How many calories do you burn in one hour of martial arts?

The "lowest impact" martial art, Tai Chi Chuan, you burn roughly 320, about the same as downhill skiing. In most others though, vigorous external ones, especially if they include cals in their curriculum, you will burn up to 800 in an hour. If you train with weaponry, some of which may be heavy, its effect on the muscles, is similar to that of weight asisted aerobics; you will burn up to 1,000 calories, and even resting you will keep on burning blubber because of muscle soreness. In both Kung Fu and Karate, weapons can be hard on the body if you're not used to them. Not because instructors are such sociopaths they spend their time whacking you; weapons are hard on the body because you are doing hundreds of repetitions with something weighing between 2 to 10 lbs. That may not sound like much, until you take into consideration the angle by which you hold something.

By far the harshest Martial Arts weapon, is probably the Tetsubo; it is a 30 lb Japanese club, that was designed to break horse's legs, and break body armor. I am not aware of any dojos however, that train in the use of that monstrousity. Again, to conclude; at the lowest level of impact, roughly around 320 calories per hour. If you are training with weaponry, such as a spear in Kung Fu, most of which are in fact heavier than they look, or, a Suburito in Kenjutsu, which weighs as much as a real Katana, if that is included in the training you will burn up to 1,000. However you do not study weapons, until you have reached black belt level or the equivalent. It is a sad reality of modern martial arts, that not even physically grown adults, have the psychological maturity to be "playing" with weapons. You need to prove to the instructor that you can use a staff without whacking other people in the head, or kamas without cutting yourself because you pretended to be in Lord of the Rings. State law requies most martial arts schools not to allow children under 18 to study edged weapons. In Japan, if through parental negligence, or dojo instructor irresponsibility a kid is caught wielding a Katana, you could go to prison for 20 to 30 years; naturally in East Asia they take martial arts weaponry a lot more seriously.

Japan for example, has an outright ban; you can only legally use them, inside the confines of a dojo, if an police officer catches you with even so much as an unsheathed Bokken (wooden sWord) outside the confines of a dojo you can get arrested. I believe you can only use them, within dojos, or while filming movies but I do not think even movie bokkens are the real thing; the "wooden sWords" in Japanese movies are in fact made of compressed bamboo. The actual metallic sWords, are made with bamboo sheets, laminated to look like metal.

Actually there are martial arts that areonly weapons training where you don't have to be a black belt to participate, such as kenjutsu, iaijutsu, kendo, and iaido, as well as numerous others. Aikido for example often uses a bokken or iaito (a dull katana). Also, a suburito is not the actual weight of a katana, it is much heavier and longer and is used for building muscle and control. A bokken is fairly close to the weight and length of an actual, steel katana. I am a practitioner of kenjutsu. As for sWords being banned in Japan, where did you get that information? They are banned in the UK, but I have never heard of them being banned in Japan, in fact there are still ceremonies that sWords are a big part of. Do some research before answering.