Is it worthy learning to use ancient martial arts weapons nowadays?
Depends on what your goal is when you study martial arts. If your goal is to kick *** and/or learn practical self defense, then learning ken-jutsu knowing you aren’t going to carry your katana with you everywhere would be pointless. If your goal is to use your training to help polish your character, then it doesn’t really matter what style you work with or what weapons said style incorporates. There are alot of reasons to practice the martial arts. Some people think of the martial and care less about the art (then its a sport), others care more about the art and less about the martial (then its philosophy). Most are somewhere in between the two extremes. The answer to your question, it seems to me, is the answer to the question ‘what is YOUR reasoning for wanting to train?’ Answer that, and you will answer your original question.
I think there should be a combination of the ‘old and the new’. Although we train with practical weapons like knives, escrima sticks, and bo’s, we also train with kamas and the katana. Even though the latter two are not practical at all, there are modern-day substitutes (as someone wrote earlier). What you DO want to keep entirely practical, are your empty hand techniques. Unless you carry a blade (like I do), you are more than likely not going to have weapon on you if you are attacked, and will have to rely upon your skill. Unless of course, you can find and use something in your environment as a weapon.
considering the most ancient of weapons is the knife, I would say so. However learning to use a stone knife or ax might seem unrealistic, if one could learn the ancient art of “flecking” used by our ancestors (and a few existing scientists) to effectively create an edge on stone to make a knife or axe head, and you know how to use it- then you could effectively bring a weapon into places that have metal detectors. I wonder how a cop would react to one carrying such a weapon when they can simply explain it as an experiment in “flecking” and explain that it is like whittling wood and you are learning it for a scientific purpose. Ironic how an archaic human can tear apart a club or similar place as he could avoid weapon detection by metal detectors. Providing he first mastered the art of deoderant.
