Swords
This article should really be titled ‘All the Gear, But no Idea’.
In the seven or so years I have been studying Taiji I have been taught forms using some of the various weapons to be found in the Traditional Chinese Martial Arts (TCMA), including the staff, the sabre, the straight sword and the broad sword. In reality, I have only dabbled, and sadly don’t know any of the forms well enough to teach them at this time. I am hoping to change that over the next few years.
In my typical enthusiasm, I rushed out and bought all the toys, which for the most part sit in my storage cupboard, unused.
The purpose of this article is to help the curious with the the types and names of some of the swords you might encounter in TCMA.
The Grandmaster
Ip Man's peaceful existence is threatened by the arrival of Gong Yutian (Wang Qing Xiang), the Wudangquan martial arts grandmaster from northern China, who announces that he has already retired and appointed Ma San (Zhang Jin) as his heir in the North. He then concedes that the South should have its own heir. A fight erupts as various masters attempt to challenge Gong, but they are deterred by Ma San. As the Southern masters deliberate on a representative, Gong Yutian's daughter Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi) arrives and tries to convince her father not to continue the fight, as she feels the Southern masters are unworthy. Meanwhile, the Southern masters decide on Ip Man to represent them. Three Southern masters test Ip's skills before the confrontation with Gong Yutian.
Year of the Snake
To celebrate the new year, the Chinese Association of Woking organises end of term performances at the school and in the local town centre.
This year the Wutan Kung Fu Sifus, Jim and Frank, kindly allowed the Taiji class to slide into one of their set pieces.
Taiji forms can be quite long (our short form is 5 minutes if you do it quick!) and don’t always lend themselves to a snappy demo, so we decided to do something aligned to Taiji, but different.
We settled on a very short ‘linking set’ of another ‘internal’ traditional Chinese martial art - Xingyiquan.
Traditional Chinese Martial Arts
A ‘quicky’ including good videos of Xingiquan, Karate x Wing Chun and MMA (I am sliding this last one in quietly and hoping you won’t notice that it is not Traditional Chinese Martial Arts!)
Xingyi Quan - book roundup
I have been reading up on Xingyi recently and buying all the books I can find. Not practising it enough of course and desperate to get some more ‘FaceTime’ on the Five Element Fists with my teachers. We have a linking set which I am making progress on, but still want to go back to drilling the basics.
The way of the warrior
In this podcast there was a reminder of the wonderful 1983 BBC series - The Way of the Warrior - which has been uploaded to YouTube.
I watched this series with my father, but can’t say I remember the individual programmes. He bought the book that accompanied the series and I am currently looking for a copy.
The quality of the video compared to modern standards is shocking! Nevertheless, there is so much there worth learning, you just have to push through.
Xing Yi - Five Element Fists
Xing Yi Quan is classified as one of the internal styles of Chinese martial arts. The name of the art translates approximately to "Form-Intention Fist", or "Shape-Will Fist".