Nunchaku: The Complete Training Guide

By Jiro Shiroma and Dave Cater

Book Overview

Nunchaku - THE COMPLETE TRAINING GUIDE. When Japan invaded the Ryukyu islands (Okinawa) in the 1600's. it confiscated the weapons of every inhabitant. All that remained for the people were farm... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0865680914
• ISBN13: 9780865680913
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Action Pursuit Group
• Weight: 1.23 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

best book on the market even today.

this book is very clearly written and i could not think of any one better then jiro shiroma the best when it comes to nunchaku thats why i give it a 5 out of 5 stars because it has so many techniques. i cant stress it enough about how great this book is.

double sticks

Not only the presentation of the art is not consistent, but also the techniques are not well-designed. About a half of the techniques are not actually usable in real defending purposes. The problem is that they will make you lose balance when using them. I bet the author has not tested those skills he explained yet. The author tried to be different from Bruce Lee, but that also introduced many difficulties. And that is absolutely not necessary!The history presented by Jiro Shiroma is actually wrong. It was a Chinese weapon -- a real weapon used by martial artists during the Song Dynasty in China -- A.D. 960+. This is the earliest period when people actually used it as weapon. Nunchaku is an Okinawan name of the same thing invented by Chinese, whose name was Da Sau Zu meaning "swinging sticks."Before Bruce Lee popularized on the films such a powerful weapon, the so-called Japanese Nunchaku, as weapon, did not exist at all. After his movies, Japanese started "reinventing" nunchaku for their own martial arts, especially Ninjutsu. However, today's Ninjas are only useful in movies! Bruce Lee's nunchaku was actually an Indian farming tool, introduced to him by his student Dan Inosanto. Bruce Lee simply called it "double sticks."I learned "double sticks" from the book written and drawn by Bruce Lee, and it was well-designed, poweful, straightforward, and economical. The techniques are very easy to follow and no redundency at all! Actually, I learned it from the pictures only, but after that I started reading the descriptions. It helped me to understand the philosophy of his ideas about the art. His method are beautiful!I think the best way to describe it is that it's an American-martial-art weapon invented by a Chinese American -- Bruse Lee. The origin of the sticks is India, or China as you please, and the techniques are the invention of Bruce Lee.If you want to learn double sticks as a useful martial art, watch Bruce Lee's movies and you will learn most of the skills actually required for defending or fighting

In my opinion...

This book is one of the most advanced of it's kind. Some people may disagree. If you do not pick up your nunchaku and read this book from cover to cover first and try to understand the techniques fully before you attempt. You will value this book greatly.