Are Nunchucks / Flails Terrible Weapons? 鏈耞棒真的不好用嗎？(Response to Shadiversity) 

Man, absolutely phenomenal reply! These are some great counterpoints and I agree completely.

Regarding the flail as an agricultural tool: The important reason why they were used (also in Europe) is (to my understanding) the angle. The grain lies on the floor on a possibly low heap so the angle of a strike with a straight stick would often not have the desired effect. With a flail (the long twohanded kind) you control the angle so that the front part comes down more or less parallel to the ground.

So what you're saying is that the flail was good because sometimes you had TOO much force fighting from horseback so it acts as a bit of a shock absorber? Neat!

Very good video. I too believe that it was a development to limit shock. Repeatedly beating the ground with a stick might put your hands in a lot of stress from the shock and you'll end up with hurting hands while beating weat. I think having to face solid target like metal armor, it put less stress on the user to have the force of the impact dissipated through the links rather than to have it transferred to your hand.

I thin another overlooked point is the ability to get behind a shield with nunchucks or a flail where a stick has no option but to bounce off.

Was led here from Shadiversity's video. I never thought about the energy-efficiency and safety on horseback elements of this weapon. Subscribed!

Wow came here from Shads video and this man single handedly redeemed the flail. I also gotta point out it's great these two RU-vidrs although having two opposite options on the same subject matter. Came together for the benefit of educating the masses. That's just awesome the more I think about it. The world needs more dedication to education than infatuation with self preservation.

I think Jason Kingsley, from Modern History TV, showed how a mounted swordsman basically needed no force by the rider in cutting. The horse applied the energy, as you pointed out. The the hussite peasants in Europe were often associated with the flail. I wonder how they would use it, because to wack it about, you need a fair bit of space to helicopter swing it like you demonstrated. They were quite successful, considering the david vs goliath situation they were in.

Bless you, sir. I've often heard people claim that flails were used effectively from horseback, but I was never given any sources to these claims. You've also redeemed one my favourite "Rule of cool" weapons. Subscribed! :D

Great video on why flails might be preferred over rigid weapons such as maces when on horseback. The advantages of reducing hand shock, less chance of the weapon breaking, and less chance of the weapon flying out of your hand upon impact makes sense.

Well, there are some more points in favour of a flail. First, it can go around a guard or protection, namely, shield, or blocking move. Second, flails are very fast. Third, it's very hard to predict the movement of a flail when you are attacked by one, or, to be precise, the angle and the point of the attack. You learn fairly quickly to use it, but, for some reason, it is much harder to learn to defend against it. I did some medieval fencing in my time. In my experience, a fighter with a flail made a sword and shield wielding or a pike and a shield wielding fighter 9 times out of 10. Counterintuitively, guys without shields were more effective against flail due to their mobility and weapon agility, hence, countering the flail attacks. It shifted balance towards 5:5 or even 3:7. I think, the problem of Shad is that he tries to use the flail as a stick, when it is not. It's more akin to a whip, actually. When you see a flail not as a stick, but as a rock with the rope everything clicks in its place.

I always doubted if most cavalry melee weapons were just disposable like jousting lances, but this thing solves the problem.

Just finished watching Shad's video and he linked to your video and you totally deserved the attention. Great video and thoughts on the flail/nunchuck

Adding one argument for chain weapons in Europe: They are very hard to parry with any kind of blade, especially shields are almost useless. There is a realistic chance that your enemy looses his weapon if it gets entangled in your chain weapon. That's why chain weapons were used in Europe as a specialised weapon against standard sword and shield infantry. Plus you need MUCH less energy to deform heavy armor than with a "normal" blunt weapon like a hammer or mace. That's because of the extra reach and impact of the swinging chain.

Minimal effort for maximum impact.. With a flail type weapon the weilder only has to move the handle a small amount to produce sizeable force on the end of the flail. Even a small person can weild the flail and inflict large amounts of damage.

