Nunchucks for Cops

The police department in Anderson, California has decided to include nunchaku into its arsenal of weaponry. Sgt. Casey Day has recently been certified to use nunchaku for dealing with lawbreakers. "These were kind of designed with a different goal in mind to be more of a control weapon, but like I said, it's not like we can't use these as an impact weapon," Day explained. "They work really good as an impact weapon, but we try to emphasis a control tool over impact."

(For the uninitiated, nunchaku belong to a family of traditional weapons called kobudo that emphasized the use of farming implements for self-defense when weapons bans were enacted at various times during Okinawa's long history of dealing with Chinese, Japanese and Western imperialists. Nunchaku were originally used to shear crops, I've been told.)

What the criteria is to be "certified" to use nunchaku is unclear. The type the Anderson police will use will be made of plastic batons connected with a nylon rope. Interestingly, nunchaku are illegal in California. But this isn't the first time that cops have attempted to adopt an Okinawan martial arts weapon into its program. Starting in the early 70s, billy clubs were augmented with side-mounted handles, inspired by the tonfa.

Police defensive tactics, whether they involve weapons or hand-to-hand combat, generally follow the following principles in most municipalities:

• Techniques must be easy to learn and easy to use for a majority of officers.
• Techniques must be practical and workable in most street environments.
• Techniques must easily integrate into department policy and procedures.

With the list of gear cops are required to use now, nunchaku would just make things more cumbersome. Police already have tasers, sidearms, batons, handcuffs, and more recently, body cams to deal with. Nunchaku techniques are difficult and often impractical. Even among experienced practitioners, at times they can be as injurious to the user as the one defending against. I vote no to this idea.


(h/t: reddit/martialarts)


(Note to readers: I realize that "nunchucks" is an Anglophonic aberration for the proper nunchaku. The use of the former in my post title was meant to have mass appeal.)

'Judo' Gene vs. The Boxer

While I was researching for a possible post on legalizing MMA in my home state of New York, I stumbled upon an old story (news to me!) about the grappling great Gene LeBell. Apparently, yesterday was "Judo" Gene's 83rd birthday, so to commemorate the event, the tale of his bout with a professional boxer has been popping up on MMA sites.

The story starts when an article in the August, 1963 edition of Rogue magazine included this gem about judo:

Judo … is a complete fraud. … Every judo man I’ve ever met was a braggart and a showoff. … Any boxer can beat a judo man. Judo bums hear me one and all! It is one thing to fracture pine boards, bricks and assorted inanimate objects, but quite another to climb into a ring with a trained and less cooperative target. My money is ready. Where are the takers?

The writer, one Jim Beck, obviously had judo confused with karate or something else, as if that would have mattered to him or most of his readership. Beck supposedly was an amateur boxer of some renown and claimed to have beaten a judo player using his boxing craft. So Beck promised to pay 1000 dollars to any "Judo Bum" who could whip him in a match!

LeBell, a former two-time US judo champ, was tipped off about this offer and jumped at the opportunity to fight an amateur boxer for a cool grand — serious money in 1963. The match was arranged to be held in Salt Lake City as this type of mixed event would be either unsanctioned or illegal everywhere else. At the last minute however, Beck sobered up to the prospect of duking it out with the likes of LeBell and substituted himself with a ringer: former middleweight contender Milo Savage. Savage's professional record was 49-46-9 and was 39 years old (LeBell was 31). He was an over-the-hill journeyman, but had beaten some highly regarded fighters in his day. There was even a rumor that Savage had broken the jaw of a local karate instructor during an impromptu match.

The rules for the scheduled 5-round bout were that punches and grappling were allowed, but no kicks. LeBell was barefoot and donned a judo gi while Savage wore lightweight speed-bag gloves, but also wore a gi top, as requested by LeBell's handlers. As the bout started both men were naturally leery of each other and managed to avoid any type of wild clashes. By the fourth round LeBell began to warm to the the task and finally closed the distance. After grabbing Savage he executed a hip throw with a sweep, taking him to the canvas, then finished him off with a rear choke hold. Not knowing how to tap out or signal quits, Savage was rendered unconscious and remained so for about twenty minutes. Pandemonium ensued as fans hurled garbage and chairs into the ring, likely because it was assumed their hometown fighter had just been killed!

Savage only fought one more time before he officially retired from boxing. For LeBell, it was a defining moment for judo — and really, martial arts in general. LeBell would become a sought-out stuntman and stunt coordinator for Hollywood, working on on hundreds of movies and TV shows. Today, he is highly respected by martial artists all over the world.

In conclusion: Never mess with someone nicknamed "The Toughest Man Alive" and who is secure enough to wear a pink gi.

The Suffragette That Knew Jiu-Jitsu

This month the film Suffragette will be released that depicts the struggle for women's right to vote in the UK which officially began in 1903. As the movement for voting equality picked up steam in the form of protests and civil disobedience, there was the inevitable presence of harassment and violence that these women had to endure. When the police rounded up the suffragettes to be thrown into jail, many of them resorted to hunger strikes, were released to recoup, only to be re-arrested for the original "crime" of demanding civil rights. To prevent this game dubbed "Cat and Mouse", one of the movement's leaders — Edith Garrud — taught her followers the art of jiu-jitsu to be used against the police and male vigilantes who stormed their demonstrations and meetings. Garrud, who learned self-defense from her boxer husband, was also schooled in Bartitsu from Edward Barton-Wright and later jiu-jitsu from Sadakazu Uyenishi, one of the first jiu-jitsu instructors to teach outside of Japan.

In addition to jiu-jitsu, Garrud taught her entourage — who came to be known as The Bodyguard — to conceal Indian clubs (a weapon resembling an oversized bowling pin) under their hoop skirts to use in case their grappling skills failed them during clashes with police or hooligans. Garrud and her movement prevailed, taking a break to help out in the effort to win the Great War, and getting a portion of voting rights for women (over 30) in 1918. By 1928, full rights to the vote (over 21) were finally implemented.

Later in life Garrud would continue to teach jiu-jitsu and became a stage and film martial arts coordinator. Not a bad life for the 4-foot-11 suffragette who refused to quit. She died in 1971 at the age of 99.