Whips and weapons

The place to get advice & tipps, and discuss whip cracking. Feel free to post videos of yourself cracking your whip to get help, or any fun - or interesting - videos of whipcracking you would like to share with us.
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Robby Amper
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  Whips and weapons

Post by Robby Amper »

Or better... Whips as weapons. In my opinion a whip is made and was invented to herd cattle. A whip's a tool. For sports cracking - not a weapon. I've seen some of the clips Anthony DeLongis did. Impressive! But I disagree on that "whip/most flexible weapon" thing. In fact, I think - if ever one attacks me with a whip... - there would be not more than the chance for one crack. Then I'd be too near on that person. Okay, I'f someone is stupid enough to stand still, or stops moving forward, as soon as the whip is moved...

Besides - I don't think that it's good for the whole whip thing, if whips are officially labeled/treated as weapons. In these times, where more and more bad things happen, we don't need more weapons. That's another thing, but I don't see any point in private persons (or is it called civilians?) carrying weapons. A swiss army knive with screw driver and some tools... That's no weapon. I'm talking guns. In the old times, when you had to protect your home, okay. But now...?

Here in good old europe they'd arrest you right away for only owning a gun without the proper licence. I'm not talking about carrying a gun in the public... Trust me - it's very, very, very hard to get such a license here. And that's good!

But back to the whips :) I'm concerned, that the image of being a weapon doesn't really help.

What do you think?

Robby
I have a screwdriver. I am Legend...
hollywood1340

 

Post by hollywood1340 »

We can go around and around with this. The fact is the whip, as can most everyday objects, be used as a weapon. Is it DESIGNED as a weapon? Nope. I do and will continue to call them "martial tools". Remember Robby, here in the US we have a slightly different take on weapons, guns especially.
As for the effectiveness of the whip as a flexible weapon I don't think that can really be denied in any way shape or form in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. But as for the practicality of the whip as a weapon, that's another thing. But as I'm more apt to have a whip on me then a knife or a gun it's more practical for me. And in the end if you defeat the whip you have to deal with me and that is something I'm not worried about in the least bit.
But as I'm so fond of saying, "Don't knock it till you try it." Part of my whip work is working the whip as a weapon against other martial artists, other weapons and scenario's. I believe this makes me not only a better martial artist but a better whip handler as well. I'm looking at all the possiblities, from a martial tool to a national sport. Granted my fancy cracking is awful at this point but the point is I'm doing it as well.
It won't go away, this whips as weapons things. I think the important thing is to keep an open mind, keep an eye on safety, and make sure that we acknowledge and appreciate all those who use whips, be it in a martial sense, in a club, on the lawn, or on the stage.
Miloh

 

Post by Miloh »

For me, I like the "idea" of a whip being a weapon. The notion of becoming one with your whip. The art of knowing where it is at all times, to be able to control and harness it's power to such a degree that you can hit any precise point you wish to, or make it crack while making it look simple.

The realist in me realizes that at most, if someone were to attack me, I MIGHT get one good crack in before I get rushed!
The Yoyo Man

 

Post by The Yoyo Man »

Whips as weapons.

Were they intended to be weapons initially? Debatable

Is the PRIMARY purpose of whip to be a weapon? IMO, No.

Can they be used as weapons? Yes

Are they perceived as weapons or potential weapons? IMO, Yes.

Would I use a whip as a weapon? If I needed to and there was not something better available.

A weapon by definition is an instrument of attack or defense in combat, as a gun, missile, or sword. Pretty much anything can used as a weapon: fork, spoon, ice pick, dental floss, toothbrush, water (think fire hose), credit card, sound, car, etc. A Swiss Army knife with the Corkscrew out is not something I would like to be hit with. It would definitely ward me off.

The bottom line is I HOPE the establishment, government, authorities, or whatever you call them don't some day consider a whip to be such a dangerous weapon that they outlaw them. Heck, in the sporting goods department of Wal-mart I had to show PROPER ID in order to buy MARBLES, yes MARBLES. Why? Because the marbles in the sporting goods department were intended for slingshots. Now if I went to the Toy department and bought a can of marbles, do you think they would have made me show ID?

Don't get me started on guns. I grew up on a farm where I shot rifles, pistols, and shotguns. I was taught the proper use and RESPECT for firearms. I enjoy sporting clays and target shooting. Guns are tools. Unfortunately, there are people in the world that use these tools to hurt other people. You take this particular tool away and those same people will find ANOTHER tool to hurt people. Is the problem in the tool or the person who uses the tool?

