Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 16

Thread: traditional chinese weapons: archery, crossbow and gun

  1. #1

    Question traditional chinese weapons: archery, crossbow and gun

    Some lists of the 18 forms of martial arts shaolin masters would master include gun, crossbow and archery.

    This historical influence is seen today in Korea, where traditional half-bows (recurve) and crossbows are practiced as a form of martial art, and in Japan, where archery, horseback archery and flintlock rifle/cannon systems are stil extant.

    I'd like to know if any traditional chinese systems still involve historical training in these mid-to-long range field weapons today?

    SF

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    Orange free state
    Posts
    1,584
    I the only bow art left that i can think of is kyu do (is that the right name?). The Japanese Bow art with the odd shaped bow.

    As for long range martial practice in general i have always thought it was odd that no one theaches throwing items other than ninja.......if you can call ninjutsu a martial art.
    LOL.. really, what else did you hear?.. did you hear that he was voted Man of the Year by Kung-Fu Magizine?

  3. #3
    Liokault, I don't know about chinese archery, but there are several japanese, filipino and indonesian styles dealing with throwing projectiles. Chinese too ofcourse, but I dont think it's easy to find.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Austin TX
    Posts
    6,440
    I think perhaps the main issue is that ranged weaponry is pretty much an entirely different discipline that requires entirely different training and entirely different space considerations and equipment. Does anyone here study at a kwoon that could easily accomodate an archery range? Javelin? Riflery?
    All my fight strategy is based on deliberately injuring my opponents. -
    Crippled Avenger

    "It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever get near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propoganda visits...Perhaps when the next great war comes we may see that sight unprecendented in all history, a jingo with a bullet-hole in him."

    First you get good, then you get fast, then you get good and fast.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    here
    Posts
    5,623
    The chinese throwing weapons I have heard of is small daggers and coins(!).

  6. #6
    I think Chang Style Novice has hit it right on the head about long range field weaponry requiring completely different training, place to train and equipment.

    In japanese gunnery (hojutsu) enthusiasts practice set forms in repetition, as well as dismantling/refiguring the weapon in weekly practice, and then do their actual target shooting maybe once monthly at a regular firing range, but plus their wierd get-up.

    Kyudo people are fairly common in Japan, so you find lots of martial arts centers run by the municipalities have traditional archery facilities. I don't think crossbows ever took off in Japan though.

    In Korea traditional archery and crossbow are taught by seperate groups from hand-to-hand martial arts. I think in both Korean and Japanese cases, the number of people cross-training in both hand-to-hand and range projectile weapons is small.

    Looking at some books on traditional chinese weapons, we see throwing coins, ballbearings, powders, darts, knives, needles, blowpipes, slings, bow/arrow, crossbow, cannons. I guess some of these could be practiced today in a martial arts hall, but am really interested in knowing if any traditional groups still do the archery, crossbow or gun.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Posts
    2,614
    I think that they are still practiced in some locations.

    One problem I see is that many of those weapons are illegal in many locations and thus often teachers are limited as to what they can teach out of the whole curriculum.

    Thus extra steps might be needed to teach those weapons.
    Example:
    Sharpened Swords need to be licenced and their purchase, storage and care is controlled by the Law in Japan.

    The other aspect is how many people would be interested in learning those aspects.
    Does it justify the expenditure of training area, gear, etc?

    I know that some traditional training methods don't make sense until certain gear is provided.

    Example:
    Some footwork in Aikido and other arts looks weird and strange till the practicioner puts on a Hakama and than it makes perfect sense.

    Just some thoughts.

  8. #8
    Thanks for your reply Laughing Cow

    I have the feeling most arts these days focus on individual combat, excluding those long range, and some battlefield arts that still exist to this day. The cost of flintlock rifles etc is about the same as a good sword, plus all the accessories etc - makes it a pleasant pastime for people with lots of disposable income and time on their hands!

    I wonder if Lion Dance might be considered training for group warfare - the use of drums/symbols etc for signalling and troop advancement, some formations used in group lion dance could be used for troop formations etc, the way western armies drill marching?

