Like, sure, they’re probably less effective than a lot of other weapons out there— I’m not arguing that they should be a popular weapon.
But with all the nerdy neckbeard guys out there who love Japan, anime, and ninja stuff, you’d think there’d be at least some kind of a statistic for weeb dudes who bring nunchucks to school and try to fight their bullies.
Are nunchucks even that deadly? Do nunchuck assaults simply not get reported because they aren’t serious enough to even bother?
Comments
There’s a good couple of stories out there, one involving a guy using nunchucks to fight off a dude with a machete
I think they got banned in some of the US back in the ’70s when Bruce Lee films made them popular. But no, I’m not familiar with any real life incidences. If someone hit me with one I would probably get pretty enraged.
They are not meant as a weapon, really.
Like, no one is going to pick nunchucks if they know other martial arts weapons.
They can take years to master, and even then, it’s mostly close up stuff. Also, if you have a body that can adequately use nunchucks, you probably could just punch the bully.
The best way to use nunchucks to battle would be to grab one side and swing it fast and use it like a chain mace.
When I was a teenager, I actually witnessed a fist fight where the guy who was losing ran and grabbed a pair out of his car. The other guy just double-legged him and beat the piss out of him on the ground.
Anyway, contrary to popular belief, most gangs don’t want people with nunchuck skills. They’re bigger on bo-staff skills. But chicks dig guys with nunchuck skills, and bow hunting skills…
Any alley kid in the US can attest that bike-chucks are the kinds of weapons that the Geneva Convention exists for.
You obviously haven’t seen hardwood steel tipped nunchucks. These do damage, easily concealable and can incapacitate.
They’re very difficult to use. You’re as likely to hurt yourself as somebody else. Since most people can easily find a knife or a club of some kind, those are the more likely go-to weapons, rather than an unpredictable and hard-to-handle physics puzzle disguised as a weapon.
I watched a homeless guy knock himself out with some nunchucks when I was like 16. Drinking coffee at a place after a concert and this dude crawls out the bushes and starts talking to us. Eventually pulls out nunchucks to show us how badass he is and almost immediately cracks himself in the side of the head and went cold. We were all afraid he died at first.
I’m sure it’s happened. But it’s going to be rare. There are so many easily available weapons that are more effective and require far less training.
This
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qu51C2v5cHw&pp=ygUTTnVuY2h1Y2tzIHZzIHN0aWNrcw%3D%3D
DONATELLO disagrees!
Nunchucks are deadly. They just sit uncomfortably smack in the range where it’s too inconvenient for improvised self-defence situations, and that better options exist if you plan to kill someone with. Let me explain:
If you just plan to have something on you for protection, having a pair of nunchucks isn’t ideal because it’s a bulky, dedicated weapon. You might not even be attacked at all. You’d be better off going about your day with a laundry pole, or a crowbar, or a golf club, something that you’d use for other things and in a pinch, you’d use that to defend yourself.
And if you do intend for grievous hurt on someone, that is, fully intending your murderous intent, then nunchucks aren’t ideal for that either. A knife is much easier to conceal, harder to defend against and does the job more definitively.
So yeah, it’s not that it isn’t an effective weapon. It just it isn’t the best option in any role it might be needed in the current era. If we were in a civil war or something, maybe, things might be different. Nunchucks are more ideal in a situation where everyone involved intends to fight, but like a brawl or a riot, rather than a fight to the death. It hurts enough to break bones and stop the fight, but also not so dangerous to the point people look at you like you’re a serial killer rocking up to the bar fight with a chainsaw.
There’s a clip from a prison where the dude fought off a whole bunch of people while smashing a glass sheet with home (prison?) made nunchucks and was shockingly effective
I knew someone that seemed like he could use them. He had a black belt and did random other shit, but he didn’t get in fights with people lol
You don’t hear about nunchuck experts either, other weapons are just much more effective. Bruce Lee could more than likely have killed with it though (if he wanted to), noone else comes to mind.
