More thoughts about Kobudo.
Based on some recent reading, specifically some input by Rory Miller, I'm trying to refine the "What" for our kobudo arts.
The theory is that weapon arts are for a planned attack or defense. Versus the sudden, unexpected fight for your life defense of unarmed martial arts. To put it in more clear, modern terms, if you were about to begin a military action to either assault an enemy or defend against a likely enemy assault you would want to arm yourself as well as possible. These are the two major scenarios where weaponry is used. The same is true for traditional Okinawan arts. As a guard or soldier to the Ryukyu kingdom it would make sense that you would be trained to use the weapons of the day.
This hypothesis allows us to make a few assertions:
Weapons were (most likely) not carried around for self defense purposes by the average citizen.
Weapons were (most likely) used in combative applications against both armed and unarmed opponents with staffs, spears, thrown weapons, and more.
Unarmed arts are for emergency defending, as in civil self defense. This fits in line with the fact that for many years Kobudo and Karate were not taught alongside one another. They were separate arts...for separate purposes.