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,947

    ttt 4 2017!

    I have no use for a fidget spinner, but I can get behind this.

    WORLD
    FIDGET SPINNERS ARE THE OLD THING, NOW IT'S ABOUT THE TOOTHPICK CROSSBOW IN CHINA
    BY ELEANOR ROSS ON 6/22/17 AT 7:08 AM
    Fidget Spinners: What's The Fuss About?

    Handheld miniature crossbows designed to shoot toothpicks are the latest trending toy in China. But this is no innocuous fidget-spinner. Parents have raised concerns that the toy crossbows can be loaded with nails, glass, and other ‘ammunition.’ The crossbows can be bought for just $1 and tests have shown that, if loaded with a needle, the crossbow can shatter glass if fired directly at it.


    Man demonstrating toothpick crossbow in China.
    STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

    Worried parents say that the crossbow is more than just a toy and could be used as a weapon. Chinese parents have taken to Weibo, China’s social media platform, asking schools to ban them. One poster said: “Hurry up [and ban them], pupils do not understand and are just shooting people for fun. It will cause accidents sooner or later.”

    Another parent said: “They’re very dangerous.”

    Shop owners told Shanghai Daily that the new toy is so popular it sells out so quickly that they need to keep re-ordering new stock, while online videos show how kids can make their own.

    Chengdu has banned the toothpick crossbows, which are used to fire at everything from signs to other students. The craze is most popular among primary and middle school pupils. Police in Chongqing's Jiulongpo district reported 15 crossbow injuries to children.

    Fidget spinners have been a craze among kids for the last few months, a toy that spins on the hand rather than on a table.

    Spinners have been touted as a way for kids to help control ADHD. The toys have also sparked blogs, videos, and forum conversations about how to do tricks, inspiring one garage in Russia to make a fidget spinner out of three cars.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,947

    翔鷹武器 👉超級致命牙籤弩👈!精簡版介紹 !

    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,947

    Now I must recant my earlier statement.

    I suppose this was inevitable. Every time there's a nice weapon, someone's got to go and abuse it. This is why we can't have nice things.'

    Osaka restaurant manager arrested for shooting dozens of toothpicks into face of employee
    Master Blaster 3 hours ago



    Victim was also said to have flaming tissues shoved up nose.

    During the day, Yakiniku GyuuGyuu was like any other Korean barbecue restaurant found all over Osaka Prefecture, serving prime cuts of meat for the customers to grill to their liking on open flames right at their tables. However, on some nights this yakiniku restaurant took a dark, B-Movie-esque turn for one of its employees.

    The unidentified victim is reported to have endured a barrage of physical attacks over the course of months during 2017. On 10 January of this year, the shop’s 42-year-old owner Masao Mukai, his 26-year-old wife and employee, and 25-year-old manager were all arrested in connection with the three counts of assault and one count of causing bodily injury.

    The first incident occurred in July of 2017 when the three suspects allegedly hit the 35-year-old victim in the face dozens of times with a piece of lumber. Another time involved pouring boiling hot water onto the man’s buttocks and thighs.

    ▼ News report showing the three suspects including Mukai (pictured with a dandelion up his nose)

    continued next post
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,947

    Continued from previous post


    Also, in October of 2017 the threesome are charged with tying the victims hands together, placing a piece of tissue on a piece of wire, lighting it on fire, and then shoving it up the victim’s nose, causing burns.

    But the most severe incident was when the three suspects allegedly used a “decorative” toy bowgun small enough to fire toothpicks into the victim’s face dozens of times. According to police, who confiscated the 10-by-12-centimeter (four-by-five-inch) gun, it was capable of firing toothpicks at speeds of up to 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour).

    ▼ These toys have been the source of controversy in China recently, with many calling for their regulation.



    Although the victim had already resigned from the restaurant following the toothpick incident, his family contacted the police who led an investigation back to Yakiniku GyuuGyuu. Upon arresting Mukai, they checked his phone and found images of the victim with toothpicks embedded in his face.

