[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72tbio78jAQ]

Here you’ll find Professor Ronald Duncan catching. He does a lot of other things too, like evading a samurai sword and jabbing a guy in the throat. A lot. But at the five minute mark, he went all Naruto on us and plucked arrows out of the air.

Pay attention. You’ll need to know this when the combat archers invade your house.
Combat Archery! It’s a thing. I wrote about it not too long ago. You can read it here.
Click the link and you will see arrows emerging from doorway shadows, whispering through the air before they sink into the target with a satisfying thunk.
The dudes are masters of Atienza Kali, a martial art that is all knife, all the time; unless they have a handgun handy. Then they’ll shoot your ass. Well, I guess they didn’t think that was bad-ass enough, because they added the bow to their arsenal.
Does arrow catching have any real combat applications? A compound bow can launch an arrow at about 205 mph. So, arrow catching is a low percentage option.
There are a lot of things that would have to go wrong before I start trying to catch arrows. But, I’m sure that somewhere, somewhen, you had soldiers
who did catch arrows on the battlefield, at least once. I mean, you had guys that were saved from AK47 rounds because the bullet got lodged in a deck of playing cards held in the breast pocket. People get lucky. Just don’t count on it.
The real reason I posted this is because of Professor Ronald Duncan. He recently passed, but he was a true martial arts master. There are dozens of videos on youtube in which people catch arrows. The Mythbuster guys even went in on it, proving that it is possible, but impractical. But I think Duncan did it best.

These posts feature another Black ninja, Ali Abdul Karim Hanshi. I believe he was a student of Duncan, but I’m not sure. Anyway, check them out here, where he talks about the principles of the fighting system of the ninja, taijutsu.