Lesson 19 is all about nunchaku body movement, and it starts by naming a habit that holds a lot of practitioners back: standing in one place and swinging the sticks without moving the body. It is time to break that habit. Earlier in the series we talked about spinning and turning the body to create centrifugal power. This lesson adds two more places to find power — vertical thrust and footwork.
Stop Standing Still
The core message of Lesson 19 is simple. If all you do is plant your feet, keep your center of gravity fixed, and swing the sticks around, your training is too limited. There is a large amount of power available in your body, and none of it reaches the nunchaku when the body does not move.
So the goal is to get out of that pattern. Everything that follows is a way to put the body back into the technique.
This builds directly on an idea from earlier in the series. We already looked at spinning and turning the body to create centrifugal power. Vertical thrust and footwork are the same principle from two new angles: the more of your body you involve, the more power reaches the sticks. A swing driven only by the hand will always be limited, because the hand is a small part of what you have to work with.
Vertical Thrust: Power From the Ground Up
The first new source of power is vertical thrust.
On many of your techniques, you want to dip your center of gravity down and then drive back up again. It is that upward thrust, coming back up, that gives you power — and that power is translated straight into the sticks.
Alex gives a clear example. If you simply swing down and catch, you are only getting the power from your arm. But if you drop your body weight down and combine it with the arm, you generate far more power for the same movement.
So in your practice, use the idea of dropping the body weight and the hips down, then coming back up. Drop down and come back up. Drop down and come back up. That rise and fall of your waist and center of gravity is a whole channel of power most practitioners never tap into.
Walking With the Sticks
The second source of power is footwork — literally walking with the sticks. Again, the point is to break the pattern of standing still with no change in body weight or gravity.
Start simple. Just begin walking with the sticks. Alex likes to start by walking sideways.
Cross Steps
Begin in place, then do a cross step behind, followed by a cross step to the front, then a cross step behind again. Work your way back and forward using cross steps. This teaches your feet to move while your hands keep the technique going.
Forward and Backward
Once the cross steps feel comfortable, start going forward and backward. Just walk forward and backward while you keep the sticks moving. Now your footwork is traveling in a straight line as well as side to side.
Add Speed and Variety
When you get good at the walking drills, you can speed it up and add more to it. Add a hop. Add a skip. Add a shuffle. All of a sudden you have all kinds of footwork to draw from, and your movement stops looking mechanical.
How to Practice Lesson 19
This lesson is a set of habits to build, so practice it as a progression rather than a single sequence:
- Practice dropping your center of gravity down and driving back up on your basic techniques.
- Feel the difference between an arm-only swing and a swing powered by dropping and rising body weight.
- Start walking sideways with cross steps, behind and in front.
- Move on to walking forward and backward with the sticks.
- Add a hop, a skip, and a shuffle once the basic walking feels natural.
The theme running through all of it is the same: keep the body moving. Vertical thrust changes your power on the spot, and footwork carries that power around the floor.
Final Thoughts
Lesson 19 is a turning point for a lot of practitioners. Once you stop standing still and start using nunchaku body movement — dropping and rising for vertical thrust, then walking, cross-stepping, hopping, and shuffling with the sticks — a whole new range of possibilities opens up. And the best part is that you feel it right away.
Have fun with it, enjoy it, and always train with respect.