    Readers of the news were equally troubled by both the increasing number of assaults in the workplace and the dangers of such a hazardous toy floating around.

    “Unfortunately, this news is probably only going to make those things more popular.”
    “Where do they sell these?”
    “What would they have done if it hit his eye?”
    “Those things can pierce an apple or chunk of meat. Only a savage would point it at someone’s face.”
    “The guy was 35 and had to work in a place like that…”
    “This has got to be a health code violation too. That’s a restaurant, right?”

    According to police, Mukai admitted to the charges saying that he and the victim had “money trouble,” and that he had “embezzled money from the restaurant.” The amount that is claimed to have been embezzled is unclear but it must have been a lot to trigger such a vicious response, unless the victim had the unfortunate luck of stealing from a group with a latent bloodlust to begin with.

    Either way, it’s fair to say that if you’re faced with an employer who has an above-average interest in weaponry, poison seeds, or martial arts, you ought to be on your best behavior…or better yet, pursue a career elsewhere.

    Source: Kyodo News, Sankei News West, Itai News
    Top image: YouTube/Ningen-channel
    Mini toothpick crossbows might need their own indie thread soon, especially as regulation nears.

    Has anyone here actually played with one of these yet?
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,947

    Slightly OT



    Put Down the Kombucha and Pick Up a Crossbow: Hipsters Are the New Hunters
    Want organic, sustainable meat? Kill it yourself, say veteran hunters trying to appeal to the next generation of recruits to keep the sport alive
    Frank Kennedy Jr., 25, takes aim. DUSTIN CHAMBERS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
    244 COMMENTS
    By Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson
    Jan. 9, 2019 11:55 a.m. ET

    BOGART, Ga.—A group of veteran hunters set out last month in a forest northeast of Atlanta with apprentices. Among them, a former vegetarian, a Haitian-born grad student and a farmers-market manager. They wore camouflage and carried crossbows.

    They were aiming to kill white-tailed deer. But the real target: new hunters.


    Sustainable

    The number of Americans 16 and older who hunt is down 18% from two decades ago, according to federal data. An older generation of hunters is trying to lure recruits to the sport by pitching it as a good way to ensure meat is local, sustainable and probably organic.

    “Earthy crunchy aligns very well with deer hunting,” says Charles Evans, 29, who works in hunter recruitment for the Georgia Wildlife Federation.

    The December hunt, aimed at relative newbies, was organized by Field to Fork, a project started in 2016 by a 60,000-member national hunting group. The project locates its human targets at places such as a farmers market in Athens, Ga., where it provides samples of venison.


    The trainees use crossbows, which are quieter than guns and let them train and hunt on properties closer to civilization. For some first-time hunters, the equipment is more palatable than firearms—though most rifles can shoot ****her.

    Frank Kennedy Jr., 25, on the hunt from nearby Winder, Ga., says he joined the program because he wanted to “eat food where I knew where it came from” but found hunting “intimidating from the get-go.” Now he regularly goes out to the forest to hunt.

    Once a staple of American life, hunting has declined as the percentage of people living in rural areas shrinks and fewer people have the time or need for a pastime requiring patience and the willingness to kill an animal.


    Field to Fork hunters wait in a deer stand last month. PHOTO: DUSTIN CHAMBERS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

    There aren’t enough interested people to replace those over 45 who make up the bulk of active hunters, says Loren Chase, a former Arizona Game and Fish Department official who heads a statistical consulting firm specializing in natural resources.

    “It will be a slow gradual trend downward,” he says, “that will begin to steepen after 2035.”

    Doug Brames, a 52-year-old Florida marketing executive, learned to hunt from his father and grandfather in rural Indiana but had trouble teaching his two sons while raising them in suburban Michigan and Arkansas.

    Instead of expressing excitement, they always had questions whose answers they didn’t like. What time do we have to get up? “5 a.m.” Are we going to shoot anything? “It’s called hunting for a reason, son.” They would opt to sleep in and play videogames after a week packed with school and sports.

