Originally Posted by
RAF
Dedalus:
I actually got interested in this question maybe 6 or 7 years ago. I read about some of Zhang Man Qing students having superb sword skills, including Zhang Man Qing himself. I never could find out its history nor the auxilliary exercises needed to be good at the sword. Yeah, I know, Yang Cheng Fu picks up a broom handle or brush and defeats an opponent.
As I started into my own taiji sword (I had a kun wu sword form for years), we learned some simple but effective two man sword training techniques. They are really no big secret and once you see them you quickly learn how only practice makes them useful (very similar to bagua rou shou, two swords connect and you continuously circle the arms while also walking in a circle facing each other. Then you simply execute movements both offensive and defensive from the form itself).
Well, I went up against some people who had none of the experience I had in the kun wu form or taiji sword and I quickly found out how unskilled I was. Not because they were skilled, but because I could not control their lack of skill like jabbing me in the leg or missing the move and my inability to counter. Now I have experiential truth that simply doing a sword form will not make you skilled.
It hits me like a rock, how can you have skill in taiji swordsmanship or any sword without tons of two man practice. So I ask around the Zhang Man Qing people whom I know and none has an answer (actually they avoid the answer since they only play the sword form). I ask what auxilliary exercises did Zhang Man Qing teach or what two man form did he teach inorder to develop the skill (BTW, this is not a flame on Zhang Man Qing practitioners. I later find out that vary few sword practitioners do two man exercises and two man forms).
I read Barb Davis's book and read Chen Weiming's comment about not have the exercises too (Li Jing Lin taught them to him). Now if Yang Cheng Fu didn't teach him and I can't find out what Zhang Man Qing taught (maybe its a secret) then how does anyone acquire excellent swordsmanship in taijiquan?
Then I start to think, when did the sword (jian) come into the Yang lineage? Couldn't have come from the Chen's because I read that their jian enters in around the 1920s or 30s. Hmmm, Yang Lu Chan oral history never talks about his jian skills. Chen Fake's daughter has a jian form (old Journal of Chen style has the routine laid out) yet I never read or hear about Chen Fake having a sword form.
Only Doc Fai Wong, in an old article in Wushu/Kung Fu, says the sword comes from a daoist, Song Wei Yi. Well, I know how this Song Wei Yi fits into my lineage but I can never find anybody else who verifies it through the Yang lineage. So I doubt if it comes through Song Wei Yi but I post and never get an responses about where the Yang or Chen sword comes from.
Its just odd, especially regarding Yang stylsts claim of having excellent swordsmanship (which very well might be true) and not knowing how it came into the lineage and what two man exercises and fight forms were practiced.
How strange.
Publisher
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
