The Pandemic changed everything. For me personally, it changed what I do for a living and how I practice Kung Fu. It has also changed my perspective on so many things.

I’ve long been an advocate of using swords that are as true to historic swords as possible. I personally disdain lightweight weapons modern competition swords (Note that the opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of MartialArtSmart). It’s not that I oppose modern competition. After MCing the Tiger Claw Elite Championships for so many years, that would be hypocritical. It’s just my personal choice for my own practice and far be it from me to criticize anyone else’s practice. I openly confess that my practice is riddled with plenty of other flaws, so this is not about me claiming any sort of superiority. I just feel that study of sword in the 21^st century is already abstract, so I like my swords to be true to the historical examples. To faithfully represent traditional Kung Fu, the weapons must be traditional. I even go so far as to advocate working with sharp swords, under the proper supervision. But that’s a whole other discussion.

When my school had to close due to the shutdown, my practice suffered horribly. I established a daily workout routine, as I imagine most practitioners did, but I live in a small century-old bungalow. There isn’t much room. It was adequate for some of my empty hand practice. But when it comes to my Kung Fu, I enjoy weapons most of all and I just don’t have the space for that in my present home. Unfortunately, our yard doesn’t work either.

To keep my sword arm warm, I focused upon two of my jian forms: Bak Sil Lum sword and Tai Yu Sword. I went with these because traditional jian forms are slower and more graceful, so it seemed less likely that I’d scratch furniture or poke a hole in our low ceiling. I also opted to use a wooden jian (木劍) because swinging a live blade around inside our snug bungalow seemed imprudent. My wife would be annoyed if she caught me doing that next to her piano.

I have more swords than I can count but I only have one wooden jian. It was the first sword I ever bought. And it was… phallic.

My First Sword is Bollocks

When I was a young teen growing up in the Silicon Valley, I used to scour flea markets, Chinese curio stores, and antique shops for swords and such. It was an obsession. It still is. In this way, I found my first sword by chance. I happened to wander into a Chinese furniture just to look at Chinese design motifs. There in the back, I found a bin with a few wooden jian in it. I had not learned jian at that time, but they weren’t expensive, so I had to buy one. I’m glad I did. It was the first Chinese sword that I ever bought, and it turned out to be a nice one.

Even though it was well over forty years ago, I remember the experience remarkably well. I suppose you always remember your first. I was so thrilled – a kid with his brand-new sword. I remember feeling strangely powerful walking the streets with it. I took the bus home, and while waiting at the stop, I was shocked by my own shadow. I was holding my new sword by my side, so the hilt shadow was at the level of my crotch. My new sword had a hilt shaped like a penis. It was a WTH? moment long before that acronym came into the popular vernacular.

Like I said, this was when I was young, so it was long before I studied Freud and knew anything about phallic symbols. It was also before I learned about Bollock daggers. If you don’t know, a Bollock dagger is a European Tudor period knife with a guard shaped like two balls, balls just like as the English say ‘bollocks.’ During the Victorian period, they tried to rename it a Kidney dagger because they were prudish then, but the Bollock name survived because it’s just a cool name for a dagger. My jian would be a Bollock jian if there was such a thing.

As wooden swords go, it’s exceptional. Most wooden swords are made of oak nowadays. I’ve seen some made from bamboo. This one is carved from fragrant rosewood. It also has a brass fitted eyelet for the tassel cord, and an odd tassel made of matching wood and some red threads. It’s not intricately carved – it’s rather plain apart from the penis hilt – and it’s short which is good for my tiny living room. Nevertheless, I feel it has good qi. I’ve never seen another quite like it.

The wood has a beautiful rich dark grain. I find most Chinese style martial artists overlook the quality of the wood of their wooden weapons. Granted rattan and white waxwood don’t have much character as woods go. In contrast, many of the Chinese premium swords I’ve seen recently have magnificent wood scabbards and handles, but so few seem to notice that. I’m often disappointed to discover how little Kung Fu people know about quality swords and their associated fittings.

Getting Woody

When I worked as a sword maker for The Armoury (a division of American Fencers Supply, I got into wood. For years, one of my main jobs there was to rasp wooden handles by hand. I must have made thousands of those. For our standard handles, we used bird’s eye maple, which has a grain that can be almost iridescent if you get the right cut. We also would do exotic hardwoods by request. Ever since that, I’ve always looked at wood grains.

Rosewood is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and affirmingly enough, science has validated that four of the compounds within Chinese rosewood have antioxidant properties. Maybe that’s why I feel that my sword has such good qi. Or maybe it’s because it’s such a rare example. Or maybe it’s that penis hilt. I’m tempted to say something about how it feels good in my hand, but I’m making a serious effort to restrain myself here.

Sadly, rosewood is now an endangered wood due to over harvesting. It was predominantly used as a furniture wood because it is so lustrous. Ming dynasty rosewood furniture is highly treasured. Over the last few decades, rosewood has become a coveted resource. Consequently, it has been exploited to the point of extinction. Forty plus years ago, this wasn’t an issue. I would never purchase a rosewood sword now. It’s yet another species that might disappear in my lifetime and I don’t want to abet that in any way.

Strangely, my love of good wood never carried over Chinese swords. Here is where the pandemic has made me see it with a new perspective.

Turning Japanese

I’m not exactly sure why I looked down upon wooden jian for so long. I figured they were an invention of convenience – cheap to make, easy to transport and innocuous in public. In China, everyone practices in public parks. There are often vendor carts nearby offering cheap wooden (and plastic) swords. Just like a collapsible jian, these types of swords are commonplace in China’s metropolitan cities, a casual accessory in a society where sword practice is ubiquitous.

