Empty Hands to Weapons to Empty Hands

I was considering how much weapons training we do in BHKIRA, and how my knowledge of weapons (Okinawan, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino etc.) stems from my Okinawa Kenpo days training under Soke Jim Lloyd, and my Tobosa Kaki-kumi days under Maestro Michael Mulconery, Aguila.

Soke Jim was the first person to encourage me to do weapons training via the empty hand kata we were learning, in others words, doing Sai kata with the Pinans, Tonfa kata with the Naihachis, and even Bo forms with the Taikyoku. It was a great way to learn the weapons techniques at the same time as reaffirming my empty hand forms.

The transition was reinforced by Maestro Mike, because in addition to the many escrima weapons, he also trained us with one of his favorite weapons, the Bo staff. Maestro Mike showed me a kata he had created with the Bo, called Hana-no-kon Yo, or the "4th Flower Path" kata. (something like that. I was very young and not always sure of language stuff.)

At any rate, I have always taught my own students to use the empty-hand kata method for training with weapons, but I added my own twists: I never taught one weapon without teaching the concept of "paired sets", or training with a weapon against the weapon it was meant to be used against. So if you wanted to use the Bo, Sai, Tonfa, Kama, or Nunchaku, you had to learn to use it against the weapon it was meant for. And that weapon was the Katana, or Samurai Sword as it is known to the outside world.

This occasionally brought me some trouble with other dojo, when I would point out that their Bo-Bo kumite, or Bo-Sai kumite (etc.) was incorrect from a historical point of view, because the Okinawans didn't settle their issues with weapons; if needed, they fought empty hand. The true weapon to be trained against, for the Okinawans was the Katana, and the Yari, or spear.

Okinawans probably didn't have to fear their countrymen too much on a daily basis, but they might need to prepare for an encounter with a Samurai carrying a katana and wakizashi, or foot soldiers carrying spears. Can the Kobudo weapons be used against a Bo? Of course, but the spear is much more dangerous, and therefore has a more pronounced effect in your training. Think of any Bo form you may know, and then consider what happens when you have the additions of razor sharp edges and a tip. Even a Naginata is more dangerous than a Bo.

Samurai had a tendency to enact "kiritsute-gomen" or "killing and excusing". It was common for them to use their swords on their own countrymen if they thought the peasants weren't behaving in as respectful a way as they should, but also simply to test their blades on occasion. So we can assume that they probably took these habits with them when the Shimazu clan was sent to subjugate the Okinawans.

If you look at a kata like Jutte ("10 hands"), also called Ship-sho or Shib-su in Korean, you can see the perfect empty-hand/weapons training form. It is a karate form, but don't make the mistake of thinking that it is to be used against a Bo, because it isn't. It is meant to be used against a spear, and can also be done with a spear for the weapons training aspect.

Also, if you change the character "Ju" meaning "10", to the character for "Jiu" meaning yielding, you get another whole level of understanding in how to work with and against weapons.