Great River Taoist Center Forums

After a sword study group tonight my fellow students decided to do very controlled very slow parry drills with metal swords. The first observation was how slippery and the 'skidding' bounce steel blades have when flat parried. With some monosteel spring tempered modern blades, the amplitude of vibra...

I'm not sure what Garrett uses but I use Camellia oil which is plant based and I believe used for kitchen knives too!!!

Where did this idea come from anyway???? see this post http://sbgswordforum.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=chineseswords&action=display&thread=11550 my wrist throbs just thinking of swinging a historically accurate blade that's 32 " long. I have one village jian antique that's about 31.5" long and it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJWmyIOEHOs Cutting done by Garrett Chan of http://jin-shi.com/ Garrett has been in my Chinese Swordsmanship Study group for about a month and a half. As far as I know we're the only study group studying Michuan Swordsmanship as taught by Laoshi that exists in Canada. ...

Two recent antique acquisitions highlighted some aspects of blade geometries as well as the reality of the use of Chinese swords historically. Both were Qing jian with rather wide blades. One had an unusual guard and an almost 2" wide blade that while thin was still rigid to the tip and had an very ...

Granted a thinner blade was ok for attacking nonarmored foes. However, I'm curious why the tougher profile didn't continue for reasons of parrying. Granted one used the flat, but in the heat of combat, the edge may hit another edge even at an angle, wouldn't the beefing edge have withstood it more??

I have noticed in some of my antiques that some larger later Jian (late Qing / Ching) seem to have very thin and somewhat wider blades than earlier ones. Also the late jian seem to be quite long compared to earlier ones. The edge damage on such examples seem to be much worse...includes stress fractu...

http://www.emptyflower.net/forums/index ... topic=6539

Nice documentary.

The order of the clips on the thread is messed up. Episode one is the top picture of each series of 3, episode two is middle picture etc.....

I'm sure there are a few inaccuracies in the documentary however!!!

I practice with sharp modern and antique jian. I use wooden ones in sparring or if I'm trying some moves I'm not familiar with. The sharp sword keeps one mindful with the proper mind intent of practicing with a real weapon. I've seen lots of people treat their wooden swords like...well a blunt stick...

Laoshi,

does the new jian have a more 'bullet shaped' geometry vs. the fat 'flattened diamond' of the Huanuo?

Hi, If you don't mind spending a little extra money you could send it to Philip Tom and have him do a Hardwood handle for it. No worry about wrap coming loose then and his handles are superior to the stock wooden ones on the huanuo...even better than the hardwood ones Huanuo uses their sanmai peony ...

Having owned antiques and sanmai and monoswords I must say that the mono sword gives one that same 'fuzzy' feeling that shooters get with a 'beater' gun. You work it hard with little to no anxiety of 'banging it up'. Being a novice, I can feel a bit of difference between handling an antique vs. a mo...

Nothing wrong with the Huanuo monosteel swords. They're pretty tough too. Just get one, practice lots and enjoy it. With the modern steels used there are some advantages to the spring temper monosteel.

1.8 lbs is not heavy at all. If most jian are from 1.5-2 lbs. Yours is right near the middle. How is the Point of balance? Most are around 5-6" from the point where the handle meets the guard. This is also the right place to measure blade length as it negates differences in size of guard. Most moder...

How should one care for the leather on leather covered scabbards???