Steep learning curve and very far down the list in terms of effectiveness.
I think most nunchucks are in the hands of exactly who can and should not fight using them.
because people don’t carry nun chucks around on a daily basis
Because you haven’t googled it? 🤷🏼♂️😅
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ndtv.com/india-news/class-10-kerala-student-dies-in-nunchuck-attack-at-farewell-7822377/amp/1
But seriously, I hadn’t either, until now 😁
I attended the Rock the Bells music festival on Governers Island in New York a few years back. Before getting on the ferry they had a basic list of festival rules. I was amused to see the final item on the list was ‘No Nunchucks’
Nunchaku, colloquially known as nunchucks, are not actually a weapon by design. Their original purpose as far as can be ascertained was as a manual grain thresher used by the Okinawan people to beat grains separating the edible part from the inedible part. This meant they were available in large numbers and being that they were able to apply a large amount of force in a short time eventually came to be used in conflict by peasants barred from owning actual weapons as well as some soldiers drawn from the peasants who had experience with them.
The modern interpretation comes from association with the art of Ninjutsu which was the trade of spies and scouts in pre-modern Japan. Modern interpretations of the Ninja as a blackclad living weapon are largely exaggerations as under normal circumstances a Ninja would likely dress like any normal peasant with the intention of being beneath notice so they could ply their craft. In turn they needed weapons that were either small enough to conceal easily or which could be passed off as normal tools. The Nunchaku as a result of its design could be used to hit someone quite hard but also worked as a quite effective garrote allowing someone to be taken by surprise then strangled to death.
All ideas of swinging the thing in big circles or the like came as a result of movies that didn’t fully understand the use of the weapon trying to appeal to audiences that expected something flashy. As a direct result most modern use tends to lead to self-inflicted injuries as if used as a weapon the point is to do small swings that maximize force at the end or as a weapon of assassination strangling someone by surprise. There have been instances of fools attempting to use them like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but it never amounts to much beyond self-injury.
They are really hard to use, the recoil from nunchucks when you actually hit something is swift and unexpected if you don’t know what you’re doing, they’re super difficult to control.
was on vacation in los angeles and my wife and I saw this male acting erratically and swinging nunchucks at cars and at people. guy had no shirt and shoes and was screaming at anyone who got near him. wife said he must be on something and to stay away. lapd shows up and the guy starts posturing and starts making noises like a bad chinese Kung fu movie. and we then see the guy get tased and he falls on his face and gets arrested.
My current partner beat up a group of aboriginal kids who attacked him back in his high school days. He used a pair nun chucks. This happened outside of school hours but yeah. Lol
Nunchucks are deadly but not too many people know how to use them. If I had a set of nunchucks to defend myself against an attacker I would probably not use them since I don’t know if I could use them properly and using a weapon comes with sterner legal consequences. I would instead opt to kick em square in the head as I train to do. I do know a weapons master who is proficient in chucks though and I bet he could kick some ass with them.
Many of the more exotic eastern weapons, such as kamas, tonfas, nunchaku, and others began as modified farming equipment. Sickles, threshers, scythes, and other tools. In many regions, farmers were not permitted to have or use weapons. And yet they needed to defend themselves. Against bandits, wild animals, and other threats. So they would modify existing tools and develop techniques to utilize these improvised weapons. Some individuals or groups adopted these crude weapons and further developed them and techniques for their use into more formal styles, which is how they continued to exist into modern culture. Actual soldiers and warriors did not use these kinds of improvised weapons.
Nunchaku began as crude and clumsy modified thresher flails, and over time transitioned into the more modern form, which while still a very clumsy weapon, is substantially more practical than its predecessors.
Outside of novelty or demonstration, anyone who is serious about self defense is likely to have more reliable tools than nunchaku.
All that being said- damn they look cool when being used by a skilled handler. The effort to learn them is usually the point nowadays. Or at least that is what motivated me to learn some basics.
