These clips are VERY amature, so trust me, they are far from perfect. I'm happy the way they turned out overall though. A few notes while viewing- I am using my twisted acrylic pair (no foam practice pairs for me anymore!), the clips are a tad choppy in parts yet still good quality, and the lighting isn't "perfect". Enjoy!
Clip 1- This clip is of my wrist flip combo. I did the first part slower so you can see the mechanics of the move, and then I go full speed in the end. Notice the way I am gripping the chucks in the beginning and end, they are different to show what the "flip" involves. Also, this took me one month of practicing every day to get it to this point. Practice makes perfect!
Clip 2- This is what I call a "trade off", when you switch from left-right hand or vice versa. A thing to note is that I have to throw in an extra direction change flip thingie before I bring it over my shoulder (I have to due to my width!).
Clip 3- This is the first thing that I learned, plus a modification. The first part shows the classic "figure 8" pattern, then I switch it to my own version of it- I throw in an extra half-spin on the outside part of the "8". I can't explain it! It's easy to see in the clip.
Clip 4- I LOVE this move. It took me a while to pick it up. Remember Michaelangelo's little trick in TMNT 1 when he seemed to "helicopter" them on one finger? Well I do a verticle version of it, which is the only possible way. This is easier to do with chained nunchucks, as the rope tends to create too much friction.
Clip 5- This is a little combo of moves that would be considered "direction changers", by my definitions. This is where physics is useful. In some parts you let gravity pull it out of a horizontal spin, which lets you fling them in different directions very quickly, and with the appearance of spontinaity (did I spell that right?). This is one angle.
Clip 6- This is the same combo as Clip 5, only a different angle to show a bit more of the moves. It looks really strange from a front view, so I had to do side shots.
Clip 7- This is a shot of "waist rolls" as I nicknamed these. There's not much to say about this, other than it involves one of my main concepts of nunchakus, which is being able to swing them hard around your torso without actually hitting yourself.
Clip 8- This one is a bit harder to see. It's what I call an "airial" move, which is a generic term for when you release it in the air and have to catch it again (smoothly if possible). I couldn't throw them very high or they'ed be out of the frame, but the height of the toss is all dependant on how hard you fling em. It's easy to do, just don't grasp them on the initial wrist roll and they naturally fly up. It's catching them that's hard, because you have to fit it into a combo smoothly, or it is just plain out of place! This took me about 5 tries to get it to look righ. I am successful at catching them about 1/3 of the time!
Clip 9- This is another form of wrist flipping that is a bit different. I'm not switching grips back and forth, I'm flipping in one direction many times in a row. Check it out to see what I mean.
Clip 10- "Yeah, so you can flip em' around, but how about hitting?" This answers that question with a quick show of the different strikes with a single nunchaku. This also shows the importance of being able to swing it as hard as you can, without having it hit you as it comes around. You'll see what I mean.
Clip 11- This is a longer clip because I kinda messed it up in the beginning by scratching my face (was supposed to be edited, but now I must suffer embarassment). This is a DOUBLE nunchaku basic spin combo. A horizontal spin, then verticle, then catch. I do it 3 times so you can see it a bit better.
Clip 12- This is similar to the double combo that the guy in "Sidekicks" did, only I'm not using footwork, and I'm missing some other 3rd step that I can't find. By standing still, you can see that this is actually rather easy to learn and is only made difficult by coordinating right/left movements.
Clip 13- This took me a long time to figure out how to do. This is a kind of "over/under" move with double nunchakus. This move was seen on the "martial arts masters" show with Wesley Snipes. This was also the move used by the ninja Santa in "Jingle All the Way".
A few words on the next set of clips...
