The Kwan Dao weighing 100lbs? That is ridiculous!

[Julien]

heh, i have researched this kind of thing for a bit but i expected way more people on here to know about the weight of weapons

kungfu practioners to use weapons themselves... those dao things only weigh about 2 lbs too.

[Merryprankster]

Geez, you guys are unREAL.

Stances for harnessing power? Ok, fine--but not 100 lbs worth of unbalanced, unwieldy mess. A 100 lb sword? Please. Completely useless. Perhaps ceremonial or for feats of strength (NOT a form--never mind that doing it regularly with a 100 lbs object would screw your timing to hell and back).

And people were stronger back then? Well, they were certainly shorter on average, and had poorer nutrition to boot. I'm betting if they were stronger, they weren't that much stronger--certainly no stronger than a well trained person of today.

Another idealization of the past--guess what? They weren't better, they weren't wiser, they weren't stronger, faster, more tenacious, full of courage, wit, and bravery!

People were just people. Some were amazing (not 100 lbs sword amazing!) and some were scoundrels and most were pretty average.

What blows my mind the most is how people rag on Hollywood for the "Kung Fu myths," they perpetuate, then turn around and talk about 100 lbs swords or repeat perfectly ridiculous stories about style history or the incredible might of Master "x" as though it were God given truth when it's CLEAR it's embellished oral history, as Gene mentioned!

Julien is nailing this squarely on the head. Wanna have some fun? Go get a little device called a "thor's hammer." It's basically a one ended dumbell, so the weight will be distributed like a mace. You'll see how useless a 100 lbs individual weapon would be.

There's a very real limit on stress adaptation that varies, and a 100 lbs sword would probably blow neatly by that

[IronFist]

MerryPrankster: thanks for that dose of common sense.

Now, this bugs me:

red5angel said:
A normal man could not just walk up to a 100 LB lonbow and pull, I tried . But if you pull it every day, or more likely once or twice a week, then eventually you would work up to it, and it would become nothing.
So, if you worked with a heavy kwan, and bult up, a heavier one could be used. I am not sure about 100 lbs but a heavy one could be used.........

No. The human body does not adapt this way. It's like that story of the old Greek (?) guy who lifted a baby calf every day with one hand, and as it grew he kept lifting it every day, so by the time it was a huge cow he could still lift it with one hand. It's wrong. Sorry, just can't happen. The human body adapts, but not like that.

If that were the case, you could just add 1/2 lb to your bench press every day. If you started at 50 pounds, which is very easy for most grown men to bench, in 5 years you would be benching 962.5lbs. Like I said, it doesn't work that way.

You say 1/2 pound is too much? Fine, add 1/4lb every day. In 20 years you will be benching 1,875lbs. Again, no.

The human body does adapt to constant increasing loads, but you cannot go on indefinately. Pretty soon, because of neural adaption and some muscle stuff, you will be unable to add any more weight, even 1/4 lb. The only way to progress from this point is to lower the weight and start over again.

To anyone who wants to prove me wrong, if I see you in 5 years when you are benching 900lbs, I will buy you a drink

Iron

[Stacey]

I believe it and this is why......


1. It wasn't common, the guy weilding it was a genetic freak. over 7 ft and burley. Like those guys in the worlds strongest men competitions

2. When you attatch a weapon to your waist and use the finesse of "your waist" as opposed to your arm, its possible to still control it.

3. I shook hands with a stone mason the other day, he could have crushed my hands to dust if he wanted to.

4. Hearing such stories I picked up about 75 lbs of pipe. I got it on my horse stance and could control it....amazing! (general kwan used it...on a horse...in a horse stance!

5. Even the 100 lb broadsword is feasable because its two hands go both on the handle and back of the blade for support of the beast. If you look it how broadswords are traditionally used its continuous motion and upward strikes similar to a military press. I guess I could weild one at 25 lbs. I'm no giant, nor am I that strong.

6. Worlds strongest men...are you telling me that if Magnus ver Magnussen were trained from birth in hung gar, that he wouldn't be able to handle a 100 lb weapon? Just because modern chinese are typically smaller, doens't mean that reflects history...they are digging up 7 foot mummies in the west. A good famine would kill off the giants first.

7. Bersarkers were said to do some amazing things too. A combo or hard core chi kung and psycotropic herbs might help as well.


However,



It is also plausible that.

1.It could have been a decimal point or something lost in translation..ie a 10 lb broad sword.

2. Men have been known to exagerate the dimentions of their poles.

[prana]

I think the legendary Z-sword is heavier !

[Xebsball]

The Z sword!!

[IronFist]

goldenshower .gs

Um, what is that?

IronFist

[No_Know]

Neanderthal Man might be thought of as stronger than the average modern pencil pusher. It was required and beneficial. If training in Chinese Kung-Fu was merely paying for classes, there would be even More masters. The environments over decades much as scores and centuries changed enough that practice Need also changed.

Numbers are significant within Chinese culture. 108 is one of those significant numbers. This was the number associated with the weight of the General's legendary weapon (my hear).

Weapons must be useable. The users are factors. The Kwan Do(dao?) was just for the General's use. Whatever the weight given, it seems it was very heavy. The exact weight isn't significant relavantly. The heaviness informs the listner that among the General's other qualities, he could use that weapon sucessfully in the batteling of armies and that suggests that he was at least very strong and perhaps a Fighting-Kung-Fu master. It could perhaps be a literary device to make a point or get across a notion.

If a bladed polearm weighed 100 pounds, the user would get stronger learning to wield it. It is the concept of excellence that is perhaps the nature of Kung-Fu.

[Daniel Madar]

I am sure that I am not the only archer on this board. With a bow, 10 shots a second is **** fast. Especially with a pull of 100 lbs.

