It's quite some years since I practiced Wing Chun. In my books if you don't continuously do something, you don't get to call yourself a practitioner.

I figured if I want practice any martial art again, it has to be something I can do solo. The commitment of joining a class or having a sparring partner is not worth the price. Better yet it's something I can do in the background while watching TV.

And then it occurred to me, I have two sets of nunchaku lying in the closet, not being given the life they deserve. Interestingly, one of them is a fully metal set I found while cleaning up dad's stuffs. It was completely fresh and unused, I don't think dad ever took it out of the box.

Good thing this isn't my first rodeo in nunchaku. Back then I've picked up enough of the basics to be dangerous. That alone was enough to pull off what Bruce Lee did on screen. The standard should be much higher today, so I can focus on gaining more skills and tricks.

I suspect most people curious about picking up nunchaku would wonder how much getting hurt is required. After all we're talking about two pieces of heavy rods strung together, flying out of control around your body. It's only a step below playing with fire. In other words how much did I have to hit myself before I got good.

Surprisingly the answer is "not that much". There was hardly any bruises; and where there were I don't remember them sticking around for more than a few days. But if were to practice in too tight of a space then you're asking for it.

The instinct for an absolute beginner would be swing a nunchaku really slow, so in case it lands on the body it wouldn't hurt so bad.

But that's the first unintuitive aspect of this weapon. Being slow absolutely doesn't help. Think of it like riding a bike or flying a plane. Below a certain speed it just doesn't work.

Giving the nunchaku velocity ironically provides a better sense of control. There's no telling where a slow swing stick is going towards. A fast one only goes towards the direction you want.

I harbor no illusion that traditional weaponry like nunchaku stands up to the rigor of being a martial science. In that unlike jiujitsu (or even Street Fighter) where moves are theories that get continously proven and unproven. That's only possible because sparring partners get to tap out; no one needs to get hurt in order to find out if a move is effective in a given scenario.

Striking martial arts remain arts because there is no avenue of testing. I still feel guilty splitting my sparring partner's lip, and that was just my bare knuckle. I wouldn't dream of sparring someone with a blade.

Given this, I have to assume nunchaku as a weaponry carries little pragmatic value. That is until I get to test it against a human, land the hits and still manage to control the weapon. Unless VR somehow provides an infinite testing ground someday, but I'm not holding my breath.

There is however one undeniable value where nunchaku is superior to weapons like swords and staffs: it's visually deterring. I think an adversary is much more likely to stay far away from someone wielding a nunchaku. It's an awfully intimidating psychological force field.

In the same vein for spectators, there's also the unspoken charisma the weapon carries. It's for this factor I try not to practice in public. I don't know how much of it was enshrined by Bruce Lee. Considering how little time he was seen wielding it, the culture-effect vs time-cost was off the chart. I'm curious if nunchaku ever showed up on screen before him; and if it did was it showcased in any impressive manner.

It seems to me that the essence of nunchaku is about creating chaos (via circular motions with velocity) and attempting to control it. In fact most of the time the sticks spend flying in the air are not for the purpose of assault, but to be in the motion to eventually get back in the control of the owner. You may even say this is energy inefficient, and therefore inelegant.

There is however elegance that is hard for a spectator to spot. The optimal way to swing a nunchaku is via the wrist, not the arm. Effectiveness in control is often via snaps, that tiny but abrupt motion. These aspects of wrist work are also commonly found in badminton. If you spot of person expanding a lot of energy swinging his arms with nunchaku, he's probably doing it wrong.

In the interest of using nunchaku as more than a show-off device, I will eventually have to practice for precision. This means target practice at hitting moving objects. I thought of machines that spit out tennis balls, ping pong balls or shuttlecocks for me to hit, but that feels too hardcore. And then I thought of toys that emit soap bubbles. I'll get there when the time is right.

And that's my feeble attempt at being dangerous, or at least feeling dangerous.