Hey Guy`s,
I had an instructor tell me that he only teaches long staff(weapons) to black belts only..I`s this the normal? Man I`d love to learn this! Thanks Guy`s,,,,, Tony.......

I think that's a Sensei's Choice thing. I have had access to long staff at two schools and a seminar.

In our style we don't generally teach ANY weapons until black belt. The basic principle being that you won't always have a weapon and even if you do it could be dropped or taken away from you. Also it's supposed to be an extension of your body/arm. So, until you learn to handle yourself w/o a weapon, there's no reason to be learning weapons.

However, lately they've eased up a bit on that. So some schools have a weapons class once a week. But, they don't teach the weapons that we traditionally teach to the black belts. It's mainly just sword and some long bo. But this isn't for grading it's a separate self contained class.

That's if anyone cares what we do, of course.

Depends on the school I guess. Where I learned Hapkido, we were taught short stick, kendo and long pole, starting at White belt. Other weapons like towel/belt, medium stick, cane, etc... were saved for the black belt degrees. Right now I'm not teaching weapons to my students, only because my roof is too short. We would be constantly knocking out light bulbs.

Dare I point out the physical similarity between a jo and a pool cue?

Nearly every bar I have frequented has a pool table. Talk about a commonly available weapon.

Hapki Rich,
We teach short stick(dan bong) at 1st Dan(for 2nd Dan test)+knife fighting techniques from here up,
2nd Dan-middle stick(joong bong) and 2 short sticks (sam dan bong),
at 3rd Dan you get short-long (5' staff we call Joong-jang bong)+ cane(my favorite)+long sword,(the bokken is introduced at 1st dan as it takes so long to get good at swinging a sword properly. And, we use it to help reinforce hand technique similar to how some/most? Aikido styles do. Prize, correct me if you want on this one.) The hand techniques when done correctly use the same mechanics as proper use of the sword.
4th dan is rope/towel/belt/whatever version of this you use,
5th Dan have a review of all above as 6th Dan is Master in our style. There is also knife throwing in this category. But it's been taught at different levels at differnt times.

But, the only weapon a colored belt might see would be knife for knife defense techniques...for Hapkido. There is an offshoot weapons class called kum-sool in which we would teach sword and bo staff if they wanted to sign up for that class.

Additionally, GM learned Kumdo (Korean Kendo) in Korea. So I've done that but it's not anywhere in our grading system.

iaibear,
abso-freakin-lutely! If you run through my list above of weapons we use, all but the sword represent things you could come accross easily in everyday life. (since it's illegal to carry a katana around with you. or even a tanto for that matter.)
-Short stick can be emulated by a rolled up magazine or small stick, or telephone receiver, writing pen, you get the idea.
-middle stick can be half a pool cue, again it could be a stick on the ground, baseball bat if you happened to be at the ballpark ;), straight walking stick, etc.
-Cane... self explanatory. Since I will need one soon, (i need one now half the time) it's something you could carry anywhere legally and if you know how to use it is an incredible weapon.
-belt/rope/towel/chain/etc.. I wear a belt every day. It's another weapon that can be legally carried. Takes quite a bit of training to make it's use effective though. Mainly in learing how to remove a standard belt quickly enough for it to be usefull in a real situation. This is my second favorite to the cane. The rope/towel part of this shows it can be a torn off shirt, towel, piece of rope or an electrical cord.
-Bo/Jo staffs you already covered... pool cue, mop handle, etc.

These are all naturally occuring and readily available. The sword I'll prolly never have the opportunity to use. (although I had a dream someone was climbing in my bedroom window and I claimed their hands as a trophy ) And you can't walk around with nunchuka or sai in your belt w/o getting arrested.

Great post Corwin.
We have knife techniques thrown in the white to black belt curriculum throughout. The short stick is limited to basic twirling, blocking and striking, with maybe one or two *extra* techniques to show how to use one in a different scenario, but not considered part of the curriculum. Kendo we do basic striking and blocking, we then take it a bit further and do kendo/short stick sparring. Long pole you learn all the twirling: single hand, two hand, switching, stepping, overhead, behind back, sides, etc...

Everything else is saved for Black Belt and beyond.