Super great point about the flail being used on horseback. I remember seeing artwork of European knights using them on warwagons and horses, and never put two and two together. This also explains why certain mobile units in medieval Russian armies used the flail as well.

Good video. What is also to remember, is that flails were used particulary against an enemy with a shield. Unlike a stick you can go over or around the shield with a flail or nunchuck. At least that is why our Flemish farmers used their "dorsvlegel" or grain flail against the military superior french army..

Everyone is forgetting the proper nunchuck and flail technique. I was always taught the purpose of a flail or nunchuck was as a poor person's defence against swords or polearms. You can deflect the opponent's weapon or wrap your own around theirs and yank it to disarm them. Think of the end of the movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990). Splinter was able to go toe to toe with a man with a spear because he wrapped the nunchucks around the spear and was able to control his opponent's weapon. It's not an offensive weapon, per se. It's to enable a farmer to defend his lands against a much better equipped soldier or samurai.

The energy efficiency and efficacy of wielding the weapon from horseback are seemingly both very valid points. Thanks for that.

your last main point is absolutely truth, and was one of my first thoughts too: flails are not intended for footfolk, but for riders, and increasing the force of the blow is not a concern for mounted warriors. On the contrary, making the strike repeatable and enabling the rider to continue the fight longer by dampening the shocks, is véry desirable. From what little I know about the central European flails, the stick is to keep it away from the horse, and other than that, the metal weight is just dumped on the target/victim. No need to swing it because the speed of the horse is more than enough energy in that ball to go straight through an unarmored skull. Overkill is hilarious, but not effective in real combat.

I would also expect that from horseback, the angles and articulations of your hand and wrist are limited due to your positioning in relation to your opponents on the ground. When striking downward your range is limited and therefore so is your power, so the flexible end would allow strikes from more practical angles without compromising hand position or grip.

i remember the japanese variant came from horse harness. though i have to say, nunchucks don't normally bounce back but glides through once it hits a target if done correctly. and that when it hits the target, the transfer of force doesn't go back to the wielder, giving him little resistance from the previous strike thus quicker to perform a follow up, compared to a stick.

I think your point about cavalry and it being harder to dislodge from the hand is an incredible point.

You made some solid points, and especially in mentioning that these were originally farming tools. One thing you missed is that these tools were used a LOT by the farmers who built up the muscle and "muscle memory" to be able to handle them with more certainty than somebody who just picked one up for the first time and is flailing around with it. Modern and historical martial artists who use these sorts of weapons practice with them a lot to gain the level of expertise that the ancient farmer would have had if not more. And yes they make mistakes while learning, but then they do learn.

Perhaps they were useful for reaching around a shield? Loving your work!!

The nunchaku is a very good and versatile weapon. I think just so many who train it focus exclusively on the spinning without implementing footwork, blocks and all ranges (including ground fighting) in how they train with it.

Very good points you are making here. The extra long handled flail with a short 18" rod is very difficult to defend against. Although, the shorter handle version shown in this video makes much more sense if being wielded on horseback. Excellent video. 👍

I was thinking the same thing after wushu engineer's video, the momentum in a strike from horse back with a flail would be staggering, but the striker would barely feel it since the reaction is entirely dissipated in the chain.

The calvary part is important. I also think that this would be a niche weapon. Your not going to go to war with just a flail. You use it for a specific goal and would have a short sword, knife or axe as a back up... Ideally

This is a really good counterpoint to shads video. Energy conservation in a long fight is a really important thing.