Sorry, didn't mean to get on a soapbox.
Jimmie

 

Post by Jimmie »

great post, yoyoman!
Miloh

 

Post by Miloh »

Here is a youtube of Anthony DeLongis demonstrating his skills in using the whip as a weapon. Very interesting I must say!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYwKFTOB0bc
Skip

 

Post by Skip »

Miloh wrote:Here is a youtube of Anthony DeLongis demonstrating his skills in using the whip as a weapon. Very interesting I must say!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYwKFTOB0bc
Here’s my take the whole thing… He is a good whip handler that’s for sure. But he is in the movie business and makes his living teaching “movie fighting”

What I saw in the video was choreographed fighting, making it look like the whip is a fantastic weapon… it just makes for good entertainment.

If whips made good weapons,( taking into consideration how long they have been around,) wouldn’t you think there would be many instances of documented evidence that whips have been used this way . There is plenty of evidence showing they have been used for punishment, but none I’ve found indicating that they have ever been used successfully as a defensive weapon. In short, it’s a good movie weapon but that’s it.

but that's just me.

skip
The Yoyo Man

 

Post by The Yoyo Man »

Here's another potential weapon I hope the government never regulates. I have a personal, vested interest in this since I own over 70 of these items.

A Toy or Another Weapon? You decide.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. ;)
Skip

 

Post by Skip »

Steven wrote:
The Yoyo Man wrote:... since I own over 70 of these items.
I'm not surprised

Steve
I don't have nearly as many as YoYo man but We are clearly very dangerous men...

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Robby Amper
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Post by Robby Amper »

Skip brought it to a good point. It's a movie weapon. As long your "attacker" is so kind and keeps standing while you wrap your whip around his arms...perfect! Or if he stands in place while you hit him with the whip - perfect. The problems start when the attacker starts to - attack... There's a huge difference between movie fights and real life. I was often asked what's the best defense. My answer was all the time the same. Two words. Run away.

And yes - Yoyos are dangerous things. They should be restricted. Government would be good advised to keep firearms stored and use these ones :)

Robby
I have a screwdriver. I am Legend...
spanky

 

Post by spanky »

how did we get to yo-yos? Funny, I don't leave home without either my yoyojam lynn fury or my yo-yo factory plastic grind machine.
sz

 

Post by sz »

I think everythig could be used as a weapon..

but be careful, to call a whip a weapon!
you can use it for work, sport, entertainment shows.. perhaps for erotic play, like bdsm. in this case always safe, sane, consensual.
in my opinion it is very important to differentiate these things. today people in germany are discussing about prohibiting paintball games. one reason is the gun rampage in winnenden when a young boy killed several other kids at school. (winnenden is a city near my home and sure my compassion is with the victims and their families.) but i think paintball is a sport like whip cracking and not a training to kill people or a reason why normal men mutate into killers... but some people and also politicians think different.

I agree with Robby and his doubts.. and I use words like whip sport for my hobby and I don`t support anything showing whips as a weapon.


ohh.. english is not my mother tongue, so I hope my postings will comprehensible to everybody :)

Steffen
Last edited by sz on Fri 20. Nov 2009, 21:36, edited 1 time in total.
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Robby Amper
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Post by Robby Amper »

You're absolutely right. With both threads! I'm not in the bdsm stuff, but I think, that everyone has the right to life the way he/she wants to live.

The weapon thing - paintball - is a real problem. Paintball is a game. A sport. Like soccer, whipcracking or basketball. But for paintball you carry "weapons". For that reason I'm highly critical about these videos, in which people tell that whips are weapons.

Robby
I have a screwdriver. I am Legend...
David Cross

 

Post by David Cross »

I definitely believe that whips possess a great deal of potential as a weapon. Let us not forget that the primary whip action is not the only method by which a strike can be executed with a whip.

-Entangle: The long, flexible thong can be used to wrap, deflect, redirect, pin, lock joints, and trap limbs.

-Garrote: The thong can also be used to cut off airflow and bloodflow to the brain.

-Flail: In the case of a weighted snake whip, or a bullwhip with a heavy handle core, one can grip the whip backward, two or so feet down the length of the thong, and use the (in this case) heavy heel weight as a flail. This can be a quick and devastating maneuver; as quick as a knife strike or other attack.