Notice how all those people that put videos up of them practicing don’t show them hitting anything…
I’m in Vietnam and my buddy got into a motorbike accident with someone. The guy opened his bike and pulled out a set of nunchucks. Definitely effective in that situation.
I went to a jiu jitsu dojo when I was a child. A lot of kids left for two weeks over the holidays so we would have “free classes” those two weeks and Sensei would show or talk to us about basically anything we asked.
I have a ton of excellent stories from those classes but one of them stands out as the time he grabbed his nunchucks. Please believe me when I tell you that man could absolutely kill someone with them.
They were very real and very hard, and the speed at which he was able to whip them around was unbelievable.
I have actually. This was in England. When I worked in social housing we would always get the background on tenants who had convictions for violent offences. This one guy had battered two teenagers with some nunchucks. The story was his son was having a house party and it got a bit out of hand. Son calls the dad who goes in and tells everyone to clear off. These two lads I guess either didn’t or provoked him in some way. He went back to his car, gets nunchucks out the boot and then twats the pair of them. Must have been a fairly bad assault as he did like 4 years in prison or something like that.
Why he had nunchucks? Not sure. He was already about 50 years old when the crime was committed, so kind of weird. He was actually a really chill guy to meet him, even though he was down on the old “visit in pairs” list, haha.
Because ninjas operate in secret duh
No one ever lives after being beat up by nunchucks, and no nunchucker is going to brag about his kills, therefore you’ve never heard of it. But it’s out there. Most missing people are probably nunchuck casualties, or at least the majority of them
While nunchucks look super cool, in practice you are just better off using a simple stick
The only people proficient enough to use them as a weapon have the disciprin not to use them.
If you can swing these good enough to NOT donk yourself on the head or groin and render yourself immobile, then you’d be at a level where you would be able to disarm and defeat pretty well anyone with anything else and also know the nunies are shite for actual anything beyond posing.
The real evil move is to take something similar and use it as a coat hanger.
If you listen carefully, you can hear the echos of “ackchyually” getting louder as the neckbeards emerge from their dens to defend nunchucks honour
u/hecaton_atlas has a great summary. As a follow-up to that, I know how to use nunchucks. I’ve also very nearly given myself a concussion learning how to use them. The weight of a hefty pair can knock a big man out on his ass, but it can do the same to you. Nunchaku are very much like knife fighting.. you’re going to be close, and for that reason, you’d better damn well know how to use it if you’re going to bring it out. In a modern day world against blades and even possibly guns, nunchaku are only better than a baseball bat, for the sole reason that if a baseball bat gets taken from you, that’s a weapon used against you. If nunchaku get taken from you, it’s very rare that someone else would be able to use them, so you’re not looking at a big loss there.
Don’t forget, nunchucks, scythe blades, and bo staff defense were originally created as a way for poor peasants to be able to defend themselves against invaders while doing their everyday chores, with items they’d have literally in hand at the time of the attack. It was an incredible surprise counterattack at the time. Against modern weapons, not as useful.
I’d also like to take this time to point out that many states, including the most progressive and liberal ones (looking at California here) have what, to this day, is considered to be very racist laws agains the use of nunchaku. Because of the huge kung fu boom in the 60s and early 70s, many places including California, thought it best to add nunchaku to the list of felony weapons. To this day, two sticks tied together with a string is illegal to own in California, while a gun is not. This hasn’t been addressed since the laws were put in place because there hasn’t been a huge push against it, but still pretty ridiculous if you ask me.
This could be a myth, but I vaguely remember reading somewhere while nunchucks are real weapons, they were never really that practical.
They were more used as a training tool to teach discipline and patience considering they were so hard to master.
It’s “nunchaku”
This was actually more of a thing in the 80’s when half the country became weirdly obsessed with ninjas. It’s also why there are so many states with laws specifically regulating where you can and cannot possess nunchaku despite there being no real history of people actually running amok with them.
