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Okay, after reflection, I'm going to try to answer this with the respect it deserves: Firearms became a part of military life in China in the late 12th century, as the invention of gunpowder led to the development of portable cannonry. This sort of firearm and others were introduced and adopted by the Japanese sometime in the 15th century. The musket was ...

I would disagree with the premise that firearms arent in the 'martial arts' world. Firearm training most definitely falls into the category of martial arts. It may just not immediately be recognized as what we typically consider to be a 'martial art' because its not surrounded by the trappings of Japanese/Chinese technique names, uniforms, and cultural ...

Usually, it's enough to give a light sanding with fine grit sandpaper and a rub down with boiled linseed oil. It's important to use boiled linseed oil, as it will properly permeate the wood. If they were meant more for decoration or a trophy after years of service, and no longer intended to be used, a light varnish will give them a beautiful luster. ...

The Kubotan (a trademarked name for what's otherwise called eda koppo or the similar yawara) is effectively a force amplifier, as you said. It's limited only truly by an individual's understanding of the weapon. Uses Striking By holding the kubotan in the middle of the fist, it acts as a fist-load. By laying the stick along the thumb, and using the thumb ...

Polypropylene works well for shorter stuff, but people complain about longer weapons because of an excess of flexibility (I tend to agree). For example, my Cold Steel Escrima Sticks are pretty great and have held up well, although they've been part-time, and they're short. They make a number of training swords with the same material. I'm not sure how ...

I would say that they have become part of martial arts in the greater sense of martial arts. By this I mean in training relating to war. It is just a very vague and unstructured one. All military and police forces will teach firearms use. There are set movement and training regimes -- very similar to kata in hand to hand and ranged weapon styles. Body ...

My suggestion, based purely on experience as a wood worker, would be that octagonal staffs would traditionally have been easier to make. The machines we have available these days can bang out nice round dowel pretty easy, but once upon a time, these things would have been make by hand using tools like planes and draw knives. Using tools like that, an ...

I'm very pleased with Autrelle Holland's Aiki-jo manual, which contains the Suburi and Kihon (I believe those are what you refer to as "small kata". I've also been impressed with Stanford Aikido's discussion of the Jo Suburi, which contains some very precise, practical advice and a wonderful sense of humor. Of course for video the Saito Aiki-Ken and ...

There are a number of video resources available. As was pointed out in the comments depending on your style (and even instructor) there may be small changes. I included most of the ones I've been taught over the years. My instructors were generally influenced by Saito Sensei. For Jo: 31 Count Jo Kata 13 Count Jo Kata (Saito) 20 Jo Suburi (basic attacks) ...

When I was training staff, my instructor started with having us measure the length of the staff and putting a piece of electrical tape exactly in the center. That made it easy to tell if you were drifting during the technique and helped trained where you place your hands while twirling it. You can also try a piece of string or something else along those ...

Fascinating question; I'd like to know the answer. I found one potential answer:"The octagonal cut of all the staffs also gives you nice surface contours for locks and submissions." Several sources (none of which are reliable enough to quote) imply that octagonal weapons are associated with Okinawan martial arts, but that seems to be in the context of the ...

Wounding deeply from a distance--that's pretty much the job description of spears, pikes, yari, and the 57 other varieties of pointy pole weapons. Their "stand off" nature lets you deliver aggressive thrusts from the relative safety of several meters back. If needed, you can quickly move the weapon through a double-cone of positions for blocking. So, yes. ...

More often than not, it's not worth the trouble (unless you're sentimental about the staff). A white oak jo is not terribly expensive. @Campbeln is right. Here's one way to straighten a warped jo: What you'll need: Three 1x4s longer than the jo One large wooden clamp for every foot of the jo. Boiled linseed oil What to do: Sand the jo. This will ...

Sorry if this is a vague answer, and I don't know the first thing about the Seido karate style, but I remember an instructor (I can't remember what style. Kajukenbo, perhaps?) at a martial arts camp once telling me that they only taught weapons at black belt level to avoid weapons bias. The idea was that a practitioner should be fully proficient in empty ...

Look to other sports where heavy contact is common. I play ice hockey and we have wooden, aluminium and "composite" sticks that handle the punishment of other similar implements slashing and crashing into them (not to mention the odd head or leg strike >=). Of course what is actually available on market is another question entirely! Other then the odd ...