As for training slowly to use a 100 lb bow, I cant say I exactly understand, but when I was a kid my parents got me a 50 lb compound bow. Even with the 50% let off, I could only draw it 5 times when I first got it. After a month of daily practice, it was no problem. But I still wasnt sending up 10 arrows a second.

[No_Know]

Julien, Kwan daos don't weigh 100 pounds-with pole five to twenty puonds perhaps. The legendary General's sword might have supposedly weighed around that. Also, some might be specially made to try to equal the legend but in general, No~.


Lifting the calf to cow...That possiblely seems not valid to use a daily progression of weights (1/4lb). The calf stays at about the same weight for days or weeks or months at a time.

[Chang Style Novice]

I can't believe 10 arrows a second no matter what the pull of the bow. That's just bizarrely fast. Try clapping your hands 10 times a second - betcha can't do it. I think that was a typo and he meant "minute" which is still danged impressive in my eyes.

Same deal, basically, with a 100 lb hand weapon. Sure, it could be held and maybe swung, but what if someone with a lighter weapon avoids your first attack and then counters? You'd have to overcome an incredible amount of torque and intertia to parry - it would be incredible to think you could do it with the speed neccesary, and if you fail you're a kebab.

This is all strictly Paul Bunyan level storytelling, class.

[Merryprankster]

WOW!

First, believe it or not, I actually agree with No-Know--the size of the sword doesn't matter. The 100 lbs Kwan Dao is really just a way of saying a **** big weapon--the fact that people are taking it literally is what is blowing my mind. SURE it was 100lbs... and Paul Bunyun was 20 ft tall--never mind that wieght increases as the cube and cross-sectional area (which determines the strength of things like oh, muscles, bones--you know, the things that let you stand and walk around) increases as the square. In other words, things like elephants and Rhinos are built thick and squat relative to their body mass because they have to be. A proportional human that size couldn't hold up his own weight. Clearly, an embellishment.

And now to the meat of the subject.

A 100 lbs Kwan Dao--let's assume for the moment that the wielder is somebody along the lines of oh, I dunno... let's use Stacey's example--Magnus Ver Magnussen, who weighed something like 286 at 6' 3". Very fast and athletic and powerful for such a big man, by the way--he was a LOT of fun to watch.

Anyhow, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that this guy who is probably in the top 0.1% of "functional strength," had the right training. He still isn't using that Kwan as a killing tool. Why? because he's trying to control just over 33% of his body weight, that has all sorts of inertial problems due to centripital force and rotational velocity--That is, he has to impart and check the rotational velocity, all the while, exerting enough force to keep the thing from flying out of his hand. Not an easy task. I used to throw hammer, and TRUST me when I tell you that you start moving something that weighs only 16 lbs fast enough, it starts to feel really heavy, really quick---you don't just STOP that movement without disrupting your balance. That's not a direct analogy, but the basic point still remains-- He's not going to swing a 100lb thing around in a meaningful arc on a horse unless he wants to unseat himself--what did they do, tie the good general to his saddle? A guy that size could hold it--he could even move it. He could control it as long as he was moving it slowly. As soon as he starts actually trying to DO anything useful with it, he's a dead man. I sure hope he never missed....because he'd never recover fast enough to prevent somebody from skewering him. He might be able to stab with it, but then he's got to recover the point... ugh....

Simply put--ain't gonna happen--he's not going to accelerate and decelerate (read: stop and start) 1/3 of his bodyweight fast enough to do anything...and if he tries, he's going to seriously offbalance himself.

As a side note, Neanderthals are estimated to have been unbelievably strong. Many anthropologists believe, based on insertion points on the bones, relative thickness and density of the bones, and indications of stress at the joints, that an average adult male Neanderthal was strong enough to tear a raw gazelle sized animal limb from limb. Go buy a roasting chicken and try to tear it apart with your bare hands and see how far you get. For those of you looking for reference it was in a National Geographic, and the article was discussing a Neanderthal find somewhere in the Middle east. I wish I could remember the month and year

And No_Know--calves actually grow at the rate of several pounds per day

[Tainan Mantis]

By Chinese pound you mean "bang" To find the modern equivalant of this term requires historic research.

Like Sifu Abel said the weapon sat on the back of the horse.

The term 100 pounds should be considered a figure of speech and not be taken literally.

In Tainan, Taiwan a kung fu teacher named Jing Hsuhsiao has a weapons rack of solid stainless steel poles in his school. His "pole" bag is a bunch of tires hung from a chain. I can barely move it.

I tried to lift a staff from his weapons rack and couldn't do it with out a severe strain. And yet he manages to take out his solid steel pole and smash it into the tire bag.
I wouldn't believe weapons like this exist it if I hadn't seen them.

[apoweyn]

as several people have said, the figure '100 lbs.' is probably symbolic. i've been told that in chinese thought, the number 1,000 is used to signify 'a whole hell of a lot.' it's not taken as a literal count.

presumably, the same thing is true of a 100-lb. kwan dao. it's just a poetic way of saying 'freakin' big kwan dao.'


stuart b.

[GeneChing]

You might take a look at the article I wrote on Kwan Dao back in Mar/Apr 2001 available at:
http://store.yahoo.com/martialartsma...mag20mari.html

Additionally, I did a piece on hard whips back in Jul/Aug 2001 - it had a pic of some enormous cast iron hard whips from Wudang. That one's available at:
http://store.yahoo.com/martialartsma...mag20juli.html

As for the question of extremely heavy weapons, I seriously doubt they were used in the battlefield. But that doesn't mean they weren't used and are not a valid part of our practice today. Kungfu is much more than just the battlefield....