NEO Sport Nunchaku club

Lessons and Exercise

The exercises, as I call them, consist of chains of integrated Nunchaku techniques repeated. You would begin with one hand exercises with both your left and right hands. These are backed up with two handed exercises that are added to link the two hands with a similar exercise. The exercises can be just 2 moves long or can be as long as the long chain exercises that can be up to 20 or more integrated techniques, they can be longer. You can do as many as you can remember, ultimately, you would not be using your conventional memory for free style, however,during learning this is fine as long as one remembers that these patterns of learning have to be dropped for a freer style.

Some of the exercises are purely repeated Nunchaku technique exercises that are just designed purely for quicker learning, these I would call DRILL REPEAT exercises, these will be expressed with a symbol to focus on during aspects of training. These are simplified for the abstract form of notation using symbols. They are also represented differently in notation form for the longer exercises, which is the form used to teach initially.

These should not be confused with the techniques themselves and this has to be stressed as they are constructs of learning as opposed to the doing. Of all the exercises some 10%- 15% of them will be this drill repeat type.Most of the exercises seem to be more like mini katas and seem to more readily reflect the techniques in action as opposed to 1 or maybe 2 techniques being drilled for speed in learning.

LOW Front Catch Lesson

The Low Front Catch lesson consists of 26 integrated techniques, employing up to 100 exercises to train and study with these. The main initial focus will be with straight line swings, circles, expends, returns and stop returns and the primary catch the Low Front Catch. All of these techniques will form the foundation stone of your Nunchaku study and act as an island of reference to the beginner, as the basics will remain a constant theme throughout training. Even the more technical moves will have basic fundamentals at the root. You will have to develop a deeper awareness of the subtle mechanism of what you do as you study Nunchaku to achieve a freer style. Backed up with movement, ready positions and blocks and closing techniques.

We also employ the Nunchaku sequences from the Master Bruce Lee Film "ENTER THE DRAGON" modified for this Low Front Catch lesson, this will slowly build up to the original sets, as you progress in skill. NEO has also developed a compact yet expressive way of writing its exercises so that the member student can use this to aid learning. They can take these long and short chain exercises in written form home to study. As you progress you will be able to begin to write your own short and long chain exercises including movement to further your free style learning curve. The need for a more descriptive language during the early stages of training is a given as it allows for a greater understanding of techniques and exercises and will help the student group the various types of techniques providing a useful framework. Latter it serves more as a tool to aid in the discussion of Nunchaku in general and more specifically in the field of analysing other styles and techniques. You should be able to readily list the moves within any given nunchaku sequence slowed down if required to recreate these for study and training. Eventually this will all condense down into a more personal set of moves that the student will favour or that suit the build or character of the student, creating independence and individualization, this should open the doorway leading to a free style. 

That and being aware to.........

"Keep an open mind to the possibilities of the yet unknown.......

feed imagination, be creative, continue to learn"