I HAVE now been practicing Tonfa for just under two months, mostly at home but sometimes also in the gym. I bought my first pair on August 5th and have been doing it for a few hours each week, often during what I call 'unscheduled' training, when I just stand idly around the house flipping sticks while watching my stories. There are no places in Western Australia I have found that teach it, at least not as a stand-alone discipline. So what you see here is self-taught and far from authentic. Some - most - moves are things I've seen in instruction videos on Youtube. But the moves that look more like juggling are my improvisation.
When I began teaching myself how to use them I started with basic stuff, like the grip switch from attack position (long end forward) to Kama or 'axe' position. This is also not something I've seen in any Youtube vids, so far at least. But one of the things I saw repeated in videos and articles I read was needing to consider the Tonfa as extensions of my arms. So, sitting or walking around, I would handle them and perform basic balance tests, like this one. I was clumsy and felt useless for the first few days, dropping them many, many times. Sometimes on my foot or my ankle (that was my favourite) but usually just bouncing them off the floor and occasionally threatening to damage something I care about: the watch winder box, the sub-woofer, the cat.
I got better pretty quickly. I must have fumbled with those things dozens and dozens of times... maybe hundreds. But come the day my aluminium pair arrived I was competent enough that, to date, I've only dropped those on a handful of occasions. Up until last night, when I began to incorporate the moves I've been practicing as isolated exercises into a cohesive Kata, or the makings of one. I've also started compiling a 'blooper reel' stemming from the number of drop, slip, and uncontrolled, spinning projectile out-takes I have from this, my first recorded training session with sticks.
For reference: the wooden 24 inch Tonfa weigh 530 grams apiece. The aluminium pair of the same length are 1.47 kilograms apiece. So isometric exercises are three times harder with the latter. And I am thinking about the mechanics of loading plates onto them when that becomes too easy.
I was training pretty consistently for over an hour last night and am finding I am sore in some new places. Certainly different from your typical upper body training session, though the muscle groups being targeted are much the same. It feels like new muscle fibers are being worked - especially when I do repetitions of the more explosive movements, like striking. Five minutes of that is enough to challenge my endurance currently. But this - much like isometrics - is also rather boring to watch, so neither is included here. Plus, I am a little out of condition right now and would like to get better at striking first. And I'd really, really, like to have a proper Maki Wara or Wing Chun dummy to practice on. Hitting air is unfun, and some asshole took down the punching bag at the gym and hid it somewhere.
I haven't been this heavy since, well, the last time I was this heavy was... damn. Exactly fucking two years ago ... (it's happened again!). I gain and lose the same ten kilograms cyclically. Now I am back into my training and more focused and positive about what I'm doing, the kilos will begin to melt away once more. Then, when I believe I am skilled enough, I will challenge the husband of a friend of mine to a fight. Hehe. No, really, I've already bought all the pads and a helmet (which is the second purpose for the black mask you'll see me wearing in one of the vids above), and am keen to see how well I do against a nationally competitive Kendo martial artist. He will likely kick my ass, of course, but it'll be fun.
TONFA Saturday September 25th
Miscellaneous Kata training - one hour
TONFA Monday September 20th
Miscellaneous Kata training - 30 minutes
PULLS Sunday September 19th
Stretches: spine, adductors, quads, hamstrings, bicep tendons
Deadlifts w/barbell:
60 kg x 10
100 kg x 3
130 kg x 3
145 kg x 5 x 10 - double overhand for all sets TPR
TONFA Thursday September 16th
Stretches: spine, quads, adductors, shoulders, bicep tendons, wrist bends
Forward rolls x 10
Isometric clap x 60 seconds
Short punch x 20 p/side
Long punch x 20 p/side
Downward diagonal slice x 5 p/side
Grip switch x 20 p/side
GMs & ACCESSORIES Tuesday September 14th
Stretches: spine, legs, adductors, bicep tendons
Good mornings w/axle:
35 kg x 10
55 kg x 5 x 10
Chest press machine (p/h):
15 kg x 10
25 kg x 5 x 10 TPR
DB front raises (p/h):
10 kg x 5 x 10
DB curls (p/h):
10 kg x 3 x 10
SPD Thursday September 2nd
Stretches: all of them
(axle used for all movements)
Squat:
40 kg x 10
80 kg x 5 x 10
OHP:
40 kg x 3
45 kg x 5 x 10
Romanian deadlift:
80 kg x 5 x 10
