At Home Self-Defense: How to Make Nunchaku

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When Japan invaded and occupied Okinawa some 350 years ago, possession of any weapon by an Okinawan was forbidden.  So the Okinawans had to turn to improvising weapons from common tools.  One such weapon was the nunchaku, a tool used by farmers to pound their grain.  It consisted of two sticks tied together by a rope or cord, making it the most versatile and wicked hand-to-hand weapon ever devised.

The nunchaku can be used as a club, a flail, or a garrote, and can be mastered at home with only a few hours of practice.  It can be made with materials easily obtained from any lumber yard or hardware store.  When used as a flail or whiplash club, the striking end reaches speed of over 100 miles per hour.  When used as a garrote, each stick uses each other for leverage, creating a vise-like garrote.

To make one, take a piece of 1 1/2 inch diameter dowel 31 inched long and cut in half, each piece being then 15 1/2 inches long.  Now drill a hole into the end of each piece to a depth of three inches.  The hole should be just wide enough to accommodate a nylon rope, which is the best for this purpose.  Now drill into the side of the dowel to intersect the end of the other hole, but big enough to hold the rope doubled.  You should now have one ‘L’ shaped hole. 

Now insert the end of the rope through the end of the dowel and pull through the larger hole.  Double the rope end and fuse the doubles strands together with a match or cigarette lighter.  Now repeat the process with the other stick, using the other end of the rope, leaving about five inches between the two sticks.  The fused strands should fit into the hole, leaving nothing sticking out.  A simple knot could be tied in the ends of the ropes instead of burning them. 

The nunchaku is used as a flail by holding one of the sticks about midway, thumb pointing toward the rope.  It can be swung from a hanging position, with the other end either hanging backward over the same shoulder, or from the under arm position, like in the movies.  For the under arm position, the striking end is held firmly in the armpit, and released with a sudden snap at the victim’s temple or the ribs.  Your own imagination is the limit to the number of ways and methods of striking that can be used. 

Most store-bought nunchakus come with chains instead of rope, but chains are noisy and not worth the effort.  When you have practised enough to keep from bashing yourself in the forehead, take a block plane and plane off the roundness of the dowel, making it into a hexagon.  When the edges hit the victim, the pounds per square inch are much more intense than those delivered by a round object. 

Yawara Stick

The nuchaku is very superior to the yawara stick for several reasons.  It has a much greater reach, it hits harder due to the whiplash effect, and it does more damage because of the edges left after planing of the curves.  It can be used as a club by holding the two sticks together; and when you realize that the club you are holding is also effective as a garrote, with no modification, you begin to realize that you hold the world’s most effective hand-to-hand weapon.