WEAPONRY
Not only does the Omega Martial Art student learn to use their own body as a weapon and self defense tool, but they will also comprehensively learn to use Weaponry (bo, escrima, nunchaku, sai and tonfa) in traditional martial art forms, in competition, and in self defense. The five weapons below are required learning for rank advancement.
BASIC HISTORY OF OKINAWAN WEAPONS
Most of the weapons we learn in Omega are based off of Okinawan Kobudo. Kobudo is a 20th century Japanese term that can be translated as “old martial way of Okinawa” and refers to the Okinawan systems of weapon based martial arts.
One of the biggest myths in martial arts is that the Okinawan farm tools evolved into weapons after the Satsuma Samurai Clan took over what was known as the Ryukyu Kingdoms (Okinawa’s name before the official annexation into Japan in 1897) and prohibited weapons, such as swords, spears and firearms. The reality is that evidence shows that Martial artists from Okinawa studied extensively in China and most of the weapons that are seen in Okinawan Kobudo can trace their origins back to mainland Asia. What is true about that myth is that when the occupying Japanese warlords took over Okinawa they abolished the caste system and banned weapons. This left the martial artist aristocrats and lords to repurpose common everyday objects like farm tools to be approximations of the weapons they had already studied previously, and it allowed them to hide their weapons and the continuation of their art in plain sight.
OTHER WEAPONS
Students also have the opportunity specialize in these weapons and learn advanced manipulations, or to choose other specialty weapons to master, like the fans, sword, kama, sansetsukon (similar to nunchaku with three sticks attached on chains instead of two), and more.