I couldn't do these following clips the same way as the previous ones. My camcorder is kaput so I used a quickcam that came into my possession for a few days only, so these were put together rather quickly. They are about the same quality, maybe a little fuzzier or blurrier in parts simply because it is a quickcam and the lighting was not variable by much due to where the computer was situated. I am overall pleased with how these went though, and I hope you are too, please let me know how you like em! I tried to slow down the more complex moves so that the technique is more clear, but it's still a bit hard to see for sure without several views. I WOULD upload the original AVI files that could be paused and rewound, but I don't have the storage capacity for that. If anyone would like some special help with any of these moves, please email me, I'm always looking to talk about nunchaku with people :)
Clip 14- This is an arial combo display. It's not really a free-flowing combo, but I do 3 arial moves and do my best to link them together. The 3rd one is a bit hard to see as it almost goes out of frame, but this was something I felt lucky with to start, so I didn't want a re-shoot :)
Clip 15- This is a single arial move that I call a "back arial toss." The name is obvious after you see the clip and is self explanatory. There is an interesting story behind this and another arial clip called the shoulder arial toss. I am working at a very nice, very large cemetery over this summer, and I bring my nunchakus to work so that I may practice on brake, and I have been teaching a few of the other student workers the basics, and one of them (Aaron) became so skilled very quickly that he began to make up his own moves, 2 of which he taught me, which are the 2 arial moves.
Clip 16- This is another view of the back arial toss, this shows you the back view of it, and might help you to see the toss mechanics more clearly.
Clip 17- This is a back pass. This is one of the essential elemental techniques in nunchaku and is very common in movies. This shows the diagonal back pass a few times, so go watch :)
Clip 18- This is a close view of forearm/wrist passes in a back and forth way. This shows the basic pass but with both arms taking turns. This should be watched and practiced before the combos involving wrist passes...then again, that's only my opinion, so do what you like!
Clip 19- This is the one double nunchaku technique I created for this new set of clips. The area was too friggin' tight to do much, so I just put this together in one take. It's a double wrist flip/wrist stop technique, just watch and see :) This is made hard simply because it's not that easy to focus on doing a wrist flip with both arms at the same time.
Clip 20- This is just an extra throw-in clip of a foot-toss which is just a neat trick to start a routine with, or to get back into a technique if you drop them by accident.
Clip 25-These are 5 "free style" clips that I did. I wanted to do some clips like these for a few reasons... I wanted to show how many moves can be linked together, how different techniques interrelate, and to show off a bit of what I would consider my "demonstration techniques" which are the things that I show people when they say the classic "do something with them" when they see me with nunchakus. Let me know what you think of these especially! They are fast in parts so keep a sharp eye. I also tried to keep a theme in each, like one might be spin-based one might be stop-based or trade off-based. Also, these are rather long clips, especially the last two. Anyways, enjoy!
Clip 26- This shows the horizontal version of the figure 8 patterns. I did the first part in the overhand grip, and the second part in the underhand grip, just to show that they are both essentially the same and are both easy and useful in demonstrations. Horizontal figure 8's are also good ways to connect different techniques especially stops and trade offs.
Clip 27- These are a few strikes that can be performed right from the starting position (nunchaku under arm, one stick in hand which is extended from shoulder area making the chain tight). They can also be thrown into a combo quite nicely as a quick move. I call these "initial strikes."
Clip 28- This is a clip of some leg work that you can do with nunchakus. This clip shows the leg stop, leg pass, and leg roll. These are all easy to pick up on, just don't hurt the 'nads!
Clip 29- This is one of my new favorite moves. This is a three-part forearm pass combo that I came up with as a neat way to pass from one arm to the other in a quick and puzzling way in mid-combo. I did each of the three parts individually with a pause in between each one so you can see the different grip results of each pass.
Clip 30- ahhh, yes, the neck pass. This pass gave me a lot of grief until I saw a few other people do it. I finally picked up on it when I realized that the grip I had on it was off. I hope you can see the grip in this clip, I do it 4 times, 2 with each arm. It's a neat little pass, just don't let your hair get pinched in the swivels, it hurts! The key, I found, is to try to minimize contact between the swinging stick, and your neck. Try to catch the stick without letting it contact the back of the neck itself.
Clip 31- This is one of the neater clips I think. It shows one example of each passing method. This clip shows how you can connect all the passes together if you want, and how some are easy openers for others. This shows a forearm, straight back, shoulder, diagonal back, neck, leg, and under-knee pass all in one continuous combo. Good drill too! I recommend it highly for practice.
Clip 32- This is a strange move that I learned from my old boss at my bingo job a few years back. This was the only move he ever learned. Its basically a reverse shoulder pass. I have to work on this one myself, but the clip shows roughly how it works. I've thwacked the back of my head a lot doing this move.
Clip 33- This is the other arial move that Aaron taught me. It's done simply by releasing the nunchaku as you go through the motions of an arm stop (under the arm along the tricep). This is a new move for me that I hope to perfect eventually, so we'll practice together ok?