    His son Brock, now a 21-year-old University of Florida junior, says he didn’t have the patience to “wake up at four in the morning and then get up in a tree stand for three or four hours and then hope a deer goes by.”

    Over Christmas break, the son did try hunting and skinning a deer—in the new hit videogame “Red Dead Redemption 2.” “The character in the videogame picks it up by the neck and cuts a slit on its belly in one fell swoop. My dad was like ‘That’s not realistic!’ ”

    The younger generation is an elusive quarry.

    The National Rifle Association offers training programs and competitions for young hunters. The National Wildlife Federation’s Artemis initiative works to recruit, train and spotlight sportswomen who have traditionally made up a small portion of hunters.


    Edwin Pierre-Louis shows a cellphone photo of a recent kill. PHOTOS: DUSTIN CHAMBERS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

    Programs like Field to Fork aim at younger adults with disposable income who never learned how to hunt. Hank Forester, 33, says he came up with the program over beers with Mr. Evans after being inspired by the bustling Athens farmers market where University of Georgia students and others flock for local produce.

    His group handed out brochures with slogans like “HARVEST your own LOCAL MEAT” and “HUNTERS ARE THE ORIGINAL CONSERVATIONISTS.”

    “We didn’t lead with, ‘Hey, do you want to go shoot a deer?’ ” says Mr. Forester, a hunting programs manager at the Quality Deer Management Association, the group that sponsors Field to Fork. “If you’re talking about local, sustainable—I can’t certify organic—you can’t do better than white-tailed deer.”

    The program, which offers hunting and venison-cooking classes, now operates in eight states, Mr. Forester says.


    ‘It’s all I can think about,’ says former vegetarian Jennifer DeMoss, left, about hunting. PHOTO: DUSTIN CHAMBERS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

    David Kidd, 67, a retired owner of a landscape company near Athens, signed up to be a mentor because he saw friends and family, including his son, give up hunting. He says he learned that a hunter “doesn’t have to look like me.”

    The program has bagged new hunters like Jennifer DeMoss, 40, who was a vegetarian several years in her 20s. She later concluded humans were omnivores who should eat meat ethically, so she began to eat roadkill meat. The anthropology grad student discovered Field to Fork at the farmers market and figured hunting, too, was ethical.

    Her first kill, with her mentor in 2017, gave her a “familiar, comfortable, exhilarating feeling,” she says, and gratitude the animal gave its life so she could eat. Now she heads to the forest as often as she can. “It’s all I can think about.”

    She was among those at the December hunt. Wearing camouflage and orange hats and vests, the hunters spread out to stands in trees and waited for deer to forage at dusk.

    One was Edwin Pierre-Louis, 31, a Haitian immigrant and University of Georgia grad student studying parasites. He says that growing up in Haiti, he would hunt birds with slingshots but no one taught him to hunt larger game. He signed up for Field to Fork in 2017. “There are people like me who really want to learn to hunt.”


    Sarah Thurman, right, geared up to hunt. PHOTO: DUSTIN CHAMBERS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

    Another person on the hunt was Sarah Thurman, 30, market manager at the Athens Farmers Market, who says she long wanted to learn the sport but no one around her growing up outside Los Angeles knew how. She joined Field to Fork last year and says hunting helps people to “opt out of the systems of mass production” for food.

    It is also appealing because it gives her a primal sense of self-reliance, she says. “There is this animal side of you.”

    Shivering, the would-be hunters occasionally whispered to each other in the darkening forest. One group saw fawns that didn’t come close enough to shoot. Everyone else saw only squirrels.

    When night fell, everyone gathered back at trucks and drove to the deer-association offices empty-handed and ate venison tacos Mr. Forester made.


