Whether they do anything may not enter into the mind of the student, who dutifully pays for several weeks of this training. This is analogous to a golf pro who spends several weeks teaching his students to juggle three golf balls...except the latter student is more likely to question where his money is going, since juggling seems to do nothing to improve his golf game.

A trapping block. Despite the impressive twirling and showmanship of the nunchaku, it provides only two functions: striking an object by swinging the far end into it (which it does very well), and seizing something between the two sticks and twisting (a trapping block or a choking technique). The alleged complexities of this sectioned weapon, like most sectioned weapons, can indeed be mastered in only 30 minutes of hands-on training.