What are pocket-sticks

Pocket-stick is a general term for rod shaped hand weapons. The most known is the kubotan. The kubotan is developped by Takayuki Kubota.

Pocket-sticks are highly accessible, durable, and effective self-defense weapons.

In usage it is very similar to the yawara, except that it is only long enough to protrude from one end of a closed fist, and the attached keys can act as a flail of sorts. It is often touted as needing very little training to be effective. A yawara is a weapon used in various martial arts.

Common uses include stabilizing the fist for punching, applying pressure to sensitive parts of an assailant's body, or gaining leverage on an assailant's wrist or fingers. The end of the Kubotan may also be used for jabbing, or by gripping it by the key-ring it may be swung or flicked with some precision.

The principal targets for use in self-defense are boney parts, such as knuckles, forearms, bridge of the nose, or shins. In addition to this, it is a very effective pressure point weapon; it can attack any point a finger can, with much greater effectiveness. Its techniques are greatly linked to 'empty handed' martial arts techniques, and almost all of its uses derive from the fighting style in which it is included. It is one of the few weapons that adapts to an art, rather than having its own set of movements and uses.

The kubotan (and equivalently the yawara) is a particularly interesting weapon because makeshift versions can be readily found and are equally effective. This property makes it one of the few weapons that can be replaced by household items, whilst retaining all its combative properties. Typical improvised items can include credit cards, keys, pens, torches, twigs, etc. Almost anything with roughly the same shape and size can be a viable replacement, while still using all of the kubotan's techniques. It is because of this property that adaptive martial arts such as ninjutsu value the yawara and kubotan.