ATTN: CSN-on sai and jian

[oasis]

I've been checking out some older issues of KFQG mag, and in the Sep/Oct 2001 issue there were two interesting pieces featuring the 'sai.' Chang Style Novice said
I just hope no one slips up and mentions Sai. in the nunchakus thread, so i thought i start a new discussion ;)

gene wrote an article entitled 'sai vs. jian: kung fu's ancient weapon fights from okinawa to egypt.' it was about the weapons used in the famous catfight in the mummy returns, and he discusses the 'jian,' which has a different inflection from the word for straight sword. now, you'll have to pick up the back issue for the details about some of the similarities and differences b/t the two ;) , but the writer posits that unlike the popular notion that the sai or jian were initially farm tools, the weapons may have been created for martial purposes.

Also interesting in this issue is an article about the fukien art of ngo cho, which many will know is considered an ancestor of karate, especially the sam chien exercise (which is called san chin in karate). this article features a weapon that distinctly resembles the sai. however, it's not called jian, but a sang te pi (twin forked rod).

just some history food for thought :D

[norther practitioner]

I was actually going to dig that up tonight....:D

[red5angel]

actually, I'm interested to know if those weapons they used in The Mummy Returns was an actual Egyptian weapons of some sort? Gene? Anyone?

[oasis]

Originally posted by red5angel
actually, I'm interested to know if those weapons they used in The Mummy Returns was an actual Egyptian weapons of some sort? Gene? Anyone?

not at all. they were just chosen by the moviemakers b/c of their 'exoticism,' especially because the audience wouldn't no any better, right? :o

edit: red, i'm not sure if you were referring to the sais or other weapons potrayed in the movie. i was obviously addressing the former.

[red5angel]

any of the weapons. I'm a slight fan of Egyptian history and don't recall seeing any of the weapons they use, but that doesn't mean anything.
So, you're saying those are not traditional Egyptian weapons?

[Chang Style Novice]

You wanna laugh? Look in the archives for the sai thread about six months ago.

Man, that made ugly look really sexy.

[oasis]

i'm aware of that thread. that one had a different premise ;) . this one is just for discussion on the development of similar weapons in different cultures and the motives behind making them. i always leaned toward the idea that tools such as the sai were first used agriculturally and then 'militarily.' i thought it was interesting to argue the other way around, especially when Gene Ching points out the development of 'sword catchers' in medieval europe and similar guards on taiji broadswords and japanese jitte.

[Chang Style Novice]

Yeah, that's an interesting angle, although it's something I don't know much about. I pretty much shot my wad on that area of knowledge when I started speculating in the nunchuka thread about why blunt flexible weapons came into favor in Asia (I'm pretty sure I was right about the reasons they gained popularity in medieval Europe.)

[GeneChing]

Actually, the closest thing to a sai in China is a bian, a hard whip. These go back to ancient times in China; basically they were iron rods, often serrated like bamboo. Only a few examples have 'sword catchers' for guards and these are usually postulated to be the parallel to sai.
The problem with the old 'farming tool' argument for me is that hand farming tools haven't really advanced. Let's call a spade a spade. It's still a spade. If these were used for farming, you'd think that we'd still use them, but I have yet to find sai in my local garden nursery. On the flip side, you find sword catchers on all sorts of guards in many cultures. That's my argument, what I postulated in my article. I'm glad to see it's finally being contested, sort of...;)

oasis - good call on the new thread. :D

[MasterKiller]

Originally posted by GeneChing
The problem with the old 'farming tool' argument for me is that hand farming tools haven't really advanced. Let's call a spade a spade. It's still a spade. If these were used for farming, you'd think that we'd still use them, but I have yet to find sai in my local garden nursery. Not to nit pick here, but when was the last time you planted a row of crops bare-handed? Weren't sais supposedly used to measure the distance between seeds for planting?

[red5angel]

I was taught that sai orignally had several uses. To measure and make holes for planting seeds, also somehow to help with grain collection but I can't recall exactly how. I'm pretty sure some of these farm implements turned weapons are still used in okinawa. Either way, one starts with a farm implement and can quickly create a weapon with a few modifications. Imagine what I could do with a garden weasel if I really set my mind to it!

