Concerning Sai in China...

[Evad]

Ok guys check this one out.....goto the link below

www.saolim.tk

Click on the south shaolin temple on the left.

It's an article on the recent discovery of the southern shaolin temple and it's rebuild. good read. (Fellow SDer's it mentions GM Sin's stele he placed as tribute.)

Scroll down the pics until you get to the one with some old weapons excavated from the original site....

Lo and behold there sits a SAI!

I read an article in kungfumagazine a while back that talked about the use of 'whips' by law enforcement in old china. They were called whips because that's what you did with em, whipped the crap out of someone. Anyway, the pics they had in the article was basically a sai, they were different shapes and sizes but they were all identical to a regular ol sai.

[shaolinarab]

yes, that is pretty cool. it's under the putien temple section...what's interesting is that these are EXCAVATED sais.

so what do u think of that masterkiller ?

[joedoe]

And your point is?

Ngor Chor Kun has the sai as one of its weapons. I happen to know the form - it is one of my favourites.

BTW some of those pictures have been stolen from a Ngor Chor website. I might email the guy about it.

[Laughing Cow]

I only saw 1 possible sai there, the rest looked more like spear and tiger-fork heads.

From what I know the chinese had Sai but the somehow were different from the okinawan variety.

[joedoe]

Originally posted by shaolinarab
yes, that is pretty cool. it's under the putien temple section...what's interesting is that these are EXCAVATED sais, and there are short and long varieties.

so what do u think of that masterkiller ?

Long variety? What I saw was one sai and a few tiger fork heads.

[Evad]

Well I have no point joedoe other than I've seen some debate recently concerning the sai as a chinese weapon, sparked my interest a little.

I agree that I see one representation and the rest spear and tiger fork heads.

Just really wanted to get some conversation going about this weapon. I enjoy the sai form that we have also, but we really don't have much more than that out right now.

[Serpent]

I can't find the pics. Can someone nick them and attach them to this thread?

[joedoe]

OK fair enough. I guess a lot of people believed the story about how the sai was an Okinawan weapon, and the sai as we generally know it probably was. I have been told the Chinese version is slightly different, but in what way I am not sure and for the purposes of practicing the form and learning the application the Okinawan/Japanese version will suffice.

[themeecer]

Originally posted by joedoe
And your point is?

The point is we have a bunch of blowhards on here saying that Shaolin Do isn't chinese in origin because we use sais. Well behold, there are some chinese sai.

[joedoe]

Originally posted by Serpent
I can't find the pics. Can someone nick them and attach them to this thread?

Go to 'South Shaolin Temple' on the left side, and select the 'Putian Temple' link across the top. Then wait half an hour for the images to load.

[Laughing Cow]

Originally posted by Serpent
I can't find the pics. Can someone nick them and attach them to this thread?

Here, especially for you.

[Laughing Cow]

Funny me and Joedoe said the same things in different posts.

[themeecer]

Here is the pic serpent:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/info-kungfu-s...in_museum2.jpg

Also one here from Quanzhou Southern Shaolin Temple.

http://www.shaolincenter.com/china02...close%20up.jpg

[Evad]

The only reference to a chinese 'sai' I've ever seen was in the article that I have in the zine that sponsors this forum. The pics they had in the article showed what amounted to a sai except that the middle was a little longer, and some had knobs at intervals going up the length of it, sorta like a rope with knots tied in it. Some had smaller side prongs as well, and then again some had larger side prongs that were ornate and more curvy. If I can dig up that issue I'll scan the pics and see if I can get them posted for reference. That article was neat, it had pics of lots of different representations of what they were calling a whip. The article was on whips actually, everything from the chain whip to the 'whip' used by law enforcement.

Maybe Gene would know some good sources for research?

[Goldenmane]

Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming asserts, in "Ancient Chinese Weapons - A Martial Artist's Guide" that the sai originated as a hair pin, and was a favoured weapon of martial artists in Canton and Fujian Provinces, and Taiwan.