8 Immortals Sword

http://www.martialartsmart.net/455x54.html

Has anyone purchased this before? A bit uneasy about buying a sword online as I do not know how it feels and how well it is balanced before buying it.

All the swords we are importing from Shaolin forge are combat steel and wide, which makes them pretty heavy. I'd say that they are too heavy for most people, especially with the trend towards lighter weapons like wushu swords. The Shaolin forge swords are, as we say in the sword world, "wrist breakers", blade heavy, even with the solid cast hilt pieces, but it's nothing that a little added weight on the pommel couldn't solve. I used to like to work extra heavy blades to build strength, but you have to be careful about that because it's easy the throw your elbow or wrist, if you're sloppy.

We've had a hard time shooting the Eight Immortals sword to catch all of the blade details - one of it's most outstanding characteristics is the engraving on the blade and inlay. There are four immortals hand-etched and inlayed in brass on either side of the blade. You'll see some close up shots of this sword on pages 57 & 61 of our Jan Feb 2005 sword special but they don't capture the piece very well at all. Engraving on blades can be really hard to shoot because of reflective issues. We're working on it.

How do you intend to use this sword? If it's for wushu, I'd say 'pick another.' It's best for tai chi or feng shui.

For tai chi. I am a big strong guy as well, just the sword seemed very awesome. I could tell some from the pictures, very cool looking.

Not sure if it would be something I would use on a regular basis, it may just hang up on the wall or something, but it is very much eye candy and like how the 8 immortals are on there and the theme of the sword.

I quite like the Shaolin swords. I am often tempted to pick up a Spring/Autumn Pear Wood sword just for the sheer size of it and my brother likes the design of the Dragon Fast Sword. (Those were both Shaolin forge swords, right?)

Those swords are pretty sturdy.

I banged one hard at the Temple shops across from the Pagoda forest in 2001. The woman in stall handed me a Guardhouse (I think) blade & directed me to smack the roller track of her stall. I did. It didn't ding the blade at all. I looked at her & she motioned for me to smack it again harder. So I played Andre Agassi with it. I dinged the blade then but I also took a pretty good chunck out of the roller track. I felt kinda bad as I handed it back to her, but she literally tossed it over her shoulder, grabbed another & we started bargaining.

I love when they let you sword test at shaolin. Nothing like chopping chunks out of metal or cutting nails in two. I even ran a pic of doing a sword test at Shaolin in an article I did about buying swords in our Nov 1999 issue.

The Spring Autumn Pearwood is from Shaolin - you gotta be freakin' Conan to wield that bad boy. The Dragon Fast is from Dragon Well.

ooo dragon fast one looks nice! :)

To be honest, I'm not fond of the guard. It's a little to cartoon-like. But I like the blade. I once cracked my jaw open with pommel end of that sword. I used to practice this two-handed sword form that I learned from Master Li Enji. It has this opening spin move and I miscalculated. Smacked myself with a jaw clattering uppercut-like blow. It was stupid, sloppy and embarrassing. Maybe that's why I have problems with the guard. But I still keep it in my collection for some reason.

ouch! :)

at least you won't do that again.

There are nice swords out there, someday I will have the skill to use them, heh :)

About the spring/autumn sword; 7 lbs is not that much worse than a lot of European swords I have seen. It would certainly be good for the strength training.

Thanks for the correction about the Dragon Fast Sword. I'll warn my brother to watch out for the pommel if I get him one while I'm in China. I intend to go to Longquan while I am there (and probably Shaolin too... what am I saying, how could I go to China and NOT visit Shaolin! :D) But anyway, it really depends on the cost-at-source.

One of the guys at my school got a Katana off EBay; $0.99 for the sword, $65 for shipping. Katana is forged steel and from the oxidization on the tsuba I am guessing it's either an antique or a really good fake. He was showing it off today during class. It was very nicely balanced and is a forged steel blade so even for $66 instead of $1 he got a good deal.

Well, I certainly hope I won't do that again, but there's no telling...:rolleyes:

Right now, the swrod forges are in an odd state at Shaolin. You'll find little vendor shops at many of the bigger schools, plus there's some stores at the NE corner of Dengfeng. If you can make it to the forge at the Shaolin Wushuguan, they usually have a fine selection. Also, if you have the time, you can have a sword engraved - it usually takes a day or two. That's always special - but have you Chinese characters ready. They can do it in English, or whatever you provide, but sometimes it comes out a little off. The Chinese character engravings will be much better.

In my experience, when sword shopping at Shaolin, it's good to look at the high-end blades critically, and linger like an expert. Sometimes, they have some prime stuff in back - real high end stuff - that they don't bust out. I talk a little about this in the above mentioned sword special.