The whip is one of the worlds greatest martial tools. It encompasses a variety of weapon types and has the flexibility, no pun intended, to be used by many martial arts styles. It's is highly adaptable, both in use and range and brings a sense of sublime lethality that is hard to match. There is a lot of talk on the internet and amongst whip artists as whips as weapons and why this will be a bad thing for the hobby. This is why I continualy push the whip as a martial tool. The fact it's used as a weapon is not going away. The number of people exposed to it as such grow each and every year. The important thing is to ensure it's safe to use for everyone. At a recent weapons class I did some very basic whip technique, working it into a self defense scenario.