Great River Taoist Center Forums

Problem with Huanuo is that their blade is a flat diamond. The edge chips much easier compared to a blade with clamshell geometry. As long as you cut mostly soft and semihard targets, you should be fine. Parry a blade even in a slow controlled fashion and you will chip the blade very easily. I've te...

And just to show how diverse and changing Chinese Culture and slang is, when I googled 'White Tiger' in Chinese slang, it was quite a different meaning to the slang I was familiar with!!! But for the purpose of this discussion to the best of my knowledge, there is no wordplay slang on Muk Gim/Mu Jian.

One must also be mindful of Chinese slang and double plays on words. 'White Tiger' in its pure definition brings to mind the image of a noble and powerful beast. Unfortunately, in the Cantonese dialect at least the term 'White Tiger' has a much more derogatory meaning at least in modern language. As...

My Chinese Tai Chi teacher would tell me to worry more about practicing than what to call something or ponder endlessly about some point of theory. (He's done so in the past when I asked about some theoretical point, after he saw improvement, he would then explain and I understood quickly). He doesn...

In Cantonese, Muk Gim....Mu Jian in Mandarin. Being a Chinese practitioner of CMA, it always boggled my mind the Western preoccupation with exotic terminology and clothing. Many Chinese Sifu, just teach in casual exercise clothes and when possible use common language to explain concepts. The use of ...

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the sword used these fittings

http://www.sevenstarstrading.com/html/h ... ejian.html

but without the black background, and I believe the scabbard was dark green/black polished rayskin

The cold steel Gim does NOT have a historically accurate clamshell profile on the blade. It's flat diamond.

Garrett Chan of Jin Shi Swords has commented that many of the modern fittings seem thicker and heavier than the ones on at least the antiques I own. Could be chicken/egg effect, either initially modern blades too heavy...heavier fittings to balance or now since fittings heavy, need heavier blade to ...

This evening Garrett and I tested the Huanuo Royal Peony with Sanmai blade against his Jin-shi standard production sword that's he's using as a beater. We paid extra attention to getting the blade flat before turning the waist to deflect but as long as the upper thrust is with a horizontal blade, th...

Next up for tomorrow evening is the Jin-shi Beater Jian vs. Huanuo Royal Peony Sanmai!!!!! I'll post tomorrow after the results!!!!

Garrett and I repeated some of the parrying tests with his Jin-shi 'beater sword' and an example of the Hanwei Rodell Cutting Jian. Some observations. 1. Aligning blade flat prior to turning waist and parrying is vital to avoid edge nicks. However in the speed of even moderate drills, often timing i...

I've discovered some new insights into all the chips one finds on the antiques. Last night Garrett and I experimented with our beater swords. His was through hardened to 50-55hrc. Mine was differentially hardened 50-55 on edge, 40 on spine. Both of these swords were of modern construction with flatt...

Garrett and I examined a Hanwei Rodell Jian today and it brought us back to the vibration/parry issue. For my best antiques the grip seems to be located by a vibrational 'node' of 'minimal amplitude'. Therefore when striking the pommel, little vibration hits the hand, same during a parry. This works...

I've seen pictures of Zhi Sword tangs on Sword Buyer's Guide Forum. Classic Rat tail tang. I would avoid them.

The Huanuo sanmai was a flattened diamond profile and thinner than the monosteel flattened diamond from JIn-shi Sword. Yet it had less vibration. I suspect the laminate structure also plays a role to the amplitude of vibration as well. Also the laminate structure would alos result in differing HRC o...