The year is 1981 and I’m sixteen years old. My aunt Annette is cutting my hair in her kitchen in Saugus, Massachusetts. Suddenly she stops and addresses me in a tone only children with Sicilian relatives can understand.
“David, what have you been doing to your head?”
Clueless I reach up and start patting around the back of my head. My fingers find the lump and then I casually shrug my shoulders, “Oh, I hit myself practicing with my nunchakus.”
“Numb chucks? What the hell are those?”
Back before Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, most Americans had no idea what nunchakus were. In fact, my instructor, Richard Byrnes once told us that he held a pair up for the group of police officers he was teaching self-defense and none of them had seen them before.
Times have changed, now we see them everywhere. Scrolling through an Instagram news feed or browsing YouTube videos provide evidence of the fact that many people are swinging them around. You can also read more about the history of nunchucks here.
If you are like me, you may have a regular job and many priorities bidding for your time. So the question is, “What is the value in spending time with this weapon? Will it actually add anything to my skill set?” Having practiced both as a teenager, when most of what I learned was trial and error, and now again in my fifties, I can tell you that there are many reasons to grab yourself a pair and start swinging.
Benefit one: Wu Wei and moving meditation
For those of you who may not be familiar with the term, Wu Wei is effortless action. What it means is we practice a motion often enough that it becomes second nature to us. We do this all the time. Anyone who drives a car can grasp this concept.
When you first learned to drive, you had to be very aware of everything. Eventually, however, you now don’t have to think about the movements needed to turn or stop. You just simply do it. That is Wu Wei. In a martial art, this is the goal of practicing our movements over and over, long after the mind feels like it grasped the action. The result is, when we need a technique, it is there. We don’t have to think about it. Our art has become a part of us.
With nunchakus, I practice what is today called “freestyle” but what back in my day was called “I don’t know any nunchaku forms so I just do this…” Practicing often enough will result in that effortless action. I can begin to get moving with my nunchakus to the point that my conscious mind can observe the motion and just experience that flow. In this manner, nunchakus become a form of moving meditation.
Benefit two: Left and right brain development
As I’m sure many of you discovered when you began a martial art, just like we have a dominant hand, we also have a dominant leg. This becomes obvious rather quickly when we pull off a sharp round kick with the right leg and then barely touch the target with our left. The latter is often followed by an apologetic look at our training partner, and “I’m sorry about your fingers… again.”
Practicing nunchakus will develop both sides of your brain. I noticed a significant improvement with my left leg kicking when I started doing nunchakus with both hands. Even simple movements like a figure-eight can help accomplish this. After a solid workout using your legs, take a break and spend 15 minutes swinging your nunchakus, before returning to your workout. You’ll be surprised at the results.
Benefit three: Body tension awareness
One thing that may not be obvious about nunchakus is most of the movements are felt not seen. Now some students will get used to practicing in front of a mirror and not be as comfortable without seeing what they are doing. However, I never had that habit. Maybe because early on I saw that nunchakus and glass don’t mix well…
When my brother came home after spending a year in Korea, he handed me my first pair of nunchakus and showed me how to twirl them around the back of my hand. Demonstrating this we both watched in horror as the nunchakus fell from his hand onto the glass top of my mother’s coffee table! I swear they hit the glass in slow motion, paused and then cleanly broke the table top completely in half. I’m glad he was the one who had to tell her.
But I digress.
Anyway, my point is that if you stay away from the mirror, it’s easier for you to close your eyes when practicing and become more aware of what your body is doing. When I do this, I can begin scanning my body for tension. Almost always I find it in my shoulders, the exact same place it is when I’m doing poomsae in Taekwondo class. Once I locate the tension, I practice breathing and relaxing my whole body while the nunchakus keep moving.
All this is to show, you don’t have to have a need to fight off ninjas or perform in a martial arts demonstration to benefit from this simple but effective weapon. And all it takes is a few moves and some patience.
And oh yeah, stay away from glass tables!
Do you practice with nunchakus? Why and what do you like about them? Let me know in the comments section below.
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