Bo (weapon) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A bō (棒: ぼう) or kon (Chinese term), is a long staff weapon

Weapon

A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...

used in Okinawa and feudal Japan. Bō are typically around 6 ft (1.8 m) long and are now used in Japanese martial arts

Japanese martial arts

Japanese martial arts refers to the enormous variety of martial arts native to Japan. At least three Japanese terms are often used interchangeably with the English phrase "Japanese martial arts": , literally meaning "martial way", , which has no perfect translation but means something like science,...

, in particular bōjutsu

Bojutsu

, translated from Japanese as "staff technique", is the martial art of using a staff weapon called bō which simply means "staff". Staffs are perhaps one of the earliest weapons used by humankind. They have been in use for thousands of years in Eastern Asia. Some techniques involve slashing,...

. Related staff weapons are the jo which is 4 ft (1.2 m) long and the hanbo or hambo (half bō) which is 3 ft (0.9144 m) long.

Types

The bō is usually made with hard wood, such as red or white oak, although bamboo

Bamboo

Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....

has been used. The bō may be tapered in that it can be thicker in the center (chukon-bu) than at the ends (kontei)and usually round or circular (maru-bo). Older bō were round (maru-bo), square (kaku-bo) , hexagon (rokkaku-bo) or octagon (hakkaku-bo). The average size of a bō is 6 shaku (around 6 ft (1.8 m)) but they can be a long as 9 ft (2.7 m) (kyu-shaku-bō) .

A 6 ft (1.8 m) bō is sometimes called a rokushakubō (六尺棒: ろくしゃくぼう). This name derives from the Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

words roku (六: ろく), meaning "six"; shaku (尺: しゃく); and bō. Shaku is a Japanese measurement equivalent to 30.3 centimeters (0.994 ft). Thus, rokushakubō refers to a staff about 6-shaku (1.82 m; 5.96 feet) long. The bō is typically 3 cm (1.25 inch) thick , sometimes gradually tapering from the middle (chukon-bu) to 2 cm (0.75 inch)at the end (kontei). This thickness allows the user to make a tight fist around it in order to block and counter an attack.

In some cases for training purposes or for a different style, rattan

Rattan

Rattan is the name for the roughly 600 species of palms in the tribe Calameae, native to tropical regions of Africa, Asia and Australasia.- Structure :...

was used. Some were inlaid or banded with strips of iron or other metals for extra strength. Bō range from heavy to light, from rigid to highly flexible, and from simple pieces of wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

picked up from the side of the road to ornately decorated works of art.

Martial arts

The Japanese martial art of wielding the bō is bōjutsu
Bojutsu
, translated from Japanese as "staff technique", is the martial art of using a staff weapon called bō which simply means "staff". Staffs are perhaps one of the earliest weapons used by humankind. They have been in use for thousands of years in Eastern Asia. Some techniques involve slashing,...

. The basis of bo technique is te, or hand, techniques derived from Quanfa and other martial arts that reached Okinawa via trade and Chinese monks. Thrusting, swinging, and striking techniques often resemble empty-hand movements, following the philosophy that the bō is merely an "extension of one’s limbs". Consequently, bōjutsu is often incorporated into other styles of empty hand fighting, such as karate

Karate

is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Islands in what is now Okinawa, Japan. It was developed from indigenous fighting methods called and Chinese kenpō. Karate is a striking art using punching, kicking, knee and elbow strikes, and open-handed techniques such as knife-hands. Grappling, locks,...

. Traditionally this was mainly true for the Okinawan styles, such as Shōrin-ryū

Shorin-Ryu

is one of the major modern Okinawan martial arts. It was founded by Choshin Chibana in 1933. Shōrin-ryū combines elements of the traditional Okinawan fighting styles of Shuri-te.-History:Chosin Chibana was a top student of the great master of shuri-te, Anko Itosu...

