First, as in a new TV series, I think it’s really cool that people keep on experimenting with this stuff. Today we have convenient and high quality self defense products that are available at affordable prices. In past centuries 98% of these were not even invented and certainly none, in their modern form.

Some of us martial arts practitioners were discussing this stuff and the topic shifted to karate and agricultural implements against the katana or rattan sticks against Spanish swords. The destructive ability of someone with many years of martial arts training is truly a formidable factor to consider in anydiscussion of this sort.

One guy related:

I was thinking about Okinawan weapons and how they really couldn’t be very good against a Samurai with a katana. So – I got all of my stuff out – sword (hair splittingly sharp) and all Okinawan weapons and waiting for my son to get home and swing the sword at me and see what would transpire.

I was able to easily defend myself with all weapons (at training speed, reduced for “live” blades). The best to worst were: Eskrima sticks, (nunchaku – weren’t tested due to lack of control issues but my guess is #2), sais and kama I experienced extreme timing issues to get metal on metal deflections, the tonfa was miserable to handle, I couldn’t find a block that wouldn’t risk a “cut-through” and death but my son suggested that I hold them upside down – so I did and they worked much better with the t-handle as a hand protector – but still kind of lame.

We figured that even basic agricultural weapons were better than none, given the plight of the Okinawan farmers against trained Samurai. Plus, we deduced that the Samurai – would be closing more distance and swinging at speeds, that were some crazy exponential of the speeds we were using. Also, we realized quickly, that I was able to avoid getting hurt by sheer virtue of years and years of training compared to my son taking one step and a soft swing (with a mind for pulling it) if things went wrong on my end. All the while realizing – that a Samurai would keep coming like a Tasmanian Devil. I feel like Angel Cabales may have been right on, in saying: “give my opponent an 18 ft spear and I will defeat him with 18 inches of rattan.”

Our Instructor weighed in at this point and gave us some more food for thought:

Naturally, your ability weighs heavily when you try primitive weapons against an armed, unskilled person or your student for example, even when he has a katana in his hands. BUT…..the same thing was true in Okinawa 200 – 300 years ago. A young hotshot samurai, even trained from childhood, unexpectedly finding himself in a life or death fight with a 30 year karate man with a stout set of kama or sais. He could have gotten his ass handed to him, and anyone seeing it would have remembered it and talked about it. And that’s how karate got its serious reputation.

He went on to relate – “I recall doing sai training with a 2nd Dan when I was a 4th or 5th. We did drills back and forth for a half hour or so, in a room full of other black belts, under the direction of our Master Instructor. First, one guy would attack and the other defend, across the room, and then we would trade roles. At the end of the half hour I was dismayed to see that my training partner was badly marked up all over his forearms because his blocks had been off just enough, often enough, for my sais to tag him. I hadn’t been touched. I’m not mentioning this to brag, but to point out the difference, a decade or so of training makes. If we’d been defending against a sword, he would have died. I wouldn’t have.

This was just my observation, and I would NEVER minimize the seriousness of going up against a live blade, particularly something like a katana in trained hands.”

So, the consensus was that in absence of guns, Tasers, stun guns and such – Martial Arts training is definitely of great value for self defense in any situation.