Even for someone with extensive nunchaku training, you’re still going to be more effective with a stick, club, or knife.
Because Ninjas move in silence
Neckbeard would have swords too. And they are way easier to use
You know what would be cool?
Gun-Chucks
Friends that have been heavy in martial arts say that Nunchucks are more a tool for body conditioning than a weapon
You need to have immense control over your body to use them, and every time you fail you strike yourself. So you become tolerant of being struck then learn to move well.
You wouldn’t have nunchucks unless you already knew you were getting into a fight. And if you got that prep time, you have other options.
Also nunchucks require so much open space to work
Uh, dude, I’ve seen people get concussions from stuff that’s way softer than nunchucks. They’re a mostly impractical weapon that gets used in a fanciful manner in films, but they’re still a damn hard piece of wood that will crack someone’s damn skull open if it hits them right. They can break bones, they can cause internal bleeding. If running’s not an option I’d rather fight someone with a switchblade than nunchucks.
I just don’t think most weebs really want to hurt their bullies, they just want to stop being bullied. Playing with weapons might be a way for them to feel powerful, but they’re too moral to just straight up assault someone with a deadly weapon. Plus, ya know, the whole thing about it being against the law. Most people don’t want to go to an actual prison.
The first casualty of a Nunchuk is the user…
I bet if you go to ER, au contraire the ratio of Nunchuk incidents is more significant
There aren’t real life silly fights between people that actually want to hurt each other.
Because they aren’t a weapon. Not really, anyway. They’re a farming implement. When peasants were levied and called to fight, they brought what they had at hand. Pitchforks, scythes, sickles, nunchucks- all farming tools, not designed to be weapons.
Nunchukus are really difficult to learn to use effectively. I’d say i have a real good shot with them as they’re almost impossible to read too depending on stance. Also the potential to hurt urself is far greater than most other weapons. I think they’re great at close to mid quarters and especially in corridors. If an intruder invaded my house in the uk I’d probably grab the nunchukus I have by my bed. But I’ve yearned with them a LOT over the last couple of decades. It started as a way to strengthen my wrists. Then it became really fun.
You obviously have not watched Shayne Smith’s special
https://youtu.be/HxgDaCOS-tE?si=s3DHfJNaMtois6wl
He nailed the delivery!
Be the change you want to see in the world.
Firstly, I’m sorry about this, I know you were just trying to have a jovial chat about nunchucks but to answer your question this gets dark, my partner of thirteen years was previously in an abusive relationship, he used nunchucks on her, so yeah they go get used as weapons.
I was once a cop, I saw at least two people try to use them and fail miserably. They’d trained themselves in the ancient martial art of watching martial arts movies and smoking meth.
You’ve never been to the Bermuda Triangle. That’s where we use them.
Flordal Man ftw: https://www.kiro7.com/news/deep-viral/police-florida-man-sprays-women-with-roach-spray-break-out-nunchucks-over-loud-music/976378643/
They not noob friendly. A true bunchunk master probably doesnt need them to win most fights. In most cases they just beat you barehands if they used nunchunks it would be like if a reg man beating up a toddler.
Well friend, today is THE DAY.
My older brother was a bit of a dick and he (and his scars both literally & figuratively) can attest to a number of incidents where he had them coming in to give him a little chin music.
True story
Probably people who go through enough practice to be proficient aren’t committing crimes. Dedicated practice and study and crime don’t really go together
Do you live in or near Asia? My guess is you might not live where it’s a common occurrence.
Because I feel like most people know that nunchucks aren’t good in a scenario where you need a weapon I remember this Vine from the Golden Age where this guy gets into a fight with gangsters, and uses nunchucks and get shot my a gang member going “this n-word got nunchucks”
Nun-chucks today are something you train with not use for actual fighting.
It takes quite a bit of training to use them without hurting yourself and the types people usually train with tend to be made so you don’t hurt yourself too badly.
