Bay Point California
12/13/2016 Single Whip posture with weapons
The Tae Kuk Bears (left) purport to be a Korean weapon. They have been out of stock at Martial Arts Mart forever. I have not been able to contact the original expert here in Sacramento (school closed; website abandoned). Made with real steel and provided with a padded handle, they might be effective weapons. They are certainly hard to land a direct blow on. Blows landing on the two outside wings (claws?) currently put considerable pressure on your wrist. At least for me, it was difficult to do much more with the right hand weapon than a slash with part of the farthest claw. Note: I prefer to hold these weapons in the middle of the grip - in the photo I had offset the right hand's grip to gain a little more reach. As for the tonfas, it is preferable to reverse the grip I am using with my left hand so the palm faces out and the tonfa itself is along the bone of the forearm and projecting slightly past the elbow. Of course, one would want to hold the left tonfa somewhat higher than shown. The problem then is that the elbow dips. J.R.R. Tolkien was correct when he had the dwarf Thorin use a hefty oak limb as a shield - sure, against an orc scimitar or a samurai sword a tonfa is better than nothing. But not much better. Note that the tonfa in the right hand was rotated to gain length while blocking the enemy's low blow. It is hard to see much damage being done by my counterstrike.
The Tae Kuk Bears (left) purport to be a Korean weapon. They have been out of stock at Martial Arts Mart forever. I have not been able to contact the original expert here in Sacramento (school closed; website abandoned). Made with real steel and provided with a padded handle, they might be effective weapons. They are certainly hard to land a direct blow on. Blows landing on the two outside wings (claws?) currently put considerable pressure on your wrist. At least for me, it was difficult to do much more with the right hand weapon than a slash with part of the farthest claw. Note: I prefer to hold these weapons in the middle of the grip - in the photo I had offset the right hand's grip to gain a little more reach. As for the tonfas, it is preferable to reverse the grip I am using with my left hand so the palm faces out and the tonfa itself is along the bone of the forearm and projecting slightly past the elbow. Of course, one would want to hold the left tonfa somewhat higher than shown. The problem then is that the elbow dips. J.R.R. Tolkien was correct when he had the dwarf Thorin use a hefty oak limb as a shield - sure, against an orc scimitar or a samurai sword a tonfa is better than nothing. But not much better. Note that the tonfa in the right hand was rotated to gain length while blocking the enemy's low blow. It is hard to see much damage being done by my counterstrike.
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