Search
Recommended Products
Related Links


 

 

Informative Articles

9 Halloween Wedding Theme Favors
Not everyone elects to have a traditional wedding. Some love the fun and excitement of Halloween and want to share their favorite holiday with others with a marriage ceremony. Just like those "trick or treaters" that arrive at door, your wedding...

Pagan Religions Taught In Public Schools
In classrooms throughout the country, Judeo-Christian beliefs are often cast aside or ridiculed. Multiculturalism studies, environmental propaganda, and Save-the-Earth classes now indoctrinate children with New-Age religious beliefs, often without...

Paste paper craft
This article briefly summerizes use of paste and paper to prepare beautiful cover. Heres what you need to start: You need a paste medium to start with. Yup, just plain old wallpaper paste like you buy at Home Depot. Then you need...

Tips for Choosing Log Furniture
Tips for Choosing Log Furniture If you just love that rustic look, and are finally ready to finally buy log furniture for your home, there are a number of “rules of thumb” that can help you in making good choices. Begin by considering the overall...

Top 5 Wedding Favors and Why
WHAT ARE THE TOP FIVE WEDDING FAVORS AND WHY? At most weddings, the bride and groom will offer some type of small memento as a note of appreciation to family and friends, more commonly known as wedding favors. As you will discover in this article,...

 
Google
Kubotans and Yawara Sticks

Kubotans and Yawara Sticks

The kubotan or yawara is basically a small piece of wood, bone, PVC, or metal. They usually run about 5 1/2 inches give or take a 1/2 inch. There are many who claim to have "developed", "discovered", or created the Yawara or Kubotan. That is a subject of two long articles and not germane to our discussion here. It is certainly not a threatening weapon, in terms of appearance, but getting hit correctly by one is possibly the last thing one would want to experience.

Having discussed more benign approaches to thwarting attackers, such as a keychain alarm, or pepper spray, they pale in comparison to the destructive power of the tiny kubotan. Sure, no assailant wants the sound and lights flashing from a personal alarm, they would rather work silently and in the darkness. We know that some mentally disturbed attackers, and some drunken or doped up assailant walk right through a cloud of pepper spray, only to complete a vicious assault on the person who sprayed them. True? Well, yes it is true, but not ordinarily.

The configuration of a kubotan or yawara is generally: long enough to fill the hand, with a bit protruding above the hand, and below it. These ends are sometimes round "knobs", flat, or pointed on one (the new keychain models), or both ends. I prefer the pointed end and have a beautiful hand milled, checkered grip, dual pointed stick made from aircraft aluminum. It feels like your hand is empty if not for the checkered grip, and the scenarios I can employ it in, are almost as limitless as the places available to strike my opponent. Trust me, they add thunder to your fists!

I'll share a couple of "carries" for the kubotan, and some strikes you can employ immediately upon purchasing one. Use the empty space of air, and imagination as your training partner, but I prefer a heavy bag or a rubber training dummy, which is a lifelike simulation of a man from the waist up. There are several choices available.

The first is closed fist, and using the downward protruding tip, like the end


of a hammer striking a nail. Grip your weapon tightly and drive down into the shoulder - near the neck - on either side! And you thought the "Vulcan Nerve Pinch" was bad huh? Also it can be driven into the orbital areas of the eye area and will blind an opponent, or crush the fine bones surrounding the eyeball - a real show stopper! If you're a woman pitted against a man, it can still be hammered down and into the attacker's throat, or his chest, just below the sternum (maximum effect) or into the pectoral muscles (extreme pain).

Another way I like to hold and use my Yawara is to use the portion sticking out above the clenched fist (above the thumb). This is excellent for thrusting or stabbing strikes, to the solar plexus, or rising to the throat, under the chin in the soft area of the neck. Just behind the point of the jaw, is a concealed major nerve. It can also be thrust into the bladder, or rising to impact under the armpits, and into the major nerve centers located there. It will be an unforgettable experience for your assailant.

There are hundreds of strikes and many variations of the "carry". In fact they are so affordable, I would sincerely recommend purchasing a few of them at about $5 each at most online retailers. Keep one handy in the house, in your vehicle, or wherever needed. Go ahead and spring for one of those karate "pressure point" charts, and a training manual too. Practice driving the kubotan into those marked areas, as you do repetitions and drills with your new weapon. You have my word that after only a week or two of practice with imagination and a sincere desire to employ this weapon, and you'll be amazed at how quickly you will rely on it, and not shy away in the least, from using your kubotan for self defense. Dynamite comes in small packages!



About the author:

Tom Fredrick is an accomplished martial arts practitioner with over 30 yrs. of active training and teaching Okinawan Karate, Yang Tai Chi Chuan, and Escrima. He served in the USMC, and has also worked in law enforcement, undercover airport security, and as a personal bodyguard.