Like this video, but a few points: Not sure about the flail, but want to address the nunchaku side of things. So hope the context with this works: You probably won't get much more force out of it if you're swinging it in a circle before striking. You might actually get less force and less acceleration. The reason is as you are spinning it and someone attacks, you generally have to fight against that force to get it swinging in the direction you want it to go. Let's assume you have a pair of nunchaku where each chaku is 12" long. Maybe the first 4 inches are covered by your hand, then you have 8" of solid wood, a cord, and another 12 inches. The 8" are not being swung in that direction of the strike when you're spinning them around. Neither is your arm. That means your arm and that 8" of wood have to fight against the forces you have been putting on it to swing to come to a different direction. It's much more practical to hold them properly and swing them properly, slashing through and immediately coming back for the follow-through. A proper swing and hit with allow you to use the momentum to your advantage, to strike again not to your detriment.

u can hit around blocks & shields with a flail etc... u also can block and deflect swords etc if u train with em... also the energy of ur blocked strikes is much easier to reuse for ur next swing... great vid. grüße

Being a farmer I would say that you wouldn't want to hit grain with a solid stick for two reasons. The first is that a blow with a stick against a small number of kernels against a hard surface will damage the grain. As noted below by Christof, the flail allows the blow to land parallel to the ground so that the force is spread out over a greater area for more efficiency and less force per unit area. The flail purposely reduces the force of the impact per unit area to protect the grain. Damaged grain not good, damaged brain good. The second reason for using a flail is shock reduction. Hitting a solid stick repeatedly against, for example, an elevated (which solves the parallel to floor problem) hard surface would soon destroy wrists and shoulders because the impact is transferred through the stick to your moving body parts which must yield to dissipate the force. A bouncing flail dissipates the force to whatever the flail hits on rebound or simply into accelerating the flail in other directions. In combat, there are many times fewer strikes than in flailing grain and the desire is to achieve maximum force per unit area on a few well placed blows. Anybody who has actually been hit with a staff knows that it is a lot more damaging to be hit by the whipping end of a staff then the broad side. If combatants flailed at one another as if they were threshing grain every battle would end in exhaustion with neither side winning. One of the hallmarks of an inexperienced fighter is wasted energy and early exhaustion. When a combatant is entirely exhausted he prays to lose to end the suffering. While it is possible to make a relatively low energy distraction by constantly circulating a flail, it is doubtful that that energy consumption is as low as what is required for one or a few well deployed feints with a stick. The continuous movement of the flail may create the illusion of a wall of motion but no practical martial art employs the wall of motion technique because it is inefficient and ultimately ineffective after the attacker has encountered it once or twice. I do not find the arguments given here to be convincing.

Some points about flails. Whenever you have a head on a stick connected by string or chain, the momentum from handle/hand is carried as long as you hand/handle is accelerating and chain/string is in tension. If you slow down during the strike, you will most likely not transfer any more momentum to strike. On other hand, you will also not lose the max momentum if you decide to slow down for some reason (or forced to stop). Solid object on other hand transfer the momentum all the time, so if you slow down during your strike, the strike loses some momentum. Flail or nunchucks can never produce more intense momentum than solid object if same velocity/length is used. Flails have one significant benefit over solid weapon. If the handle is parried - eg. handle hits edge of the shield, the head of the flail is not stopped like the handle itself and strikes "behinnd" the shield (or weapon that parries). For that reason, it might be quite difficult to parry flail strikes if the oppenent gets close enough (basically to the poking distance of handle).

Came from Shad's video too, wasn't disappointed, subscribed and will be looking through the channel

My video tomorrow briefly covers a flail used from horseback. Definitely a interesting weapon.

Your point about the advantages of retention on horseback mirrors my own exactly, and it's especially interesting that the flail is extremely correlated with horseback raiding in the archaeological record. The Khazars, Avars and Rus, all steppe nomads, all horseback raiders, used flails. In the Americas, a type of war club, known as the flop head war club, suddenly exploded in popularity with the arrival of European horses.

I think the main point of an agricultural flail over just thrashing with a stick is, that you hit the grain on a hard floor (wood or stone) and if you ever hit a hard, solidly anchored object like a post or a wall with a stick, you know, that it hurts your hands. With a flail the resistance of the ground is not transferred back into your hands, so you can hit harder without injuring yourself.

In the case of nunchaku I doubt they were intended to be a dueling or battlefield weapon, but rather represented objects found in the environment at the time. Someone such as a bandit will obviously go for an easy target, but may decide its not worth it if the easy target starts whipping a horse bridle around and yelling like a maniac. Sure the wielder in this case might hit themselves, but a bruised arm is preferable to whatever the bandit had in mind.

