Make Your Own Nunchucks for Martial Arts Weapons Training

The nunchuck, or nunchaku if you are a martial arts weapon aficionado, is one of the most popular martial arts weapons in the media. They are all over the movies because they are an incredibly useful weapon and they look cool when a trained professional is wielding them. Everyone from the master Bruce Lee in his prime to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Michelangelo and this weapon will never go out of fashion.

Like many new blooded martial artists who are just now getting into the weapons side of the discipline, you’re probably interested in learning how to use the nunchuck. Be careful though because this is not the easiest weapon to wield and it can cause some serious harm to both the people around you and yourself if you mishandle it in any way.

Chances are though, that warning isn’t going to dissuade you from picking up this awesome martial arts weapon for some practice and some fun so this article is going to give you some tips on constructing your own training nunchucks so that you can learn in the safest way possible.

First it is important to understand what the nunchuck is. Basically, this is a combination weapon. It combines the blunt striking power of the escrima stick with the momentum building fast swing speed of the meteor hammer. It was originally a wheat harvesting implement as in the olden days of ancient Japan the farmers would use it to thresh their wheat quickly and easily. They just had to swing the weapon back and forth as they walked along the wheat fields.

The nunchuck’s design is simple. Take two sticks of wood or metal, usually shaped in a long cylindrical pattern, and tie them together with a strong piece of rope or chain. You wield the weapon by holding one stick in your hand to swing the other stick on the rope. The momentum built up in the weapon through the swing adds force and speed to the strike enabling the wielder to deliver some truly punishing blows to his opponents. It is also an incredible defensive weapon because it can be used to deflect attacks and tie up the arms of an opponent or disarm their weapons.

So how do you go about building a pair of nunchucks for training purposes? Well, its pretty simple really. Our main goal is to build a weapon that is not going to hurt us if we accidentally strike ourselves during practice. Think about it like a Nerf dart, you want a significant amount of padding to make sure there’s no blood drawn.

Go out to your local hardware store and purchase two wooden dowels. You want them to be about six to eight inches long and have about a one inch diameter. You’re going to be padding these so don’t make them too thick right off the get go. Also purchase a leather strap or link chain of some kind that’s about four to six inches long. This is what you’re going to use to die the weapon together so it needs to be tough and flexible. Get yourself a big roll of duct tape as well, it’s going to act as our padding.

Using a power drill, drill one hole at the end of each dowel. You want to leave about half an inch of wood between the hole and the end of the dowel but make sure the hole goes all the way through. Tie the two dowels together by stringing the rope you bought through the two holes and make sure you tie them with an especially tight knot.

Now all you have to do is wrap enough duct tape around each dowel so that it increases the diameter of the cylinders to about three inches. More duct tape means more protection so don’t be afraid to just go crazy with it. Once you’re done you’ll have a nice set of nunchucks that can be used for all of your practice drills. Have fun and play safe and always consult an expert before trying anything particularly dangerous.

Martial arts weapons
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