-Baton: In the case of a bullwhip (with any decent handle core), the handle can be used not only as a flail, but as a baton, using any number of stick-type attack techniques (Escrima, Kali, etc). The handle can also be used to bar the throat, limbs, joints, etc.

And these are just the uses and methods which appear obviously to me; an untrained, average man, with limited knowledge of any fighting technique. Imagine the tool in the hands of an experienced and trained fighter.

Of course, the whip could also be used in a signal capacity; both to ward off attackers and to draw attention or help with its signature crack. A properly built whip can mimic the report of small firearms, making a criminal who has not yet seen you think twice about breaking into your home.

There are other methods I have imagined as possible (not necessarily plausible), such as studded thongs/falls, and even electrified thongs/falls. It is entirely possible to run a conductive filament through the core and fall, and, using a hollow handle with a removable heel, construct a push-button switch and battery compartment in the handle. With the proper circuitry, the whip could entangle an attacker and deliver an electric shock equivalent to a stun gun or taser.

As was said before, anything can be used as a weapon. I wear my cell phone in a belt holster with an open top. I have developed and practiced a technique by which I can quick-draw the phone by its rigid antenna and use the narrow edge to deliver a sharp blow to an attacker's temple. If done properly, the movement is nearly unnoticed. A powerful enough strike to the temple can render a person unconscious, enabling a successful escape.

Yes. Whips can be used as weapons.
David Stokes

 

Post by David Stokes »

Lets consider this shall we.......

prehaps folks (on both sides of this debate) are rather "chicken and Egg"ing this....

Whips,guns,knives,paintball guns, pencils, swords, axes, frozen chickens.......... NONE of these things are weapons. But merely TOOLS!

Since the very definition of the word weapon implies INTENT, you would have to show what INTENT that tool was used for. Take for instance "Turkey shoots" which are very popular in my part of the country. A "turkey shoot" doesnt even involve shooting a turkey at all! in fact, competitors have shotguns loaded with birdshot, shoot at targets and whoever hits the bullseye wins a FROZEN turkey!
There is alot of competition and skill in these Turkey Shoots and people spent alot of time working on shotguns designed specfically for these types of matches.
So basically, you have a shotgun that is DESIGNED to basically just punch holes in paper... THATS IT!...
so... how can that be a weapon? when its essentially just an expensive hole punch! :-)

same thing with whips.... and for that, i do aggree with you Robby...
you cant call whips , in general, weapons..... becaue that would imply that ALL whips are DESIGNED for that purpose..... simply not true.
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Robby Amper
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Post by Robby Amper »

Well said, David. You're absolutely right! There's a big difference in what is designed as weapon and what can be used as weapon. If you push hard enough, you could kill a person with a leatherman tool... And that thing is even called "tool".

I think it's wrong to declare whips as weapons in general, because it won't do good for the sport, for the art of whipcracking. I'm so tired to see people who tell you that "the whip is the most flexible and one of the oldest weapons of mankind". Does everything has to be used as weapon?

I'm practicing Karate & Taek won Do now for over 30 years. I formed a lot of Blackbelts, but when I'm asked what's the best defense, my answer was - and is: Run away.

Robby
I have a screwdriver. I am Legend...
Franco Zoccali

 

Post by Franco Zoccali »

Just to put in my two cents here, but unless I'm very much mistaken, I believe whips were initially designed as agricultural tools, you know, to stir the ox on... and like many have said earlier in this thread, they CAN be used as a weapon, but aren't designed for that.

Not to make too fine a point about it, but guns and swords WERE designed as weapons, not as tool. Furthermore, they were made for warfare, not hunting. Bows and arrows were made for hunting, but that doesn't mean they aren't weapons. As for the frozen chicken, well I suppose the danger depends on how good the wife's aim is. All I know is when I was a lad, my mother had the precision of a laser-guided missile with a shoe, so word to the wise, learn how to duck fast...