I have a theory that nunchaku were situational improvised weapons carried by local night patrols/guardsmen as noisemakers. Before streetlights, a local Japanese night patrol would walk with a noisemaker and lantern so people could safely commute back home. Even now, people carry string wooden sticks to fireworks festivals to cheer and celebrate. It was probably a really obscure and situational improvised weapon and didn't even have a Okinawan kata like the other Kobudo weapons. Kind of like how designing a kata and wielding a Maglite flashlight or a brass handbell primarily as a weapon would be really silly to us.

I've seen that most of your videos are about warfare, weapons and such and I thought that maybe you could start doing more videos about purely history. Wars, Emperors, Dynasties, The way people lived and such. Chinese or Mongolian history is almost completaly unknown to a standard european/american viewer.

Great video! Instead of just stating that historical weapons are "stupid" we need to consider who used them and why :)

The horse part makes perfect sense. If you think about it cavalry swords are designed with similar principles in mind. The swept back blade serves the double purpose of increasing the size of the cutting edge of the sword and allowing it to slice though targets while riding and not get stuck.

Good job! Also, a flail can be seen as a foldable stick, easier to carry (which is what you're doing with it most of the time) and easier to deploy.

Wonderful video. Clear, organized and well reasoned! Subbed!

I was thinking the same, you cannot disarm a nunchuck easily. A stick, if it’s long enough your opponent will grab at the end of the stick and pull it out of your hand. If you try to grab at a swinging nunchuck you will damage your hands to a very painful degree.

Great video. I think that you and shad also missed one thing in regards of blocking a strike from such a thing. Yeah it is easy with a shield but may not be fun if you have to block with a sword, especially in close combat.

Yeah, when I watched Shad's two videos some of my first thoughts afterwards was the lack of the discussion around horseback combat and the reduced rebound due to the chain. I always saw flails etc. as primarily horseback weapons due to that trait.

I'm a new subscriber. The interesting discussion previously between you and scholagladitoria having brought me here. You make good points. I agree that the origin of most of the weapons that might generate some doubt concerning their effectiveness stem from the fact that they were originally tools and not weapons at all. My admittedly limited understanding is that martial weapons have been repeatedly banned to 'regular' folk over time and across all cultures. This ban always results in these 'regular' folk learning to master the use of the tools they had at hand as weapons. My feeling is that all of these things we think about today as ancient martial weapons and discuss today as not being as effective or efficient as other weapons of their time are indeed not as good. Because they are tools and farm implements. But, this is also an advantage. The weapon at hand that no one sees as a weapon is perhaps more valuable than obvious martial weapons. This is in fact the whole point. The only point we should be considering. If it's illegal for you to possess martial weapons, but you have trained hundreds of hours fighting with nothing more than a stylus and a laptop, you are potentially far more dangerous than the average bad guy carrying a hand gun or a knife. Just my opinion. And thanks for the video. I enjoyed it.

No, you are correct about agricultural flails, you harvest the cereals and the flails is used to loose the grains out of the stalks and to break up the hard outer shells to get at the soft inner bit that can be ground to flour in a mill. Then you will use the wind or a big cloth sieve to separate floury bit and "chaff" (the outer shells and maybe bits of stalk that you broke loose) from each other and collect the floury bits for the mill/grindstone. I also immediately said when watching Shad's video that a Longstaff flail would make a dangerous weapon. Not quite as sure about horseback and less risk to your wrists. (Especially as the staff would be useful for attack AND defense... not so sure about parrying with a nunchuck... any ideas?) Also comparing your version to a "commercially available" Nunchuck is a bit unfair as for the better handling in the katas those are definitely intentional made with two same length "grips"... which makes a lot of your points about how it's not so bad invalid as they would not apply to such an equal length Nunchaku... But then you would not build a house with an athletic "hammer" or go on the hunt or to war with an athletic javelin... sports have a tendency to change weapons or tools into unrecognizable forms that are only useful for the sport after some time. Even actual war weapons like all fencing instruments, bows or even olympic pistols have very limited potential for combat use. small caliber rifles and shotguns would be exceptions from that rule, but only as any caliber of longrifle is absolutely devastating and you cannot make them any less harmful without making the sport impossible with them. Even airguns are dangerous with a large potential for lethal accidents if handled wrong. Only shortcoming would probably be the reduced range.