    Mr. Kennedy on the target range. PHOTO: DUSTIN CHAMBERS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

    Write to Cameron McWhirter at cameron.mcwhirter@wsj.com and Zusha Elinson at zusha.elinson@wsj.com
    Such a random article for WSJ.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,947

    5 crossbow killings in Germany

    Death count in crossbow case rises as two more bodies found in Germany
    By Jack Guy and Nadine Schmidt, CNN
    Updated 10:36 AM ET, Tue May 14, 2019
    Three found dead in hotel with crossbow wounds

    (CNN)German police investigating the deaths of three people killed by crossbow have found two more bodies in a flat occupied by one of the deceased.
    A cleaner found two women and a man dead in a hotel room in Passau, Bavaria on Saturday, with multiple crossbow bolt wounds, according to a spokesman for Bavaria's public prosecutor.
    The bizarre case then took another turn on Monday as investigators made the gruesome discovery of two more female bodies at an apartment some 400 miles away in Wittingen, Lower Saxony, northern Germany.
    A police spokesperson told the AFP press agency that the two corpses in Wittingen were not killed by crossbow and "the modus operandi cannot be compared."
    Autopsy results for the three victims in Passau have now been released, revealing that a 53-year-old man and 33-year-old woman were found lying on a bed holding hands, with a 30-year-old woman lying on the floor.


    Two more bodies were found at a flat in Wittingen, Lower Saxony.

    The man had been shot with five crossbow bolts and the woman on the bed was shot twice, both through the head and chest, according to Passau prosecutor spokesman Walter Pfeiler, while the second woman was shot once in the throat.
    The three had arrived at the hotel near the Austrian border in southern Germany on Friday and were discovered dead on Saturday. There was no sign of a struggle and formal wills were found in the room.
    In northern Germany, police searched the Wittingen property after a neighbor reported an unusual smell and an overflowing letterbox, said the spokesman.
    A coroner in Hanover is carrying out an autopsy on the victims, with preliminary results expected to be announced Tuesday afternoon local time.
    "Further details and identities of the two women are still unknown -- possible connections to the dead found in Passau are currently the subject of investigations," according to a police statement reported by AFP.
    A German serial crossbow killer?
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
    Posts
    47,947

    Slightly OT

    ouch. major fail.

    Magician shoots assistant in head in magic trick gone wrong
    By Malibongwe Dayimani - 30 June 2019


    Assistant performer Li Lau (right) was rushed to Settler’s Hospital to have an arrow lodged in his head removed after lead performer Brendon Peel (left) fired a single shot to the head.
    Image: SUPPLIED/National Arts Festival

    A magician accidentally shot his co-performer in the head with a crossbow when "magic show" went horribly wrong at the National Arts Festival (NAF) in Makhanda on Sunday.

    The freak accident happened in front of a horrified crowd.

    Assistant performer Li Lau was rushed to Settler’s Hospital to have the arrow that was lodged in his head removed after lead performer Brendon Peel fired a single shot to his head, NAF CEO Tony Lankester confirmed to DispatchLIVE on Sunday.



    Lankester said the crowd was immediately evacuated from the packed Masonic Front Hall where it had gathered to watch the duo’s 'Carnival Sideshow and Other Magical Things' performance.

    Lankester told DispatchLIVE the accident happened during an illusion being performed by Peel.

    “Mr Lau was taken to Settlers Hospital where he has received treatment. We are informed that the crossbow did not penetrate his skull, and Mr Lau is fully conscious.”

    Lau was fully conscious and talking by Sunday night after receiving three stitches to the back of the head, according to festival organisers.

    Lankester said the festival organising team has offered trauma counseling to the audience members who witnesses the incident.

    “The festival deeply regrets the incident and is in conversation with the performers to establish what went wrong with the illusion.”

    One of the people who witnessed the incident was East London journalist and editor of Independent Newspaper group’s Isolezwe L’Sixhosa, Unathi Kondile . Kondile took to Facebook to express his shock.

    He said he witnessed traumatised members of the audience crying outside the venue. “These two clowns shot one another during a magical possible that went horribly wrong in front of us. People are crying. We are waiting for an ambulance.”
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •