Wellness Positive

Self Defense Training - Part II:

Using the Yawara Stick..

This section will teach you highly effective self defense and martial arts techniques. Besides efficient martial arts moves, you will learn when to flee a situation, and when to fight, and will also receive instruction in how to use some simple and basic weapons to greatly increase your combat effectiveness. All in all, this is a must-know instruction course in self defense and the martial arts that will help you keep you and yours safe.. always!! And now read on...

Using the Yawara Stick..

1) The Swinging, roundhouse Yawara Strike:

  You hold the Yawara Stick in your fist as shown, so that about half an inch protrudes out of the bottom of your fist. This exposed metal end is what you strike with.

Strike with fast, swinging strikes - the way you would use a hammer.

  Remember, for all practical purposes, what you now have in your hand now is a hammer, so use it like one - swing your hand and hit the enemy with the exposed steel.

Look at the images below..

  When you swing the weapon sideways, as shown above, the targets for it are the temple (the side of the head just behind and slightly higher than the eye), the side of the neck, the center of the throat (just in the center of the gullet), and the back of the head, just where the neck joins it (this position is not usually reachable, but if an opportunity presents itself, by all means strike at it).

  You can also swing the Yawara stick vertically - start in the position shown in the first image above and swing it vertically, so that the metal end strikes either of the eyes.. or you can target and break the nose.

  All the targets mentioned above are marked in blue in the pictures below..

2) The Stabbing Yawara Strike:

The Yawara can also be held like a knife, with the metal end exposed at the top of the fist instead. Look at the picture below, it shows you how to hold the Yawara stick for a stabbing attack..

In this position, the Yawara is used with a stabbing motion, with the same motion you would use with a knife.. take a look at the two images below:

Using this motion, you can strike at the solar plexus (a point just beneath the breast bone), or at the groin. If you attack the solar plexus, attack it with a rising thrust at an angle of about 45 degrees.

Look at the image below, it shows the targets for this type of attack..

  Get yourself a punching bag and practice the various strikes described on it, with your Yawara stick - start with ten repetitions of each type of strike, with each hand, then increase it gradually to a hundred. Do this on at least two days a week.

  In doing so, you hard-wire these moves into your brain and nervous system, so that when you are under threat, there is no hesitation, you ACT by REFLEX ACTION. Strike harder and harder, trying to increase how far the bag swings with your strikes.

"When the bag disintegrates under this maltreatment (and it inevitably will) you will know that you are a tiger whose claws are beginning to be reasonably sharp."