they even show up in the Battle of Orsha painting, 1520-1534, being used by a what I would assume horse archer, this painting was done by what many specialists believe to be a painter who could have been at the battle himself do to how accurate the battle was.

Really good points, I think Jason Kingsley would be the one to ask on the horseback use, it would be cool if he could try it and see if it has less stress on the wrist I always thought the use of the flail on grain and such was to allow you to strike with the flat more easily, without having to have the raised/grain raised to chest height. Interesting to see another idea on it I'd not considered at all.

Something else to consider for use on horseback is actually related to the "self striking" problem Shad mentioned: I think the flail might be a safer weapon for the rider's horse! Think about it: if you make a bad cut with a saber, or make the wrong move with your sharp pointed horseman's pick, you could end up harming your mount. This could also happen with a bounce back (i.e., your sword hits a helmet or other hard target, or the pick gets wrenched out). However, with the flail (especially the differential length version), this is much harder because the fast moving part is necessarily further away from the horse than the handle, so the energy has a chance to dissipate. And even if you do get a bounce back, it will have dissipated some energy, and not present a sharp blade or spike that could injure the animal.

The advantage of a flail is the same advantage of a pitchfork, a scythe, and a wood axe: it's a farming implement you already had that also has some military applications.

great discussion between you two. Subbed for professionalism

Wow this is a great video. IDK if this is the format of all the videos on your channel or not but if you got a slightly nicer background and maybe moved your camera back a bit I think your channel could be big. you have the information to offer obviously which is a step above a lot of channels.

Excellent points. Thank you for responding.

I came here from seeing your comments in skallagrim, enjoying your content so far

Excited to hear your response to the video.

Very good points! Even if I felt there was some reasons that woould explain why brute force is not the focus of the weapon, I would not have found out those arguments myself. They do make a lot of sense!

Farmers use it to save on the strain on their grip. It's easier on the hands. If you use tools a lot for work you understand the strain and wear of tools on your hands- specifically tools you strike with. Flails are used on things you don't need to hit accurately. If you need accuracy you use a hammer, even if it hurts the hand more/causes strain. Flails are just for grip strain reduction/stamina concerns. I think also staying on horse so on helps. Also the swinging as a wind-up to generate force allows for some different mechanics which are more efficient for some users. I think the use of flail versus mace etc. in warfare may have been preference as both have benefits and draw backs. The nunchucks are probably all about the difficulty of following the weapon and blocking it- the drawback being the weapon is more difficult to learn to use. preference would probably play a roll also for the user. I also thing nunchucks wouldn't work well for one-handed only use and therefore probably not popular for group warfare- but for Japanese they often squared off to fight one by one even in a war. (Not that often but they had some precedent for dueling as a code over gang warfare for certain classes- mostly for swords)

Good reply. This debate has been fun!

I imagine one of your counterpoints could described as a simple case of Isaac Newton’s “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Sure, a rigid one-piece stick could allow the wielder to easily strike a target with more force. But in turn, that also means the hand trying to grip the weapon has to struggle more, when the target applies the same force on the rigid weapon and those forces get more easily transferred back to the wielder’s hand.

I also came here from Shadiversity. I think your summation that the one-handed flail was used primarily on horseback because its construction reduced the shock on the hand is accurate. I was once told that samurai swords are curved for the same reason. Before the samurai became sword-wielding duelists, they were once nobles who fought on horseback. Their swords were one-handed, curved and had the handle slightly offset to decrease the impact on the hand during a slashing pass.