[Chang Style Novice]

Or a international harvester 1.5 ton tractor with a 30 yard wide threshing attachment.

Gardening is now done for fun, and farming is done ffor effeciency, and they have much more advanced machines than sai for those kindsa jobs. If you're just raising a patch of homegrown tomatoes you don't really need anything but a spade and a hose.

[Judge Pen]

You know, I've really been impressed with the dialouge found in the majority of these threads lately. It's gone from, "well anything that looks like a sai MUST mean you do karate" to an intelligent discussion on the evolution of different weapon types in different cultures and their original purposes.

*Group Hug*

[Chang Style Novice]

Hugging doesn't work against multiple opponents, Shaolindo heretic!
























:p

[GeneChing]

...I just did some planting last weekend. I didn't use a sai. Although I'm sure it would poke a nice hole, it just didn't seem as practical as one of those little hand spades/shovels (actually I don't really know what you call those, but you know what I'm talking about, it's what anyone uses to plant small plants). A sai would have been totally useless (although, if it had more of a hook than a point, I might have used for weeding). As for the "measure the distance between seeds for planting" theory, I just kind of eyeball it. I mean really, do I need something made of metal (a less common commodity in ancient times) to measure that distance?

Now, I'm no gardener by any means, but try plant a garden with a sai and tell me how to use it. I'm all ears.

BTW, the original sai article was part of a diptych piece I did. The first was on hard whips in our July Aug 2001 (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=138) and the second was in our Sep Oct 2001 (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=140). Read 'em together and they'll make more sense. :cool:

[Vash]

For your amusement . . . I think. (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=315)

[red5angel]

keeeerist! I had to read that hunched over my jimmy !!!

[Vash]

I had to hold mine while I read it, so he wouldn't get scared . . .

I didn't say that. I was never here.

[rubthebuddha]

keeeerist! I had to read that hunched over my jimmy !!! <insert rib removal joke here>

[MasterKiller]

Originally posted by GeneChing
Now, I'm no gardener by any means, but try plant a garden with a sai and tell me how to use it. I'm all ears. Well, let's forget about your cushy lifestyle for a moment and move back about 200 years. If you were planting a large crop with seeds (not half-grown plants from Home Depot), you have to poke a deep hole for each seed you plant. Since your finger would wear out after about 100 or so, it would be easier on your index finger (and your woman later that night) to use a long metal object. And, since certain crops need space to grow and get sunshine, you might as well have a fork on it to pre-measure where the next hole goes, so you don't have to stop and eyeball it each time. Poke, drop a seed, poke, drop a seed....

[Starchaser107]

I'm no expert but could the sai have been related to this gardening tool

Gardening Fork (http://www.sibg.org/images/hand%20spade%20and%20fork.jpg)

[Vash]

From the limited kobujutsu research I've done, plus talking to a couple of Matayoshi Kobujutsu sensei, it looks like the sai were originally weapons on Okinawa, generally used by the king's peeps.

There's also a variation on the sai wherein one of the prongs on the side is turned back towards the handle. Also, the sai, and the cited variation, were used on the tips of bo.

[GeneChing]

Despite my cushy modern life, my gardening technology is about the same as before. I do use a long tool to poke holes for seeds, but it doens't look at all like a sai. It looks like the garden fork above. The main difference? Symmetrical tines. And generally, you spread seeds a little ****her apart than the tines of a fork or sai, so that just doesn't work for me. But let's do an experiment. Try it. I'm still not sure how the curved guard helps you measure the distance between seed holes. I really think this is urban martial arts mythology.

The closest thing I've found to a sai/gardening tool was the 2nd example in my Sep Oct 2001 article. That one - the jian from the Beijing Sports Museum - actually had a point akin to a weeder. That's the only such example I've ever seen and to be perfectly honest, I have my reservations about the specimens that were in the Beijing Sports Museum. Also, that still doesn't explain the parrying hook guard, which is the most interesting attribute.