Clip 34- This is another elemental move that I felt the need to do a quick simple clip of just for illustrative purposes. It's the over-under arm stop. Good for building tolerance to light pressure-pain from the stops as well as mastering the physics of the nunchaku inertia and momentum.
Clip 35- This is a demonstration of many stop moves all in one combo. This is actually more of a free-style clip where I do many stops of many different types (wrist, leg, waist, shoulder, arm). I really like this clip too, it came out nicely don't you think?
Clip 36- This is a clip that really doesn't need to be here, but it just shows how one can pass the nunchaku behind the back in a straight horizontal line in either the underhand or over hand grip. I first do a horizontal wrist flip to set up for the pass form an underhand grip, then just come right back but in the overhand grip.
Clip 37- This is another arial move that evolves out of the second part of my classic wrist flip combo. When flipping back into the overhand grip from an underhand grip, the nunchaku tend to become slightly airborne, I simply gave it an extra boost and sent them up for a few spins before catching them again, and it looked neat!
Clip 38- This is another combo that shows how a fingerspin can relate to wrist work rather than existing as a seperate novelty move. It's a neat looking clip with lots of spinning.
Clip 39- This is another wrist flip combo that I have become fond of. It's similar to my classic one, but with slight variations that you can see in the clip. Same concepts though.
Clip 40- This is a clip showing a wrist stop on it's own rather than in the middle of a massive combo. It's an easy move that only requires gingerly controlling the force that it could put on your wrist bones and the skin that might get pinched.
Clip 41- This is a nice little form of a wrist flip combo, but with an extra change to it. See if you can tell the difference between this clip and clip 39. It's hard to tell, but I'm actually catching the same stick that I release when flipping from an underhand grip to an overhand grip... in other words... I flip from an underhand grip into ANOTHER underhand grip! It confuses people when I quiz them on this stuff during my lessons. hehehe!
Clip 42- Hey there. This is just another set of angles and different strike patterns that I thought were neat. This was more or less a test of my new quick cam.
Clip 43- These are some moves that were inspired by Matt from the Edification site (see the links page). I just put my own version of it in these clips. I worked them into other patterns and I show the 2 different ways to catch the nunchakus following the wrist twirly flippy thing (I don't really have a name for this one, I already used twirl and flip with other clips).
Clip 44- This is another one of my freestyle clips. Just shows a few more moves linked together.
Clip 45- Ahhh, another friend of mine teaches me a move after we start practicing. Joe Simmons has the rights to this one. He is on my floor here at Marquette University where I am currently typing this sentence! He's getting rather good at nunchakus and since I have this quick cam here, we might see some clips of him as he learns. This is an alternate back pass move.
Clip 46- This is just a free form single sai clip.
Clip 47- This is my second favorite martial art weapon- the escrima stick. This is just a free form clip that was requested.
Clip 48- A second free style escrima stick clip.
Clip 49- These are some nifty weapons; kamas. This is a very basic single kama free form clip. I really hope to be skilled with these someday. I'll just have to keep practicing.
Newest clips, 5 freestyle and 1 escrima
Clip 54- This clip starts with a horizontal figure 8 wrist flip combo, but it didn't turn out as clear as I would like, and the 2nd flip leads right into a straight back pass, and improvised moves follow.
Clip 55- This is another clip showing the wrist turns (that's what I shall refer to those moves in clip 43 as), and especially showing the one hand wrist turn at the end. It's hard to see, but notice that instead of a simple underhand to overhand wrist flip, it makes an extra spin around the wrist. That turn is different because those shown in clip 43 involve the turn being set up by one arm, spun around the other, and then caught by either, while the final turn in this clip is done with only one hand. I hope that didn't confuse you reading it as much as it did me writing it.
Clip 56- This is an attempt to better show the one handed wrist turn as a part of the traditional wrist flip combo. The first figure 8 WF combo is normal, and then compare that to the 2nd one which is finalized by the one handed wrist turn.
Clip 57- Another free style clip involving sporadic leg work, just showing how leg work can be linked to other improvised techniques.
Clip 58- This is just another free style clip, the moves are hard to see, but I try my best :)
Clip 59- This is the third, and I think the best, escrima free style clip on my page.