the relationship between weapons and empty hands training

[Chris McKaskell]

in other words, you can't put feathers on a beaver and call it a duck, but either way it's a good swimmer.

Now there's a loony comment!

Fun thread to read!

[jorvik]

Shana
Quote
"The original question was more about how weapons forms and empty hand forms developed, and whether they had any relationships. That particular question kinda got swallowed into whether the concepts would translate form one to another and then morphed to the most recent question of "if a karateka suddenly gained an unfamiliar weapon, would thier training help in anyway?"

Yes the topic did get away from what you meant, I think that you where only refering to Okinawa as well, Which would change the perspective as well, although I gave a broader opinion based upon the weapons art that I have studied, escrima> If you where to look at Okinawa then you would probably have to go pretty deep into their history and the way they see things, their underlying philosophy etc if you wanted to compare their karate and Kobudo.............also , karate and Especially Uechi originally came from China,so you would have to take that into account also.

Quote
"Hmmm...that is kinda a roundabout way to say what I mean....Let's try this example: Bill was recently showing us a diagonal movement in class that I remembered as similar to a common sword technique in the SCA (medieval re-enactment group). Are they the same? No, but the similarities bring up interesting points to discuss (adaptability of movement, predictability, angles of attack). "

Well, I was thinking in terms of Escrima, there are different strikes based upon angles, which are done with a stick or a machete or even nunchakus.
Now if you think quite deeply about it if you hit with a stick you will shatter bone or cause bruises etc, a fairly quick movement which will allow you to go onto another angle of attack so that with a stick you can unload a series of fast strikes, probably none lethal..........but now think of it with a machete...this will be cutting into flesh and bone.........it may get stuck, to withdraw it you may have to use a different movement say maybe slide the blade through flesh, so the actual tactics will change and the chances of it being lethal are a lot more likely....now go to nunchakus and you have to allow for the swing of them, you strike and it may bounce back, if you miss you will have to control the nunchaku to get it back to the correct position for another strike. If you did the same movement with the open hand ( for arguments sake think of all these movements as a diagonal strike to the neck ) unarmed this would be a shuto to the neck, now using that you would have to think of a way of setting your opponent up, if he was good at boxing or even uechi then you would have a problem, it's not an easy strike to get in. it's harder to do as a combination.....so although what you say is correct it doesn't really tell the full story.
I have also done a lot of aikido in the past, and that is one art that is strongly associated with weapons..."it is sometimes called swordfighting without a sword"....I tend to use a different argument for them .................I think that Aikido is not very good as an unarmed martial art because it is too focused upon the sword

[JimHawkins]

I think to address the question properly you have to agree on what art or arts we are looking at.

Most warring arts, that is arts that were intended for conflict have weapons in them. If you were planning on warring or leading a rebellion I can assure you they were not planning on using empty hands to do so--plain and simple.

Many arts use extensive empty hand training even though there are weapons or a main weapon in the art, like Wing Chun. The thinking in WCK is that since the movements and concepts are essentially the same that training empty handed is safer and also provides some empty hand skill development.. I cannot imagine using live, sharp and quite large blades to cover many of the same training elements without incurring lots of injuries.. The empty hand training allows folks to cultivate the mechanics, concepts, techniques--the use of two hands/legs and body movement in a safe and practical way. Such skills and general attribute development can translate into empty hand or to the double knife work done later on in training.

Arts that have left the idea of warring and killing with weapons behind may or may not translate to any given weapon depending on the goals and the roots of the art.