Except for a few months where I had another teacher, I haven't really done a lot more in kobudo (Okinawan/Japanese weapons) since I left Texas in June 2018.
Have I practiced here and there? Sure. Not diligently, not consistently, but some, especially in the weapons I like best from that program (bo, jo, nunchaku).
With my work schedule and commitments, it's hard to find an actual kobudo program I can take that focuses on just the Okinawan weapons. Everyone wants you to study their empty hand art too.
I'm just not up for that, to be honest.
Plus... I'm also just not up for learning a bunch of new forms for the sake of learning a bunch of new forms.
I mean, sure, if we're using the form to use movements we'll use in a drill, awesome. I'm totally up for that, especially if we're hitting things. The weapons I own are tough enough to hit things without breaking.
But to just learn yet another pattern to manipulate a weapon in space against an invisible opponent?
Yeah, no.
I am at a point in my martial arts development where I'm most interested in drills and pressure testing as much as I possibly can.
It's hard to find any weapons program outside of Western Martial Arts that has that.
Not that WMA's are out of the question, necessarily. I have a school near me that is good.
But I sure hate to see my bo and nunchucks and jo gather dust.
Lucky for me, I teach Arnis out of a Shotokan school. Turns out, they want new forms and drills to include in their weapons programs and for their demo teams.
And here I am, with a black belt in Kobudo having studied five weapons (and a smattering of a sixth).
So now I'm teaching a weekly kobudo "class" after Arnis class is over to a few people at the school interested in learning this kobudo material I know.
They get new weapons content, and I get to knock the rust off and do some of what I'm most interested in (applications out of kata and drills).
Win-win.
It's kobudo time again.
And it's awesome.