There are lots of old time weapons that people use to practice but that don’t actually get used in real fights due to their impracticality compared to modern weapons.
Fencing and archery are popular sport based on older European weapons, but few people get stabbed with epees or shot with longbows on the streets.
The closest western equivalent to nun-chucks would probably be war-flails, but nobody actually uses them any more in either sport or real life.
For some reason when I read this post I heard the song “everybody was kung-fu fighting…”……
They are SLIGHTLY easier to conceal than a big stick and SIGNIFICANTLY harder to use effectively.
Knives and baseball bats and guns are just more practical.
So my dad has nunchucks and learnt them when he was younger and then again properly in a weapons karate class. One day years ago I was at a 16th birthday party with my brother and some friends. Then these 12 massive guys started going around robbing people. They started a fight with my brother and friends which lead to 2 of them going to hospital, police were called and when my mum and dad came I learnt that they actually brought the nunchucks incase they needed it. Didn’t use them and the guys ran away when the cops came. But they were there, so that’s something I guess 🤷🏻♂️
Historically, the dicipline of their use was as an improvised weapon. Iirc, they were based off of threashing flails.
I belong to a nunchuck forum on Facebook and someone asked for real life self defense stories and a number were provided. People claimed to be successful w them. People on the forum are hitting heavy bags and spinning them every which way so I don’t doubt if you swung one at someone it would do the job, assuming you were well practiced at them including hitting targets.
Nunchucks aren’t meant to be used as a weapon in combat, they’re kind of like reflex trainers for martial arts students. As weapons they’re wildly impractical.
They probably fall within the howitzer class of weapon for ease of use, portability, inconspicuous nature and potential for collateral damage.
Its not that their deadly. Obviously, a knife is better.
They exist for several reasons.
because they arent a very popuar weapon, in real kung-fu basically no-one trains with them the only reason anyone in the west knows them is Bruce Lee, theyre also very impractical to use without training and theres a better option for every use case
Other people have pointed out the history of nunchucks-as-threshing-tool. One other thing I’d like to point out is that weapons which are essentially a chain can be effective defense against other melee weapons. That is you don’t just swing the heavy end, you try to stop their weapon or arm with the chain. You don’t have to spin like a mall ninja. There’s nothing stopping you from just using a nunchuck as a club or pair of clubs with that extra function.
I knew a guy, mall ninja douchebag. He beat up some other guy with them and then went to prison.
He got out and grabbed one of his mall ninja katanas and started walking to the same guys house, got stopped by the cops on the way and went back to prison.
I’ve been doing them for 30 years. I would never use them as a weapon even if someone was breaking in my house. I would opt for the broke in half mop stick or that other thing. What they do, however, is change your brain chemistry if you will. Hand speed is greatly increased. Reaction/response time. Stronger quads and ass muscles. Then, the meditative aspect while your training(not gonna try to explain that). The only time I ever have them on me is while training. Other than that they’re a “wall decoration.” I can’t imagine hitting someone full stop. Especially in the head or something. In my 3 decades of experience, they’re just not a realistic weapon to get into a full on fight with. Yes, I can trap, lock, block, and strike with them. But gimme a bat or a half a mop handle any day. I’ve never heard of someone using them as a weapon either BTW. Most people I know can twirl them a little or they can do something with their right hand only. The only person I ever hit was myself. Multiple, multiple times over the years. Bruce Lee dropped em and hit himself too. They just didn’t film it. Sorry for the ramble.
There was a demonstration on YouTube that basically showed nunchuks were MUCH less effective than hitting someone with a poke of the same size.
They have a very high skill cap and a fairly low efficiency. It probably takes 2% of the effort to get the same result with a bat.
A comedian talks about using them in a bar fight.
Well I’ve certainly hit myself in the head pretty hard with some if that counts?
Because you need to be good with them, if you aren’t you end up beating yourself with them.