I agree...it is more energy efficient and easier to carry...especially on a horse...and if you're going into battle on horse back...you don't need the same power as you do on foot as the horse generates plenty of energy from its momentum...it also, with the weights, can smash helmets like a mace but with better energy loss on kickback when considering moving on a horse...its not stupid after all...

I'm pretty sure they *can* hit harder for their length than just a stick, so pretty sure Shad is just wrong about that. There is a mechanical advantage to the swinging motion, it's like how a trebuchet is a more efficient device than an equivalent length catapult. You can just get the end of it moving faster for the same energy investment.

The flail is a great weapon on a horse, you don't even have to work, just dangle it out there and wallop heads as you pass.

Another thing about the flail that may not be considered, is that you can swing it from the attachment point or from the arm allowing additional techniques that arent available to a completely solid shafted weapon.

It would also be less likely to break from impact in general.

I think people miss the point that that flail doesn't break, and you don't take as much shock from the strike in your hands and arms because there is no connection like a solid staff has.

Have no personal interest in this topic, just sorta stumbled in here. But man, you had me here the whole time with your passion alone! You seem like an awesome dude. Great video, great research. When so much goes unsubstantiated these days, I deeply appreciate how much trouble you went through gathering & listing your resources in the description.

Another advantage for the flail from horseback is that I think if you had a solid weapon of similar length (spear/mace/etc.) it would be difficult to change sides. If you went from striking to your left to strike to your right you'd have to navigate the entire haft up and around your horse's head. Crossing the flail over when it's folded up would be much easier.

brilliant video explaining the pros and cons, many of my commenters brought me to shads video in response to my own video on nunchucks and flails hoping I could do something like this but you've already nailed it. The point I find very interesting is people refer to the 'chuck' bouncing back and hitting them when they strike but I have been striking the post in my gym for years full force and never had it come back and hit me so I don't know what people are doing. Hard2Hurt also has a great video on nunchucks

fantastic video! really great points

2:05 You are correct. Nunchaku are an Okinawan weapon improvised from a farming tool dating back to the 15th century. Since only military were allowed to possess weapons at the time, the peasantry had to get a little creative by using things that couldn't be outlawed. Even then, nunchaku were not commonly used for premeditated combat. The purpose of weapon training in Okinawan martial arts was so that a peasant had a means of defending themselves no matter what tool they had on hand. There's a similar, almost identical weapon in the Philippines known as a "tabak-toyok", and it served a nearly identical purpose both as a tool and as a weapon.

These are some good points. Interesting that many of them help redeem a flail but don't really redeem nunchucks.

I have an old book on the nunchaku. In their style They say to slightly have the stick in your hand at an angle while striking. This way the swing back won't hit your hand.

I fiddled with nunchucks as kid for some time and imo it's a terrible weapon, sorry if I offend someone. But to me back then the interest was to trying to control it and use it more as reflex/control training method. Plus there's absolutely truth in that grain beating stuff (sorry I'm not native english speaker). Anyway I've actually done it a bit as young boy and it's done on fairly confined space, at least where I live, and it's evident in that larger "flail" form as you make the movement to hit, as you kinda make the circle, but also pull at correct time you'll get really much acceleration to tool movement. It's hard to describe, but the movement is much faster than you even could do with same length static rod. Also with nunchuck style tool I clearly still remember that when you begin to get technique in trying to hit something, you'll also need to do that similar "pulling" to prevent end of it hitting you, kinda create inertia that prevents it from going in any direction. Anyway, even though I think it's a horrible weapon, I highly respect people who can control it really well. I've certainly hit myself as kid fairly many times even in that fairly short period of using them.

I came here because of your brother. Good stuff, my dude.

While the whole video was fascinating, the fact that flails have an agricultural root is what surprised me. I've definitely known about pheasant/farmer weaponry as a response to limitation of weapon ownership (swords and the like) but I'd never considered the flail to be in that category! If I thought about it at all I'd have just assumed it was just for fighting. Super interesting stuff. Love that you're still making your own educational weaponry!