I guess what I'm getting at it simply that we as a group can debate about this 'till the cows come home, but if a politician or a policeman decides that it is a weapon, that's what it's going to be, at least in the immediate. From that point on it's just a question of how do we as whip practitioners, handle the situation. When I was a kid growing up in the suburbs, I used to practice in our backyard everyday from April to November, and we didn't have a tall fence to hide me. I'm sure I pissed off the neighbors, but I kept my practices to an acceptable length of time and I did it at reasonable hours, and I never had a problem. Sure the neighbors thought I was weird, but once they saw what I was doing, they didn't bother me, and on my end I did my best to not push my luck too far. That kept the peace. But now, living in the heart of the city, I find it a lot harder to practice in a park (don't have that big yard anymore...) and many times the police came to tell me to knock it off. I've always complied and have even given some of them quick little lessons, much to their unexpected pleasure I might add. But the truth is that in this day and age, if you live in a city, chances are the cops will show up to see who's shooting a gun on Sunday afternoon. If you're lucky like I've been, you'll be able to have a rational dialogue with the officer and even if you are told to stop, you will at least educate a bit, so they don't walk away angry or with more preconceived notions than when they arrived. Just remember that cops never know what to expect before they get to the scene of the event and so usually come prepared for trouble, which is why it's a good idea to practice in a wide open area so they can see from far that it isn't a gun but a whip. This simple idea does wonders to bring down their level of anxiety. It is our responsibility to create positive bonds, so that over time, sport whipcracking may be generally recognized and not feared or banned.
Thanks for reading my long post :-)
Cheers,

Franco
Essentia Whips

 

Post by Essentia Whips »

Franco wrote:All I know is when I was a lad, my mother had the precision of a laser-guided missile with a shoe, so word to the wise, learn how to duck fast...
Franco
Mmmmmmmmm! I wonder if our mothers know each other, mine was a wicked shot with a DrScholl :o :o

I too learnt to duck, but one day climbed a tree to get clear, big mistake I got my whacks when I thought it was safe to come down 2 hours later then extra for running away :o that cunning plan failed miserably methinks :P

Tony :)
Last edited by Essentia Whips on Fri 29. Jan 2010, 13:45, edited 1 time in total.
Franco Zoccali

 

Post by Franco Zoccali »

I don't know about you mate, but my cunning plans of those days were about as well-thought out as Baldrick's hehehe.
Cheers,

Franco
Last edited by Franco Zoccali on Sat 30. Jan 2010, 01:03, edited 1 time in total.
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Tyler Blake
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Post by Tyler Blake »

Hi Everyone,
I must respectfully disagree with you Robby. As someone who has practiced Karate and Tae Kwon Do, you may have studied, or know people who study, the weapon styles associated with nunchaku, sai, tonfas, and kamas- also known as the rice flail, small pitchfork, scythe (for cutting wheat?) and...I'm not sure what tonfas were originally used for but I believe it had something to do with beating a given crop as part of the food processing stages. In short, these all started out as agricultural tools. Now, I don't want to see whips gain the same stigma associated with the items above, but I do feel that whips can be used well as weapons in the right hands. I've heard many people say that it would be easy to simply rush someone who had a whip, but I feel that relies on a rather large assumption thatg the whip user would be helpless at close range, with or without their whip. I refer to the methods listed by Blessed Wrath above, several of which had nothing to do with cracking the whip at long range. Skip pointed out that Anthony Delongis is primarily working for entertainment purposes, but some of what he does is based on real-world skills. He did study with Dan Inosanto and currently teaches at Mr. Inosanto's acadamy. Jackie Chan and Jet Li are both entertainers, but I personally wouldn't care to go bare knuckles with either of them. I'm sure they wouldn't use the same techniques on me that they do in their movies, but I'm pretty sure they could probably still take me. :P
From my point of view, every law-abiding person on earth has a God-given, animal right to self-defense, either unarmed or armed. I myself have been the victim of an armed robbery (working the night shift in a gas station). The company I worked for had a No Weapons policy, which did me absolutely no good at all. The two guys who came in had a tazer and a shotgun, and before anyone says they shouldn't have had access to those, would I have been better off if they came in with crowbars and baseball bats? The reason I bring this up is to address the point of running away. There are times that this is appropiate, and the very first line of defense is to be aware of your surroundings and avoid trouble if possible. But, in this instance, there was only one way in or out of my work area, and the fellow with the tazer had only to make it three steps in the door to block me in. So, there are times when you have nowhere to run to. Also, I once had a belligerent drunk threatening to kill me if I didn't give him a ride somewhere-There's no way I was going to turn my back on that guy! I still have a lot more to go on what I want to say but I have some work to do, so I'm going to come back to this tomorrow. Franco was right, we probably could debate this forever, but I love to debate :) Happy cracking and plaiting,
Tyler
Yaprimascharif, Yahasanna Hadisany, elafinas tabachu, Dari chalemy elasin!
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