The Complete Handbook of Martial Arts Weapons
A practical reference for buyers, sellers, and practitioners of edged, blunt, and flexible martial arts weapons
by Alumigogo Books
non-fiction
The spec-driven reference for choosing, maintaining, and selling martial arts weapons—no hype, just usable data.
About this book
This is the reference manual that should have come with every sword, staff, and sai you've ever bought. It strips away the mystique and marketing to give you the mechanical, material, and legal facts that determine whether a weapon performs, lasts, and keeps you out of trouble. You'll learn how to read a spec sheet for what actually matters—steel alloy, hardness (HRC), blade thickness at the habaki, point of balance, and handle construction—and how those numbers translate into real cutting, blocking, or spinning behavior.
The handbook covers the full category tree, from fixed-blade katana and European longsword reproductions to flexible nunchaku and chain whips, grounded in the practical contexts of competitive forms (kata), paired drilling, historical European martial arts (HEMA), and collecting. It includes step-by-step maintenance procedures, a troubleshooting guide for common failures like handle wrap deterioration and edge rolling, and a clear-eyed chapter on the business side—import regulations, liability insurance, wholesale pricing tiers, and private-label opportunities.
Whether you run a dojo, sell weapons online, or practice six hours a week, this book gives you the vocabulary and the procedures to make better decisions. It does not tell you what to feel about a weapon; it tells you what to check, how to test it, and what the numbers mean.
Reader Reviews
Andrew White
★★★★★I've been collecting katana for about eight years and this is the first book that actually gives you numbers instead of vague talk about 'soul' and 'tradition.' The section on point of balance and how it affects a cut was worth the price alone. I only wish the maintenance chapter had gone a bit deeper on restoration, but for a practical handbook it's exactly what it claims to be.
Joseph Robinson
★★★★★Bought this for my school's weapons shelf thinking it would be a light read. It's not a light read, which is fine, but be aware it reads like a technical manual. The chapter on choosing weapons for different rulesets is solid and I've already used the decision matrix to order new bo staffs for my advanced students. It could use a few more diagrams, but the text is precise.
Mary Smith
★★★★★I run a small retail shop that carries nunchaku and training swords, and the chapter on business opportunities gave me a practical angle I hadn't considered—private-labeling padded trainers. The brand comparison in Chapter 6 is honest, and it saved me from making a bulk order from a supplier that apparently has a known quality control issue. Solid reference, just dry in places.
Brenda Hill
★★★★★As someone who primarily does HEMA with a federschwert, I found this book useful but it sometimes feels like it's trying to cover too many weapon types at the expense of depth. The sections on Japanese blades are strong; the ones on European weapons feel a bit lighter. Still, it's more grounded than most online guides and I'll keep it on my shelf for the maintenance schedules alone.
Carol Johnson
★★★★★Finally, a weapons handbook that doesn't read like a sales brochure or a history lecture. I've been practicing kobudo for five years and this book correctly identifies the sai, tonfa, and bo with their actual specs and usage contexts. The troubleshooting guide for wood cracking on bo staffs fixed a problem I had been fighting for months. This is going next to my Tokugawa-era reference books.
Steven Smith
★★★★★I'm a weapons collector and I bought this hoping for a buyer's guide, but it's really a working manual. That said, the legal classification chapter is the clearest I've read on the topic—it helped me avoid a bad import situation with a blade that was technically legal but right at the edge of a length restriction. Nice to see a book that takes the non-glamorous side seriously.