A SUPER Martial Arts Weapons List For The MMA Practitioner

What are Martial Arts Weapons?

In this piece, we will look at the martial arts weapons list. But what are martial arts weapons? They are training weapons used in training various martial arts. Most well-known martial arts do not use weapons and prohibit their use in combat, but some martial arts, particularly in the Far East, are based on weapons and their use.

A Martial Arts Weapons List

We will give you a comprehensive list of martial arts weapons and some details and interesting facts about them. Weapons used in martial arts worldwide are in different categories: either by type of weapon or by martial arts school that employs them. Below are some of the martial arts weapons’ names:

  • Melee weapons: A melee weapon, hand weapon, or close combat weapon is any hand-held weapon used in hand-to-hand combat that is for use within the weapon’s direct physical reach, essentially acting as an additional (and more powerful) extension of the user’s limbs.
  • Pointed weapons: These are pears, pikes, lances, and military forks. They typically have a sharp point designed to inflict penetrating trauma, even on heavily armored opponents, and their length provides a range advantage. Certain variants can also hook enemies to disrupt, disarm, and pull them off horses.
  • Edged weapons: These are swords, daggers, axes, and war scythes. These weapons are designed to inflict cutting, dismemberment, and exsanguination injuries and are most effective against opponents with minimal armor. These are tools for cutting, hacking, slashing, thrusting, and stabbing.
  • Blunt weapons: They include clubs, maces, war hammers, staves, and flails. These weapons are for inflicting blunt trauma, even though designed to prevent penetration by pointed or edged weapons.
  • Pointed weapons: These are pears, pikes, lances, and military forks. They typically have a sharp point designed to inflict penetrating trauma, even on heavily armored opponents, and their length provides a range advantage. Certain variants can also hook enemies to disrupt, disarm, and pull them off horses.
  • Edged weapons: These are swords, daggers, axes, and war scythes. These weapons are designed to inflict cutting, dismemberment, and exsanguination injuries and are most effective against opponents with minimal armor. These are tools for cutting, hacking, slashing, thrusting, and stabbing.
  • Blunt weapons: They include clubs, maces, war hammers, staves, and flails. These weapons are for inflicting blunt trauma, even though the design prevents penetration by pointed or edged weapons.

List of Melee Weapons

Bladed Weapons List

An edged weapon, also known as a bladed weapon, is a melee weapon with a cutting edge. Swords, daggers, knives, and bayonets are examples of bladed weapons. 

Edged weapons are for cutting, hacking, or slashing; some edged weapons (like many swords) may also allow thrusting and stabbing. Edged weapons contrast with blunt weapons like maces and thrusting weapons like spears.

Bayonet

A bayonet is a spear-like knife, dagger, sword, or spike-shaped weapon that fits on the end of the muzzle of a rifle, musket, or similar firearm. It was a primary weapon for infantry attacks from the 17th century to World War I. Today, people regard it as an auxiliary weapon or a weapon of last resort.

Dagger

A dagger is a typical fighting knife with a razor-sharp point and two razor-sharp edges capable of being used as a thrusting or stabbing weapon. People have always used daggers for close combat fights throughout human history, and many communities have used decorated daggers in ritual and festive contexts.

Sword

A sword is a bladed weapon with an edge for manual cutting or thrusting. The sword is common in sword-fighting martial arts. It has a blade that is longer than a knife or dagger. The blade is either straight or curved. 

A thrusting sword has a more linear blade and a pointed tip. A slashing sword is more likely to have a curved blade with a fined cutting edge on one or both sides.

Butterfly Swords

Butterfly swords are single-edged short swords from China. These mid-ranged blades were roughly the size of a person’s forearm arms, making them easily concealable.

Normally, users would hold them in their boots, behind their backs, or on their hips. This made them easy to pull out and use against an adversary. Many had a guard around the handle for defense and blunt-force attacks.

Butterfly swords are extremely well-rounded due to this and their slashing ability. Without a doubt, they are among the best martial arts weapons ever created.

Tiger Hook Swords

Hook swords or tiger hook swords are easily one of the best sword martial arts weapons ever. Their Chinese name is Qian knu ri Yue dao, which translates to “heaven, earth, sun, and moon sword.” Northern Chinese Wushu practitioners primarily used tiger hooks swords.

