What are the Sources for Chinese Swordsmanship? - Q & A on Chinese Swordsmanship Series
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- Scott M. Rodell answers Questions concerning Chinese Swordsmanship sent in by practitioners-
What are the Sources for Chinese Swordsmanship?
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Time Codes
0:13 What is the Foundation of our Sword Practice?
0:34 Rodell Laoshi's Sword Lineage
1:39 This is a Living Tradition
2:20 Practice Also Based on Antique Period Swords
3:19 Importance of Test Cutting to our Practice
5:31 Sources are Late Ming and Qing, there are no earlier sources - Спорт
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Definitely enjoying these Q & A's
Thanks Gavin!
Great work indeed! I myself train with a real late Ming Jian and that is completly different from other Jian that I worked with. As for my background I must recognize that's only the TC sword form from CMC leagcy and some sword fencing from it. However, as I feel that this is not the whole picture, I've been to complement it with my experience with another weapon live tradition (not HEMA) which is JOGO DO PAU (Portuguese Staff Game).
Thanks! It is really quite nice to train with a real sword, completely different that the modern, misbalanced wushu swords.
Lol. This is exactly like HEMA. There are full generations between you and the last person who fought with a sword.
This is delusional thinking Scott
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Actually, thanks to WW2, there is no generation between my generation and the last generation to fight sword in hand. In our lineage, at our school, we engage in full contact, free swordplay with full weight weapons. As many friends in HEMA do. How our work is quite different from HEMA is that (& I know this might be true for all branches of HEMA), we are not recreating this art from manuals. It was passed on by practitioners from a continuous line of practitioners. All the best, SMR
Concerning the comment that there are "full generations between you and the last person that fought with a sword.," in all fairness your statement is not supported by the primary sources. The Dadao Dui (Big Knife Units) are just one example of swords being used in combat on a wide scale, right through the Second World War, see: chinesemartialstudies.com/2012/11/26/693/ I personally have met teachers who trained with Dadao as part of their military training who then put them to use. So contrary to your assertion that there are multiple generations (i.e. hundreds of years) between today's teachers and practitioners and a generation that actually fought with Chinese Swords in life and death comment, there is no intervening period. In other words, some teachers alive and teaching today were taught by those who had indeed been in what we can accurately refer to as sword fights. I hope this helps clarify the record for you. All the best.
Not convincing. I could make similar claims regarding HEMA and returning ww2 navy veterans who taught single stick to boy scouts. My own uncle was a frog man who later carved wooden sticks to fight with me at Thanksgiving dinner. I'm not about to inflate the experience to linear transmission of combat arts
@@tbishop4961 I am afraid that you are confusing the individual acts of soldiers using swords, of which that are a good number in China through WW2, and that of larger numbers of men trained in the use of swords who were sent into action with those swords to fight with them. As crazy as that no doubt sounds, the Chinese military and civilian resistance was not very well armed. Individual martial artists fought with swords and spears against better armed Japanese, not because they preferred swords over firearms, but because at times that was all they had.
It should also be noted that Sword Manuals were being published and made use of throughout the Chinese Republic as they saw a need for them. The specific needs was that men were armed with swords not as symbols of rank, or something of that nature, but as weapons they were expected to employ. US Marines during the same period were not issued swords, nor were they expected to fight with swords. That is the difference being overlooked.
As to large numbers of soldier fighting with swords intentionally, the above mentioned Dadao Dui fought an important battle at the Great Wall against the Japanese army. in 1933. As well as others.
In anywise, the assertion was there were multiple generations between myself and any Chinese practitioner having fought with a sword in a life and death struggle. Whether one looks at it from the case of individual martial artists fighting with a sword or spear because that was all the had, or Government Soldiers being issued and fighting in large units as a unit, the historical record is clear, the previous generation did engage is such combat. Consequently, there is no break in the transmission of the art.
If you are interested in the history and not simply stubbornly remaining unconvinced, have a look at this link- chinesemartialstudies.com/2013/08/26/bridges-and-big-knives-the-use-of-the-big-knife-saber-in-the-chinese-republican-army/
@@scottm.rodellgrtc2969 US forces absolutely were issued such tools. My grandfather was a seabee. They carried machetes when moving on to New islands and were expected to use them in close quarters. There is a reason common sailors trained single stick on those deployments. Marines as well carried machetes and other large blades like this one
ua-cam.com/video/YVvZMX4ALmw/v-deo.html
As a student in this system, I truly appreciate its honesty. As others have said, keeping it real.
Thanks Mark, looking forward to in person seminars coming back...