Nice. Good point about horses. But I'm afraid you are wrong about strength of the strike. The strike is energy transfer. The energy is kinetic energy = 1/2(m.v^2). For the flail you can make it go quite fast, limited mostly by air resistance and your need to control it. It will be faster than a stick. But as Shad said, you can put your weight behind a stick as it's rigid. I'd suggest that any increase in speed is more than offset by the lack of weight.

TWO PONITS: 1. I have a friend who studied traditional Japanese Jiu-Jitsu and Kobudo. He was trained with Nunchucks as a grappling weapon. The police considered replacing the Tonfa with Nunchucks at one time because of it's immobilizing abilities when used to isolate a limb. It was ultimately rejected as it required two hands to use and it would be difficult for a police officer by themselves to put the cuffs on someone. 2. It was always my understanding that the purpose of a medieval flail was to get AROUND a shield. You strike straight at someone's shield and hit them over it as the chain and spiked ball will wrap around your opponent's defense and strike them. I have fought a great deal with large shields and I can see why a flail would present an advantage in this regard. Yes you would likely hit with less force but if the flail's head itself is barbed and nasty enough it won't matter much. And anyone who has fought a good shieldman will tell you how frustrating it is to try and hit them.

I agree mostly but I would also argue that while on a horse striking a target you are also risking getting caught on your target

Fascinating response.

Great video as always and interesting points! I wonder if there were long polearm version of the flail, similar to the hussite ones but perhaps longer. I would imagine it'd be useful to have some in a mixed weapons formation where you can strike safely behind a line of (friendly) shields and hitting the enemy in weird downward angles to disrupt their formation. Or similarly used behind cover, battlements, palisades, etc. I also presume it wouldn't be too tiring since it appears relatively effortless to wield. I've also been been puzzled why the ji halberd with dagger axe blades, and it's variants eventually fell out of use. I think it's such a versatile weapon especially for its weight, more so than the later gou lian hook spear. And similar weapons also saw uses in other places like some forms of billhooks (italian billhook?) and yari but by then it seemed this form of ji (and maybe ji in general?) was fading out in favour of the spear. Thank you for always listing the sources in the description, and for reading this rambling wall of text.

Each tool has its own pros and cons. It all comes down to practicality.

And traditional nunchucks are octagonal in shape, creating less surface area on impact, especially the tip. One good flick with the tip into someone's hand running at you with a stick, would shatter the bones in their hand. Hard to fight with a shattered hand.

Point of a flail is that I'd you strike someone with a shield or a blocking object and it will go over or around the block. It will not break as it's broken and it's hard to Guage and less shock. You can fit it I to smaller areas and strike around corners.

Great stuff! I don't know how Shad missed the energy efficiency point, that's really astute of you.

Awesome video could you do some videos about the meteor hammer and rope javelin and also the kung fu fighting fan?

When it comes to Nun chucks and some other flails I tend to see them as defensive weapons used to catch an enemy weapon or limb as much as to strike an opponent.

Excellent. I think you are correct.

What about portability? The weapon folds easily and can be carried easily or even concealed without sacrificing reach. Can you do that with a stick with similar reach?

Nice video! I hadn't considered horseback.

From an uneducated but lover of history and RPing, a flail or Nunchuk could have a chance of wrapping past a parrying blade or shield (I don't now how prevalent shields were in eastern cultures) and landing a strike. Also not being allowed to carry or use a "proper" weapon but using a rice flail would give a degree of weapon training if the need for self defense arose. At least that's how I see it, quite prepared to be wrong on this though. :) (I also shared this idea on shads channel)

Thanks for this video, your perspective was needed.

A lot of the HEMA people seem to magically forget that mounted combat was a thing, and there are weapons that were utilized to combat their specific problems.

Reducing stress on thevwearer's hand is, I think, a great point

You’re a pretty smart guy. Well done!

Hussites aside, the flail was also more often used from horseback in european warfare