Yawara (Signature Weapon)

This post is part of my Signature Weapons series, which I only officially started this year. Although there were a few older posts that could be considered officiously part of the series, such as this one. Anyway, so I am reading at a slow pace Fight Write, by Carla Hoch, to help me depict fights and violence in my own crime fiction writing. And the book made me discover one exotic weapon from Japan, called the yawara, or yawara stick. It looks like nothing, it is as it says a short stick, a blunt instrument that is barely bigger than the palm of your hand. Yet apparently it can be quite effective and is even used by Japanese police forces. I checked a few videos on YouTube and I must say I am a bit skeptical. Sometimes people praise a thing only because it is exotic and think the world of a weapon simply because it's use by martial artists in the Far East. But since Japanese police officers use it, it must have some utility. In any case, it's a simple device and from what I understand fairly easy to make weapon, so I might add it to some of my character's arsenal. Heroes or villains? I'm not sure yet. So yawara is the word of the day, as well as today's signature weapon. If you have used one, or seen one (if you visited Japan, for instance), please let me know in the comments.