Thank you to Laoshi Rodell for summarizing the origins of Chinese swordsmanship as a living tradition that has been transmitted from the Qing dynasty. If we are to preserve and promote this martial art, we need to know where it came from, be honest with ourselves with historically accurate teachings, use historically accurate weapons and use historically accurate language/terminology. That’s why it’s call historical swordsmanship. Using foam or underweight flimsy sword-mimicking props, claiming lineage from mystical sages, never sparring nor practice test-cutting is a threat to historical swordsmanship. That ought to be called hysterical swordsmanship at best. Thank you for making this important video for beginners in swordsmanship but also as reminder for more experienced swordsman/woman. Thank you for reminding us to keep our practice real. Martial arts is challenging enough, why waste your time on becoming a fake martial artists?!
Thanks for your support Poney, everyone at the Academy appreciates it.
Yes indeed, thanks Poney.
Great presentation. This Q & A series is a helpful, direct and clear distillation of your many years of practice and training. Thank you.
Thanks, we truly appreciate Chowa's support!
Great video! Thank you
thanks for the making things clear and keeping it real
Thanks for supporting our work! New Video out Monday...
Nice to see photos of Masters Wang and Liang, thanks.
They were great men and teachers.
Informative as always. Thank you for passing on your knowledge.
Thanks Bob, see you in St. Paul...
For the non-collector, what do you look for and examine when evaluating a jian (antique or modern), and by what standards do you assess them? And, related, do you ever plan to publish a book on jian to share some of your research on how they're designed and how to evaluate the quality/craftsmanship/authenticity of a given sword?
Excellent points.
Great video. Thank you.
Our pleasure, thanks for your support.
Will be interesting to know if wu dang sword practices came from direct old wu dang line, that could be older that ming and qing jian fa.
Thank for share this.
To begin to answer that, you have to define what you mean by Wudang Sword Practices? Wudang today is quite different that the Wudang mountain of the past. Note for example to jian they train with, swords that are extremely flexible and longer than any period examples. Likewise, they are balanced closer to the guards than Qing period jian. The reason for this is that the current Chinese government does not allow training with real swords, or even those that approximate them. Such weapons are illegal (though you can find some training with them here and there, no larger groups can get away with it).
If one considers that one needs to be training with a sword, rather than a sword like object, to be genuinely practicing the art, logically, there is no sword training going on in places that train with historically inaccurate weapons.
@@mugenGRTC make perfect sense, thank you very much for your very complete answer, have a great day 🙏
@@brunonunez6185 Another thing to keep in mind is that Wudang means different things to different people/lineages. Wudang can be used to refer to a general approach, i.e. "internal arts." Or it can refer to the lineage Li Jinglin came from. Or to some specific lineages that make claims to coming from Wudang Mountain, in the same manner many schools of Chinese Martial Arts are "Shaolin." How many of those can provide primary source documents dating from even the Qing, let alone early, that substantiate their back story? I imagine few, if indeed any. That doesn't mean that any of these Wudang or Shaolin arts are not real or legitimate, but rather these labels are more important as identifiers and for promoting the school.
@@scottm.rodellgrtc2969 great to know, thanks again, and thanks for share your research with the community, every video is very valuable.
A big hug from the other side of the world.
@@scottm.rodellgrtc2969 ua-cam.com/video/xrtfH_VgGZ0/v-deo.html
Very confused ........
I've always had some doubts about test cutting. Most of what I've seen involves over-commitment to a cut, i.e. too much attempt to put power into it, which would, I believe, leave oneself vulnerable to counterattack. A nicely sharpened straight sword doesn't need to be swung like a chopper. It is, to me, a precision tool. It takes almost no power to inflict serious or even fatal wounds. The most common likely applications are going to be short, quick stabbing motions, draw cuts and percussion cuts. I think this is one of the problems - an insurmountable one these days - in that in sparring there is no danger and so over-commitment only costs you a loss of points if you miss and not a loss of life. It's a bit like Olympic fencing where it's the first player to touch. In a real life duel there is no compensation for killing your opponent if you are certain to die a moment later. I suspect that in real situations swordsmen were far more cautious in their approach.
Have you had an opportunity to watch any of the cutting videos here?
@@mugenGRTC I have, and I also own the cutting jian. Personally I find that it's use is more akin to a rapier.
You are mumbling oftentimes; both on the Mandarin terms & quickly (unintelligible) your school name @5:26 listen to yourself - Fàng huǎn - 发言 来自 心, shòu rén yǐ yú bù rú shòu rén yǐ yú - Zhù nǐ hǎo yùn
Curious you are having a problem with the sound, tests here are fine.