How to Spin Nunchakus

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name's Mike Lewis with Christian Martial Arts. We're going over how to spin nunchucks. There are some basic patterns that you have to learn in the very, very beginning. One is what we call just a normal grip, you're grabbing near one of the chucks, near the center, with probably about...just probably about two or three fingers-length away from the chain or the rope, whichever you have. I like to keep my thumb pressed up against it, and just begin your regular figure eight. What you want to be able to do is make your figure eight pattern very tight, so it's not loose. Your arms not flopping around everywhere instead. You're rotating right around the wrist. Now, the other way that you want to be able to do this, is now you take what we call an inverted grip. Again, holding your hand roughly about two to three fingers-length away from the chain. And now, you want to be able to flip it around that way, figure eight going in the same direction. Now, also not only do you have a figure eight where the nunchucks when they cross in the middle, if you were to draw it out in the air, you'd be drawing the figure eight, an eight laying on it's side. You have the cross right there in the middle. Those nunchucks are going down. You also have to invert that, so you learn to flip it in the other direction, so where it's going up. So you just learn to flip it up, just like that. Slow motion, keeping it right around the wrist. Now, the next way to do the upwards figure eight with this is to invert your grip, and now, you've gotta work your wrist backwards in the opposite direction. These take a little bit of practice. It also takes a lot of practice as far as the mental part goes, 'cause it can get very tricky and very confusing. Now, you practice enough times, you begin to mix things together. You learn how to flip it over your hand. So say I have a normal grip here, what I do is I take the nunchucks, I flip it around, now the chain is resting across my hand, and I just take and tuck my hand over. Now I've switched over to the other chuck, but also into an inverted grip. So, all you're doing is you're just taking it, flipping it back and forth. Combining figure eights into it. Learning to flip it around. And eventually it'll get to the point where it begins to flow all around your body as you begin to learn how to spin it. So, you flip over your hand. You can roll a figure eight into it a few times. You can flip it, spin it behind the back, and right back around. And now, you've learned how to do a few twirls and spins with the nunchucks."