The Kung-Fu Rope Dart is the softest weapon in its curriculum. But don’t mistake softness for weakness! It is very, very powerful.
At Austin Kung-Fu Academy, we use practice Rope Darts, that have tennis balls at the end. All students learn to use this because it teaches very important lessons:
-Controlling yourself will help you to guide it.
-You learn to let it do its motion on its own, with your guidance.
-You develop a high level of awareness of energy.
Many conventional martial arts weapons, such as bo staffs, swords, and spears are tools where you impose your strength and will, to generate power.
With the Rope Dart, once you start moving it in a circle, it starts developing its own momentum. Learning how to leverage that momentum to your advantage is extremely powerful, and helps you develop this idea of being soft, to gain strength.
What ends up happening is students start developing patience, and the practice is so fun and engaging that they also develop the discipline to practice. Sometimes you won’t get the technique in the first 5 tries, but you come closer to it each time, and then when you get it, you want to get it again and again!
The Rope Dart is truly a remarkable tool to help students develop an ethos for practicing, along with the idea of being patient and finding the balance of when to let the rope do its movement, and when to modify their position to deliver the particular technique.
We have routines they learn, and we also have a very fun velcro target box that they try to stick the ball onto, to practice the accuracy of the techniques. Like I said, it is really fun and engaging!
Contact us to try a class!