The tonfa
is a simple, flattened stick, around 15 to 20 inches long, with a handle
sticking out at 90 degrees to one end. That handle was the first use of
the tonfa, as a means to rotate the heavy cylindrical stones used to grind
rice into flour. As with many other weapons of kobujutsu, the art
of Okinawan weapons fighting, the tonfa also proved to have effective
martial uses.
Kobujutsu
is the Okinawan art of fighting with weapons, and is related to karate,
open-hand fighting. Today, the more combat-oriented -jutsu orientation
has been largely supplanted by a martial way, or -do, form of this martial
art. Most kobudo weapons were simple farming implements or tools:
the bo, for example, was a staff used for assistance while walking,
or to suspend two parcels over the user's shoulder. The eku was
a fisherman's oar. And the now-ubiquitous nunchaku
was used as a flail when dehulling rice.
Villagers,
forbidden from owning "more advanced" weapons like swords or naginata,
adapted their everyday tools to defensive purposes. Techniques that worked
were archived in kata, or special sequences of movements, allowing
kobudo fighters to train and pass along their knowledge.
Tonfa were
used in pairs, one in each hand. By gripping the handle in a fist with
the shaft lying along the forearm,the tonfa wielder could use the same
techniques used in empty-handed arts like karate. Measured properly, a
tonfa would extend beyond the user's elbow when held by the handle. Dual
weapons allowed the user to simultaneously block with one tonfa and strike
with the other; the dense hardwood could protect even against sword cuts.
Tonfa techniques
remained largely unchanged until the 1970's, when Lon Anderson developed
single-tonfa techniques for police officers. The result made the tonfa
perhaps the most widely used kobudo weapon today.
