Okinawan kusarigama is a rare chain (鎖) and

sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock, ei ...

(鎌) weapon found in the

Okinawan kobudō , literally "old martial way of Okinawa", is the weapon systems of Okinawan martial arts. Etymology and definition Okinawan Kobudō is a Japanese term that can be translated as "''old martial way of Okinawa''". It is a generic term coined in th ...

weapons set. A noted modern practitioner of the weapon was Seike Toma, a student of Chōtoku Kyan and a teacher of

Seikichi Odo Seikichi Odo (born July 26, 1927 in Okinawa – died March 24, 2002), whose name means "world walker" in Japanese, was a karateka. He combined ''kobudō'' and karate techniques to found the Ryūkyū Hon Kenpo Kobujutsu Federation. Education O ...

. Differing from

kusarigama A is a traditional Japanese weapon that consists of a ''kama'' (the Japanese equivalent of a sickle or billhook) on a kusari-fundo – a type of metal chain (''kusari'') with a heavy iron weight (''fundo'') at the end. The ''kusarigama'' is said ...

Japanese Archipelago The Japanese archipelago (Japanese: 日本列島, ''Nihon rettō'') is a archipelago, group of 6,852 islands that form the country of Japan, as well as the Russian island of Sakhalin. It extends over from the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast to t ...

in anatomy and techniques, its use and design also varies depending on stylistic preferences or individual choices. The most common design, also known colloquially as "flying kamas", is where the chain (usually replaced with a rope) is attached to the bottom of the handle in the form of a loop. Another variation is where two kama are joint with a rope attached to the bottom of each. There also exists another, reminiscent of Japanese kusarigama but with a sickle smaller in size.

Sources

*''Kusarigama: The Flashing Art of the Sickle Weapon'',

Tadashi Yamashita is a Japanese American martial artist and actor. Early life Tadashi Yamashita was born in Japan in 1942, but he considers himself an Okinawan. His father died when he was three and he and his mother moved to Okinawa when he was 8, after the ...

, 1986, Ohara Publications, Burbank, California Weapons of Okinawa Blade weapons Flail weapons {{martialart-stub