Generally, there are a few points in which the sword will differ between arts. The history and mythology (or oral tradition) of the evolution of the Japanese sword (from ken or tsurugi to tachi to katana) spans thousands of years. Generally, differences may be caused by: Locality – The available material sources at the time may have led to a design out of ...

As near as I have been able to tell, it is more due to the philosophy of most martial arts systems as firearms do not require the same skill and arguably grace that other weapons require. There was a book on the history of dueling that touched on this briefly from a different perspective, namely that dueling with pistols was looked down upon because they ...

There is also a small glass rod type tool that you can find at better billiard/pool stores. It's designed to be rubbed along the pool cue to raise the dents that can occur through normal play. It will also work if the wood is already lacquered, where the steam trick (Which is quite useful) won't work on sealed wood.

It sounds like you're rolling the staff over the wrong part of your hand. It's difficult to explain, so my best advice would be to ask someone in your school who does not have this problem to show you in slow motion how the staff rolls over their hand. When it rolls wrong (the way most people do it at first) you'll get a little more off center with each ...

Hold the staff in thirds - with one hand facing up and one facing down. Flip the staff over 180 degrees so that your hands are reversed. The hands should slide evenly along the staff. Repeat this exercise at least 20 times as part of your warm up. This will teach you to feel the centre point of the staff and get your hands used to feeling exactly where the ...

Dave Lowry wrote a book each on bokken and jo work: Bokken, Art of the Sword and Jo: Art of the Japanese Short Staff These go through basics as well as single and partner kata. Lowry has also written many books on Japanese martial arts that explore philosophy, culture, and experience, all of which you can easily find on Amazon. He has a polished written ...

The kubotan has a few uses other than as a fist load or as a joint-lock/pressure-point force multiplier. Choking I've seen kubotan techniques which allow it to be used as a leverage point from which to hold with both hands in order to execute a scissoring choke with the forearms (similar to how a gi collar is used in jujitsu-derived arts). Swinging I've ...

Bokken are both training tools and weapons in their own right. The suburi bokken comes from the legend of Musashi. As the story goes, he was crossing a river on a boat to go to the duel of his life when he realized he didn't have his katana. He fashioned one of the oars into a sword. It was heavy, but Musashi was well renowned for his strength. He, of ...

I would go for a rubber gun. The ones we have weight more or less like a normal Beretta m92 but are much safer than hard plastic ones, for obvious reasons. I would go for a dark colour, as the bright yellow ones we have draw too much attention, less so a real gun. Finally, for safety reasons, we have manually removed the trigger guard. We decided to cut it ...

Century Martial Arts advertises their smallest bamboo toothpick starting at 12 oz. That would be the 50" (4' 2") variety. The lightest fiberglass I could find in a non-exhaustive search was still 1 lb. 5 oz. If that's too heavy, the student should train so it is not too heavy. Lifting weights with proper form and properly trained supervision can be a safe ...

Octagonal weapons are less prone to torque out of your grip; same reason bolt heads aren't round–the flat edges give the weapon a means to find purchase, against the bones and skin of the hand. Whether it's enough of an advantage to prevent disarming, different issue. the disarms we practice in my FMA classes aren't turn-the-stick-on-its-axis disarms. ...

I wouldn't use any of Cold Steels training weapons for their intended purpose. I use their bokken as a cutlass by cutting down the handle, and adding a better hilt. That's about it. I highly recommend The Knight Shop and Purple Heart's trainers. While they both have mostly WMA stuff, I'm sure if enough EMA folks ask they'll start making katana and other ...

Polyoxymethylene (aka Delrin, acetal, polyacetal, and polyformaldehyde) and other similarly dense thermoplastics can be used for many substitute training weapons including, but not limited to (in my personal experience), bokken, bo, jo, hanbo, training knives, jitte, kunai, and training shuriken (with thin plates). For staves, it's often best to order them ...

LARP weapons would do if you wanted something that could safely hit somebody else. Note that many of them cannot safely be used for stabbing although some can -- please check before buying.

While @slugster is most likely correct (though as you're not likely to take it into battle, I don't think it's a huge issue if the integrity is effected slightly), my grandfather used to intentionally warp wood for furniture using a saltwater soak for a number of hours (days?) then placed the wood into a frame for shaping. This may be do-able in the reverse. ...