Page 53 - Martial Science Magazine 2019 FEB DIG

Kusarigama

the “ultimate weapon”

(Ninja) were BUSHI (Samurai) and neither of these two figures
had exclusivity in the weapons they used. This goes to say that both
handled it, since this was a weapon that became very popular. Du-
ring the years outside of Japan, we have known that this was closely
related to the figure of the Ninja, but nowadays it is known that there
are several traditional Samurai schools that have the use of the KU-
SARIGAMA within their technical repertoire.

M.S.M: Could you tell us about the handling of this?

G.G.S: Yes, of course..

This is a weapon that, as I said, gives us many advantages when
working with several distances and com-bining the chain with the
sickle, but also makes the domain of it very complicated, especially
for the chain (KUSARI).

There are different types of KUSARIGAMA but all of them have in
common the union of the chain and the weight with the ballast. A
typical use would be to maintain a distance with the opponent when
spinning the chain (KUSARI), then try to make an impact on him
with the OMORI to his head, to the hand, to the weapon directly or
to try to hook the neck, arm, leg or his weapon in order to unbalance
or disarm him, then close the distance and end with the KAMA. You
can also turn the Kama directly, used as ballast weight. This tech-
nique is less known and, of course, blockages are made with both
KAMA and KUSARI to defend the opponent’s attacks.

M.S.M: As you tell us, there are different types of KUSARIGA-
MA, could you describe any of them?

G.G.S: We would basically differentiate two types:

- A unique KAMA with the KUSARI at the lower end of the handle
from 2 to 4 meters with ballasted weight.

FEBRUARY/2019 53