This grip provides protection or brace along one's forearms, and also provides reinforcement for backfist, elbow strikes, and punches. In use, the tonfa can swing out to the gyakute grip for a strike or thrust. Martial artists may also flip the tonfa and grab it by the shaft, called tokushu-mochi.
Police batons are designed more for impact on the extremities: the arms, thighs, upper legs," Goodloe says. If you're hit in those places, the impact will likely be painful to the point of temporary debilitation. Fractures do occur, and often out of self-defense.