Of course amateur neckbeards won’t use them
Because nobody in the vicinity of the attack survives and ninjas don’t rat on themselves.
Because they aren’t very good weapons. Sure, you can absolutely bash someone’s head in with it, but why use such an unwieldy, difficult weapon that’s just as likely to hurt you as anyone else, when a spear or a sword or a club will do the trick with way less training and way less risk to yourself?
Someone invested the gun.
Probably the same reason nobody uses meteor hammers. It’s really hard to use effectively and takes a lot of training to even begin trying.
A US gang named the Turtles used nunchucks in the 90’s
I made some nunchuks from an old broom handle and some boot laces. Works great. Hurts when you accidentally bonk yourself with it.
I have a pair of 14 inch handle hard wood nunchucks and would like to think i reasonably know what I’m doing with them. In a fight they would hurt someone, a lot, I mean cracked skull or even killing someone. But they can’t be used in a confined environment, and like everyone else says, one wrong move and I have cracked my skull instead
Because they’re stupid and useless. Might as well use a 20 pound sledgehammer as a combat weapon, you’ll get fucked up all the same.
Realistically, like a lot of odd weapons, they were probably farming or workers implements that then had a martial art made around them. There are a lot of tales and historical examples of farmers or enslaved/conquered peoples creating martial arts around common implements they had, since they were barred from owning, using, or learning how to use actual weapons, and would be imprisoned or killed if they had them. Since you can’t take a farmers threshing flail from them (most commonly assumed item that was the pre-cursor to nunchucks) because they use them for farming, as well as it would not be out of place to be seen with them at really any time work was being done, or have them in your home, they were the perfect implement to use for an uprising, or for self defense against a conquering land, or malicious nobles household/soldiers, and were to hand and readily available if you decided to stage an uprising.
anhattan Assault (2024)
A man with a history of arrests attacked podcaster Stevie Lew in Midtown Manhattan using nunchucks, resulting in a fractured arm for the victim. The assailant was released without bail by the judge. New York Post
London Defense (2017)
In Croydon, South London, a 46-year-old man defended his motorbike from two masked thieves using nunchucks. The confrontation was captured on CCTV, and the suspects fled the scene. The Independent
Elderly Man’s Self-Defense (2024)
An elderly man used his nunchucks to fend off an attacker wielding a machete. The incident highlights the defensive use of nunchucks in personal protection. Yahoo
You don’t hear about real-life nunchuck fights much because:
in my opinion, while dangerous, especially in a organized fight, they aren’t a real-world weapon of choice.
You see it here several times: “went to the car to get his nunchucks5.” Not too helpful unless you have prep time period.
I learned knife fighting as an adjunct to fencing in high school and college. It seems so much more practical. As for those of you who don’t think people try to really fuck you up or kill you in a fight, please don’t fight anyone
Just taking them out usually ends the confrontation.
I mean, have you ever heard of anyone using katanas, or any of the “Turtle Weapons”, in a real-life situation? Or how about a sword, any sword?
Nunchucks were many of the farm tools that could be used as a weapon against enslavers by the enslaved. It was hidden in plain sight and it is kept out of respect for the enslaved who rose up to gain freedom.
My entire childhood, I was led to believe that ninjas and quicksand would have a huge impact on my life. I’m disappointed to have seen neither.
Nunchucks aren’t swung around like nunchucks, you use them almost the same way you would a club. It just folds in half so you can in theory fit it into your pocket.
So its like a shittier club you can put on your belt or something, just like how a pocket knife is a shittier knife you can put in your pocket or like how a handgun is a shitty rifle that fits in your pocket.
Because have guns now
Weapon laws are pretty damning depending on the state. For example, most batons are illegal to carry and use for self defense. In FL, it falls under use of a Billy which can get you aggravated assault in an altercation. Strangely, a gun is perfectly fine to carry and use, and less likely to get in trouble when claiming self defense.
Tl:dr it’s a risk/reward issue