, but Hirokazu Kanazawa, 10° Dan Shōtōkan-ryū, created two kata of his own in the 1970s (which he published on DVD in 2009) and regularly teaches bō seminars worldwide. With these kata he is the first master to create Shōtōkan-ryū bōjutsu. Stan Schmidt, Chief Instructor South Africa JKA, writes:

"Master Kanazawa has realised the benefit of weapons training and thus extended The Art of The Empty Hand to include weaponry as natural extensions of karate techniques. All leaders of Karate should seriously consider that their advanced students would be a whole lot better off for having some insight into weaponry such as the Bo, as an extension of Karate-do"

As in Okinawa-te, in bōjutsu attacks are often avoided by agile footwork or jumps and returning strikes made at the enemy’s weak points.

The bō is typically gripped in thirds, and when held horizontally in front, the right palm is facing away from the body and the left hand is facing the body, enabling the bō to rotate. The power is generated by the back hand pulling the bō, while the front hand is used for guidance. When striking, the wrist is twisted, as if turning the hand over when punching. Bō technique includes a wide variety of blocks, strikes, sweeps, and entrapments. The bō may even be used to sweep sand into an attacker’s eyes.

History

The earliest form of the bō, a staff, has been used throughout Asia since the beginning of recorded history. The first bo were called ishibo, and were made of stone. These were hard to make and were often unreliable. These were also extremely heavy. The konsaibo was a very distant variant of the kanabo. They were made from wood studded with iron. These were still too cumbersome for actual combat, so they were later replaced by unmodified hardwood staffs. The bo used for self defense by monks or commoners, the staff was an integral part of the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu, one of the martial arts’ oldest surviving styles. The staff evolved into the bō with the foundation of kobudo, a martial art using weapons, which emerged in Okinawa in the early 17th century.

Prior to the 15th century, Okinawa, a small island located south of Japan, was divided into three kingdoms: Chuzan, Hokuzan, and Nanzan. After much political turmoil, Okinawa was united under the Sho Dynasty in 1429. In 1477, Emperor Sho Shin of the second Sho dynasty came into power. Determined to enforce his philosophical and ethical ideas, while banning feudalism, the emperor instituted a ban on weapons. It became a crime to carry or own weapons such as swords, in an attempt to prevent further turmoil and prevent uprising.
In 1609, the temporary peace established by Sho Shin was violently overthrown when the powerful Satsuma Clan invaded Okinawa. Composed of Japanese samurai, the Satsuma Clan took over the island, making Okinawan independence a thing of the past. The Satsuma placed a new weapons ban on the people of Okinawa, leaving them defenseless against the steel of the samurai’s swords. In an attempt to protect themselves from the devastating forces of the Satsuma, the people of Okinawa looked to simple farming implements, which the samurai would not be able to confiscate, as new methods of defense. This use of weapons developed into kobudo

Okinawan kobudo

Okinawan kobudō is a Japanese term that can be translated as "old martial way of Okinawa"...

, or "ancient martial art," as we know it today.

Although the bō is now used as a weapon, its use is believed by some to have evolved from the long stick tenbin which was used to balance buckets or baskets. Typically, one would carry baskets of harvested crops or buckets of water or milk or fish etc., one at each end of the tenbin, that is balanced across the middle of the back at the shoulder blades. In poorer agrarian economies, the tenbin remains a traditional farm work implement. In styles such as Yamanni-ryū

Yamanni ryu

Yamanni-ryū is a form of Okinawan kobudō whose main weapon is the bo, a non-tapered, cylindrical staff...

or Kenshin-ryū, many of the strikes are the same as those used for yari
Yari
is the term for one of the traditionally made Japanese blades in the form of a spear, or more specifically, the straight-headed spear...

("spear") or naginata
Naginata
The naginata is one of several varieties of traditionally made Japanese blades in the form of a pole weapon. Naginata were originally used by the samurai class in feudal Japan, and naginata were also used by ashigaru and sōhei .-Description:A naginata consists of a wooden shaft with a curved...

("glaive"). There are stick fighting techniques native to just about every country on every continent.

Gallery

Image:Bō.jpg|Japanese bō 6ft tall and .5in across in the form of a staff.
Image:Bō 2.JPG|Japanese bō, close up of one end or tip (kontei).
File:Various antique Japanese bo (staff) showing the (kontei).jpg|Various antique Japanese bo (staff), showing the kontei (end or tip).

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Types

Martial arts

History

Gallery

See also

External links