How to Twirl a Bo Staff

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Michael Lewis, from Christian Martial Arts. We're talking about how to spin around a bo staff. There's many, many different ways to spin a bo staff around, so you can't really hold yourself to one. The best thing to do is go out into your backyard, just start experimenting around with this, and see what really works for you. To start out with a few basics, obviously, just something that is really not practical, but it just looks cool. You can add it in to your forms, or into your cottas, or anything that you make up, is just to take the bo staff, spin it around, and take one hand off, catch it on the other side, and just continue to flip, left or right hand, whichever you start out with. I'm starting with my left hand here, and just flipping it around. Just make sure you keep it near the center. If you get off and you start sliding down, which is very easy, your weight is going to be unevenly distributed, and you could possibly lose your bo staff. Another way, adding in strikes into spinning your bo staff, is to take, have the left hand palm down, the right hand palm up. What I do, is I take it, I spin it around, to where my arms are crossed, but then I lay it up against my body, to the side, and that's actually a strike in of itself, but then you can turn that, into a spin, by taking it, uncrossing your arms, changing your hands positions, so now your right hand is palm down, left hand palm up. Spin it to cross your arms, and lay it down, so if you put it all together, you just go back and forth, just like that. If you want to get a little bit more intricate with that, you'd begin to scoop. You take your hands, same position, right hand palm up, left hand palm down. Cross it around and lay it up against your body, and what you do, is you scoop down, change your hands, and now you scoop down to the other side, and it's actually a continuous spinning of the bo staff. You just have to learn to change your hands at the right time, and make sure that you're staying in the center of the bo staff, so those are just two or three basic ways, to be able to spin your bo staff around, and get started. Again, experiment with it. Go out into your backyard, and give it a try."