Hey guys.
So, I had a revelation when I was out camping / bushcrafting, and was making breakfast.
You know how, when you crack an egg on a countertop, it's sort of hard to get the right amount of force, and you sometimes have to try twice to get it to crack like you want?
Well, I went to crack an egg. But not having a countertop, I cracked one on a large stone. And, then, I smiled.
Seriously, go do this right now, if you have a stone laying nearby, and an egg to fry. You will be utterly amazed at the ease with which it cracks. No force is required. It's not just a little easier -- it's like night and day. And it feels so good. Really, it's something you have to experience. I showed this to my wife, and she was also amazed, and now we joke about how we should collect large stones and sell them as kitchen appliances.
Well, this lead me to thinking about impact weapons. Rattan sticks hurt, as I think we all know. But then I tried tapping my forearm, first with a rattan stick, and then a (lighter! but stiffer) hardwood stick. The hardwood stick hurts noticeably more, and I have no doubt could break bones much more easily. Of course, it will also break easier, as is generally the case the harder an object that you use. Basically, yeah: it breaks things easier, but it breaks easier. So there's a trade-off between durability and hardness. This might also be an important consideration when comparing, say, an asp baton versus a hardwood club: the hardwood club will likely deliver more force than an asp baton of the same weight, simply because it is more solid and less flexible than hollow metal pipes.
This is of course, something we all know. We all know that we train with rattan because it's durable, flexible, and lightweight, making it safer. But it's one thing to know something in theory, and another thing entirely to know it in practice, experience, and application.
I'm curious if anyone regularly trains with, say, a kamagong or other hardwood stick, and what, if any, modifications do you make to your practice? I would imagine that you might want to be much more reserved about crashing squarely into an opposing stick, force on force, and that you can't be nearly as quick in maneuvering the weapon. But, you can likely be effective, at least in theory, on targets that you wouldn't normally expect to be disabling hits if it were merely a rattan stick. What materials have you explored, and how do they change what you do when it comes to impact weapons?
Of course, this is not even to mention how things change when you pick up a blade as opposed to a stick, but then we're not even comparing apples to apples, really.
There's a good argument, I think, for not being "too specialized." I notice that when I pick up a new weapon for the first time, it often feels awkward, clumsy, and difficult to use -- especially if I've only been training with a certain length and weight stick, or something. It throws off your brain / body's ability to calculate distance, and your habits with regard to power generation, etc. But the more I change it up on a regular basis, the less pronounced this becomes.
I find that I learn a lot simply by picking up weapons of different lengths, weights, materials, etc. -- things change a lot more than one might realize, and this, I feel, is extremely important if you want to train with the stick as a proxy for any kind of improvised weapon. How would you effectively use an umbrella? A rattan cane? A hardwood walking stick? A club? An ASP Baton? The concepts are the same, but what you can and can't do with them is very, very different, and they feel totally different in the hand.
So, I had a revelation when I was out camping / bushcrafting, and was making breakfast.
You know how, when you crack an egg on a countertop, it's sort of hard to get the right amount of force, and you sometimes have to try twice to get it to crack like you want?
Well, I went to crack an egg. But not having a countertop, I cracked one on a large stone. And, then, I smiled.
Seriously, go do this right now, if you have a stone laying nearby, and an egg to fry. You will be utterly amazed at the ease with which it cracks. No force is required. It's not just a little easier -- it's like night and day. And it feels so good. Really, it's something you have to experience. I showed this to my wife, and she was also amazed, and now we joke about how we should collect large stones and sell them as kitchen appliances.
Well, this lead me to thinking about impact weapons. Rattan sticks hurt, as I think we all know. But then I tried tapping my forearm, first with a rattan stick, and then a (lighter! but stiffer) hardwood stick. The hardwood stick hurts noticeably more, and I have no doubt could break bones much more easily. Of course, it will also break easier, as is generally the case the harder an object that you use. Basically, yeah: it breaks things easier, but it breaks easier. So there's a trade-off between durability and hardness. This might also be an important consideration when comparing, say, an asp baton versus a hardwood club: the hardwood club will likely deliver more force than an asp baton of the same weight, simply because it is more solid and less flexible than hollow metal pipes.
This is of course, something we all know. We all know that we train with rattan because it's durable, flexible, and lightweight, making it safer. But it's one thing to know something in theory, and another thing entirely to know it in practice, experience, and application.
I'm curious if anyone regularly trains with, say, a kamagong or other hardwood stick, and what, if any, modifications do you make to your practice? I would imagine that you might want to be much more reserved about crashing squarely into an opposing stick, force on force, and that you can't be nearly as quick in maneuvering the weapon. But, you can likely be effective, at least in theory, on targets that you wouldn't normally expect to be disabling hits if it were merely a rattan stick. What materials have you explored, and how do they change what you do when it comes to impact weapons?
Of course, this is not even to mention how things change when you pick up a blade as opposed to a stick, but then we're not even comparing apples to apples, really.
There's a good argument, I think, for not being "too specialized." I notice that when I pick up a new weapon for the first time, it often feels awkward, clumsy, and difficult to use -- especially if I've only been training with a certain length and weight stick, or something. It throws off your brain / body's ability to calculate distance, and your habits with regard to power generation, etc. But the more I change it up on a regular basis, the less pronounced this becomes.
I find that I learn a lot simply by picking up weapons of different lengths, weights, materials, etc. -- things change a lot more than one might realize, and this, I feel, is extremely important if you want to train with the stick as a proxy for any kind of improvised weapon. How would you effectively use an umbrella? A rattan cane? A hardwood walking stick? A club? An ASP Baton? The concepts are the same, but what you can and can't do with them is very, very different, and they feel totally different in the hand.