Nunchaku Karate Weapon of Self Defence by Fumio Demura a review

A Review of Nunchaku Karate Weapon of Self Defence by Fumio Demura

Published by Ohara Publications

ISBN 0-89750-006-7

I am a 1st Dan Black Belt in Kick boxing and am a fully qualified instructor and both train and assist the British Karate and Kickboxing association run by Dave Cartawick and also the British Combat Academy run by Peter Lakin, a long time student of Peter Consterdine, I have trained in kickboxing since 1999 and have also cross trained in various other styles mainly mixed martial arts, karate and Ju-jitsu.

The Author

Fumio Demura is a 5^th Dan from Yokohama, Japan Amongst Karate the other styles he has studied are aikido, kendo and judo. In 1965 he headed to America to teach Shito-ryu karate, he won several tournaments in Japan and was in their top ranked 8 karateka for 3 years between 1961 and 1964. He was also Black Belt magazine's Karate Sensei of the year in 1969. He is also the author of several martial art books.

In 1975 he was awarded the Black Belt Hall of Fame Martial Artist of the Year and in 1999 he was inducted into the History museum Martial Art hall of Fame. In the 1980’s he was involved in the Karate Kid movies as a double for Pat Morita he also briefly appears in Mortal Combat and Rising Sun.

Today he is director and Chief Instructor of the Santa Ana California based Shito-Ryu Genbu-kai International organisation where he still teaches. Every February he hosts the Goodwill Championships in Costa Mesa one of the foremost traditional tournaments in California.

Content

Initially he delves into:-

History of the Nunchaku

Anatomy of the Nunchaku

Care of the nunchaku

How to grip

Stances

Grasping Positions

Blocking

Striking

Choking

Warm-up

Movements

Karate and Nunchaku similarities

Whipping Techniques

Footwork with whipping techniques

Applied Attacks

Applied Block and counters

My Opinion

If you intend to try to learn to use the nunchaku I suggest you invest in a cheap foam type pair to practise with otherwise it can get quite painful. Whilst informative for a book, I was quite able to replicate some of his techniques found within and I am no master with the nunchaku. I found it very useful as a reference book, however there are a lot of good and free tutorials available on U-tube, which are easier to follow, and as the book is mostly photo-based video is a better medium to put it across. That aside I found it good for a beginner showing the basic grips and moves and I can almost wield them with some dexterity now, however that comes from practise. The applied technique section is interesting but self-defence laws being what they are, your unlikely to get away with carrying a pair of nunchaku round so they are a bit moot.

Marks 6 out of 10