These swords have a double-edged blade, similar to a Jian, but with guard blades in the hands. Tiger hook swords may have inspired the addition of guards around the handles of the butterfly swords.

You can fight from a wide range of distances with these swords. For example, traditional sword combat requires the main blade, while close combat uses handles and ends.

Katana

The katana is not only one of the best martial arts weapons but also one of the most well-known and revered. It was one of the main samurai blades.

It is a blade with a single edge, a slight curve, and a square or rounded handle. It is incredibly light and balanced but also extremely sharp.

Making a katana is an art form in its own right. The process is meticulous and time-consuming, but the results speak for themselves. The slashing ability of a katana can easily cut through a stack of bamboo or an enemy.

Katana sword

Knife

A knife is a tool or weapon that typically has a cutting edge or blade attached to a handle or hilt. There are martial arts knives with fixed or folding blades; blade patterns and styles vary depending on the maker and country of origin.

Machete

A machete is a broad blade that you can use as an agricultural tool similar to an axe or in combat, identical to a long-bladed knife.

Kamas

A kamas was originally a Japanese farming tool that was one of many turned into weapons. It goes by different names in other Asian cultures. People use the Kama frequently in pairs, which increases their effectiveness.

You can block attacks, trap your enemies’ weapons, and deliver slashing strikes with two kamas. They are also effortless to learn and have excellent handles.

Tekko

The tekko weapon is a stirrup and horseshoe originating in Okinawa, Japan. It is a fist-load weapon that increases the mass of the hand, which, given the physical proportionality between the momentum and mass of the fist, increases the force the bearer can deliver. Some fist-load weapons, like the guard on a sword, may also serve to protect the bearer’s hand.

Blunt Weapons

A blunt instrument is any solid object used as a weapon that injures its target by using direct mechanical force. It has no sharp point or edge that may harm the victim.

Sharp instruments differ from edged weapons, which cause injury by cutting or stabbing, and projectile weapons, which accelerate projectiles such as bullets or arrows to a damaging speed.

Nunchaku

The Nunchaku is a traditional Okinawan martial arts weapon made of two sticks (traditionally made of wood) joined at the ends by a short metal chain or rope. The Japanese refer to a person who has practiced this weapon as a nunchakuka.

The Nunchaku serves in martial arts like Okinawan Kobudo. It is also popular karate weapons. It is one of the Okinawa weapons used as a training weapon because practicing with it allows for the development of quick hand movements and the improvement of posture.

Girl with Nunchaku

Stick

Stick-fighting is a type of martial art in which simple long, slender, blunt, hand-held, generally wooden “sticks” such as a gun martial arts staff, walking stick, baston, arnis sticks, or similar weapons are for fighting. You can perform some techniques using a strong umbrella, sword, or dagger in its sheath.

Bo Staff

The bo staff is one of the martial arts stick weapons. It was almost certainly the first weapon ever used in human history. Nearly every early culture used these long and hard sticks. 

They typically make them of the region’s strongest wood and serve as both an offensive and defensive weapon. You can use a staff to regulate the distance and keep an opponent at bay.

Their long designs also allow you to employ a wide range of attacks. Slashing, spearing, and sweeping your opponent off their feet are all possibilities. The versatility, global reach, and history of the bo staff make it a no-brainer for a best martial arts list.

Mace

A mace is an unsharpened weapon, a type of club that delivers powerful strikes with a heavy head on the end of a handle. A mace has a strong, heavy wooden shaft, often reinforced with metal, and a stone, bone, copper, bronze, iron, or steelhead.

Knuckle Duster

Brass knuckles are hand-to-hand combat “fist-load weapons.” Brass knuckles are metal rings that fit around the knuckles. They also made the brass knuckles using other metals, plastics, or carbon fibers, but the name remained the same.

Tonfas

Tonfas are another well-known weapon and one of the best martial arts weapons—these portable defense weapons developed centuries ago in Southeast Asia and China. As time passed, various cultures gradually adopted it.

Tonfas were originally hardwood sticks with handles that people used for protection and counter-attack. You could cover up to deflect bladed weapon attacks and then counter with a blunt strike.

Girl with Tonfa

Types of Martial Arts That Use Weapons

The following is a list of weapon-based martial arts along with some details about them and a list of weapons used in those martial arts.

