Not only the presentation of the art is not consistent, but also the techniques are not well-designed. About a half of the techniques are not actually usable in real defending purposes. The problem is that they will make you lose balance when using them. I bet the author has not tested those skills he explained yet. The author tried to be different from Bruce Lee, but that also introduced many difficulties. And that is absolutely not necessary!

The history presented by Jiro Shiroma is actually wrong. It was a Chinese weapon -- a real weapon used by martial artists during the Song Dynasty in China -- A.D. 960+. This is the earliest period when people actually used it as weapon. Nunchaku is an Okinawan name of the same thing invented by Chinese, whose name was Da Sau Zu meaning "swinging sticks."

Before Bruce Lee popularized on the films such a powerful weapon, the so-called Japanese Nunchaku, as weapon, did not exist at all. After his movies, Japanese started "reinventing" nunchaku for their own martial arts, especially Ninjutsu. However, today's Ninjas are only useful in movies! Bruce Lee's nunchaku was actually an Indian farming tool, introduced to him by his student Dan Inosanto. Bruce Lee simply called it "double sticks."

I learned "double sticks" from the book written and drawn by Bruce Lee, and it was well-designed, poweful, straightforward, and economical. The techniques are very easy to follow and no redundency at all! Actually, I learned it from the pictures only, but after that I started reading the descriptions. It helped me to understand the philosophy of his ideas about the art. His method are beautiful!

I think the best way to describe it is that it's an American-martial-art weapon invented by a Chinese American -- Bruse Lee. The origin of the sticks is India, or China as you please, and the techniques are the invention of Bruce Lee.

If you want to learn double sticks as a useful martial art, watch Bruce Lee's movies and you will learn most of the skills actually required for defending or fighting