Arnis

Filipino martial arts are distinct in that, unlike many other Oriental martial arts, they emphasize weapon-based combat with sticks, bladed weapons, knives, and several off-the-cuff weapons. They also focus on “open hand” techniques without weapons.

Some are of Filipino origin, while others result from early colonial influences. Weapons used include a stick, a knife, and other bladed weapons.

Bōjutsu

Bojutsu is a Japanese martial art involving a staff weapon known as the bo. Following the philosophy that the bo is merely an “extension of one’s limbs,” all thrusting, swinging, and striking techniques resemble empty-hand movements. As a result, people frequently incorporate bojutsu into other styles of empty-hand fighting, such as traditional Jiu-jitsu and karate.

Canne de Combat

Canne de combat is a French martial art that began as a self-defense technique in the nineteenth century. Additionally, its primary weapon is a canne, a fighting-specific cane (or walking stick). 

Canne de combat became standard in the 1970s. The canne is very light, made of chestnut wood, and slightly tapered. For protection, a padded suit and a fencing mask are worn.

Fencing

Although not technically a martial art, modern fencing is unquestionably a combat sport and is likely the most well-known example. Modern fencing has three disciplines: foil, épée, and sabre; you score points when the weapon makes contact with an opponent.

A fourth discipline, singlestick, debuted in the 1904 Olympics, but they dropped later, and athletes don’t practice it in modern fencing. The present-day sport arose at the end of the nineteenth century, based on traditional swordsmanship skills. 

Because each of the three forms uses a different weapon and follows different rules, the sport has three competitive scenes: foil, épée, and sabre. Most competitive fencers specialize in only one weapon.

Fencing

Gatka

Gatka is the name of Indian martial art that involves stick-fighting with wooden sticks meant to resemble real-life swords. The Punjabi word gatka refers to the wooden stick used.

It originated in Punjab in the 15th century; there was a revival in the late 20th century, and gatka is now popular as a sport or sword dance performance art. Many people frequently display it during Sikh festivals.

Gungsul

Gungsul is unlike the others because it uses a unique Korean horn bow (Korean Gak-gung). Because the Korean bow uses a thumb draw, the use of a thumb ring is quite common.

Geom sul is an umbrella term for several martial arts that use the so-called Korean sword. Geom sul, or Korean swordsmanship, is a modernized version of many traditional techniques that use the weapon above. 

Nowadays, athletes practice it worldwide, and one of the most well-known styles of Geom sul is the Haidong Gumdo. The style emerged in the 1980s and 1990s to become the most visible example of Geom sul today.

Hanbōjutsu

Hanbojutsu is the foundation of several martial arts, including the Kukishin-ry kory classical martial arts school and Kukishinden-ry, one of the nine Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu schools. The fact that this length is similar to that of a walking cane contributes to its importance.

Although techniques with a cane in this ry-ha use pulling or hooking and have one rounded end, they always function the same way as a hanb. You can swing the hanb like a katana or kendo sword when you hold it at one end. 

The hanb is a weapon you can use to strike, restrain, or even throw someone. It’s useful to know because sticks are plentiful and easy to pick up if attacked.

Kobudō

Kobudo is a collective term for Japanese traditional techniques for using armor, blades, firearms, and combat and horse riding techniques. It is an exceptional martial art that is virtually unique in this category.

Specifically, kobudo is a term used to describe a variety of weapons-based martial arts, whether from the main Japanese islands (traditionally) or the island of Okinawa (modern interpretation). Weapons used included blades and firearms.

Kyūdō

This is a Japanese martial art derived from archery, similar to gungsul in Korea. The Japanese refer to Kyudo experts as kyudoka. Kyudo takes a lot from kyujutsu (“art of archery”), which originated with feudal Japan’s samurai class.

Despite being a very traditional martial art, the Japanese revived Kyd after the Meiji restoration, and thousands of people worldwide practice it nowadays. Yabusame is a type of Japanese martial art that emphasizes archery. They used bows as weapons.

Mau Rakau

Mau rakau (Maori for “to bear a weapon”) is a traditional martial art practiced in New Zealand based on traditional Maori weapons.

Because the term itself refers to the art of using any weapon, they designed specific styles for specific weapons. Examples of the weapons they used include staffs, canes, blades, and clubs.

Zulu Stick-Fighting

Zulu stick-fighting is a South African martial art traditionally practiced by teenage boys of the Nguni tribe. It equipped each combatant with two long sticks, one for defense and the other for offense. In such fights, little, if any, armor is present.

Although Nguni/Xhosa fighting styles may only use two sticks, Bantu/Nguni stick-fighting variations throughout Southern Africa include shields as part of the stick-fighting weaponry. The weapons used in Zule fighting include an isikhwili, or attacking stick, a ubhoko, or defending stick, and an ihawu, or defending shield.

Tessenjutsu

Tessenjutsu is a Japanese martial art that emphasizes the use of the Japanese war fan (tessen). This martial art uses a solid or folding iron fan with eight or ten wood or iron ribs. Tessenjutsu practitioners could advance to a high level of skill. Some became so skilled that they could defend themselves against a sword-wielding attacker and even kill an opponent with a single blow.

Tahtib

Tahtib is an Egyptian traditional stick-fighting martial art known as fan a’nazaha wa-tahtib. The original martial form of tahtib evolved into an Egyptian folk dance performed with a wooden stick. They commonly described it as a musically accompanied dance, ritual, game, or ritual mock combat. Nowadays, the term tahtib refers to both martial arts and performance arts.

Sojutsu 

It literally means the “art of the spear.” It is a Japanese martial art that focuses on fighting with a Japanese spear (Yari). The Yari was a popular weapon in feudal Japan and has maintained its popularity in modern times. In most comprehensive traditional (kory) schools, jutsu is only one curriculum component. They used Yari as weapons.

Siljun Dobup

Siljun Dobup is a sword-based martial art hybrid of Japanese and Korean traditions. This martial arts style focuses on developing katana skills and “ki, breathing, flexibility, strength control, and focus.”

Siljun Dobup, unlike Kendo, does not involve any sparring. Siljun Dobup is conventional; the student concentrates on drawing, sheathing, and cutting a katana. They used swords as weapons.

Silambam

Silambam is a weapon-based Indian martial art. Many believe it originated in modern-day Tamil Nadu on the Indian subcontinent around 1000 BCE. This ancient fighting style appears in Tamil Sangam literature around 400 BCE. Silambam is primarily concerned with the bamboo staff.

Other weapons include swords, blades, various types of staffs and canes, and so on. In terms of weaponry, silambam is one of the most prolific martial arts on this list. The Indian martial artists used staffs, blades, swords, sickles, canes, knives, and other weapons.

Nunchaku-do

The Nunchaku, a traditional Okinawan martial arts weapon, consists of two sticks connected at one end by a short chain or rope. It is popular in this Japanese martial art. The weapon’s two sections consist of wood, with the link being a cord or a metal chain.

The person who uses this weapon is a nunchakuka. There are several ways to use Nunchaku, but the most well-known is nunchaku-do. They used Nunchaku as weapons.

Naginatajutsu

Naginatajutsu is a Japanese martial art in which the naginata wield a unique pole or weapon resembling the medieval European glaive. The majority of naginatajutsu practiced today is in a modernized form, known as a gendai bud, in which they also hold competitions.

Women in Japan mainly practice naginata; in other countries, the gender balance is more even. Outside Japan, they practice it in Europe, Australia, and North and South America. Naginata was the weapon used.

How Many Martial Arts are There?

The sheer number of martial arts might surprise you. You may feel overwhelmed if you or your child are thinking about learning a martial art. So, how many different martial arts are there?

There are over 170 different martial arts. Some, like karate, Jiu-Jitsu, and Taekwondo, are well-known, while others are uncommon or uncommon. Martial arts originated in various parts of the world, with many hailing from China, Japan, and Korea. They were frequently the result of historical events that nourished philosophies and techniques.

Some people concentrate on grappling, throws, chokeholds, and joint locks. Others focus on leg techniques, while others concentrate on open-handed strikes. It would be best to consider these factors when selecting a martial art to learn.

Parting Words

Most online stores carry a large selection of high-quality martial arts weapons. You can use these weapons to hone your agility and speed. You might also be interested in finely crafted swords or butterfly knives. These items could be useful when practicing ancient martial arts.

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