I have tremendous respect for Japanese wooden swords. Being a sword nerd, I keep a Pillow sword. A Pillow sword is a small sword kept by bedside for self-defense. It’s another European term, but I keep an ironwood bokken given to me by Tiger Claw. It was a sample of a product line that wasn’t approved and the moment I laid my hand on it, I wanted it. It’s a gorgeous piece, slim, well-balanced, and hard, with a dark deep grain. I love the way it cuts. Unfortunately, that vendor was asking too much for it and could not provide enough to meet potential demand. One of the perks of my job was that I could keep the sample.

I practiced Kendo while in college and it gave me a great love of bokken. Despite having much more time on task with jian and dao, I would still reach for my bokken if it were a genuine matter of home defense. Perhaps it’s because I did so much free sparring in Kendo. We sparred every session. I can’t remember the last time I sparred with jian or dao.

The Kensei

My bokken reverence also comes from my respect for the Kensei – Japan’s ‘sword saint’ – Miyamoto Musashi (1585-1645 CE), who was an avid bokken user. Any swordsman or swordswoman worth their steel knows Musashi. When I got my Provost master’s degree in Fencing, I wrote my thesis on Musashi’s venerated martial treatise Book of Five Rings.

During the summer of 2009, the San Francisco Asian Art Museum housed the special travelling exhibit “Lords of the Samurai” and there I had the honor of seeing Musashi’s bokken firsthand. The collection was comprised of treasures of the Hosokawa clan who retained Musashi. Included as Tereo’s original handwritten copy of Book of Five Rings. Musashi’s original copy is lost, and this is the only one that survived from the period. It also included two of Musashi’s paintings: ‘Horse’ and ‘Wild Swans.’ One of the treasures of my martial library is my edition of Samurai Painters by Stephen Addiss and G. Cameron III Hurst, a magnificent coffee-table art book which contains some of Musashi’s paintings, so I had seen these before, but not in person. His attention to detail was marvelous.

But the pièces de resistance were his bokken. I was awestruck to stand before it. It was the same feeling I had when I stood before Dali’s “The Hallucinogenic Toreador” or Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.” The experience of standing before an original work of renowned art, especially objects that I previously studied, is always ecstatic for me.

Musashi was a carpenter and carpentry figures heavily as a metaphor within Book of Five Rings. He carved his bokken set by hand, a long and a short sword, which was an expression of his nito-ryu style of fencing which deployed two swords. Musashi won several duels using wooden swords against steel blades. His most famous duel was against Sasaki Kojiro (1575-1612) and according to legend, Musashi carved his bokken out of a boat oar just prior to meeting Kojiro on an island that served as their dueling ground. Given this, far be it for me to claim wooden swords aren’t real weapons.

The Sword as a Shamanic Symbol

Wooden jian have an added dimension as a shamanic tool, particularly within the Daoist schools. Akin to magic wands, Daoist shamans use wooden jian to cast spells and conduct exorcisms. Additionally, there’s an element of qi which plays into this. Wood is one of the five elements – the only living one – so naturally it makes for a better vessel for magic. Metal is also one of the five elements, but metal swords are comprised of amalgamation of different materials like wood or horn for the handle, and silk, shark skin, hemp, or other materials for the handle wrap, plus more. A wooden jian is pure – just wood. This figures into Feng Shui as well. Wooden swords are hung to stimulate qi flow in a space.

I don’t bring this up because I’m a proponent of shamanic magic or Feng Shui. Nevertheless, the implications are relevant to intention in sword forms. Intention is a critical component and when it comes to weapons, this is where most practitioners fail. If you’ve never wielded a sharp blade, you do not fully understand its lethality. It’s like learning pistol marksmanship using blanks. The stroke of sword is different when cutting something versus just swinging it because that’s what the form requires. This is where the intention is critical. It is a vast difference between practicing cutting and swinging your sword in a flashy way. Once you understand this, you can easily tell the difference between a practitioner who knows how to cut as opposed to someone who doesn’t just by watching how they move their sword in a form.

Jian is one of the most sophisticated weapons of Kung Fu. It is called ‘the Gentleman of weapons.’ The movements are subtle and esoteric, often impenetrable by the casual practitioner. If you do not understand how a real sword works, there is no way that you can have proper intention. Just like Daoist shamans project their qi through their magic wooden sword wands, a Kung Fu practitioner must use their intention to practice proper cutting with any sword that isn’t sharp. It’s not like projecting shamanic magic spells, but the intensity must be parallel. I imagine a Daoist using a sword to exorcize demons embodies the same emotional ferocity that I would have if I were splitting someone’s skull with a blade. In an obtuse way, this makes the exercise of using a wooden jian deeper and more challenging. Not only is it dull, it isn’t even metal. Going deeper and more challenging is what the heart of Kung Fu is all about.

Lately, there has been a trend towards polypropylene swords. These are terrific for sparring drills. They’re tough and low maintenance. I’m particularly fond of polypropylene bokken. However, I’ve yet to find a polypropylene jian that I like. What I’ve seen so far has been too ornate and I’d rather something simple, like the polypropylene bokken or my Bollock jian for that matter. However, I wouldn’t use a polypropylene sword for forms practice. That just wouldn’t feel right. In Kendo, we did kata with bokken. In Kung Fu jian forms, I prefer wood over polypropylene. Not to be too Feng Shui-ish, but the qi of wood feels stronger. Perhaps that just the aesthetic of it, but I’m not sure polypropylene even has any qi. Nevertheless, polypropylene is tough and can take a beating, whereas wood can chip and crack. It's better for sword on sword practice. I wouldn't risk my precious Bollock jian for that.

Polishing Swordsmanship

I keep saying to myself that I’ll refinish my rosewood jian. It could use a sanding after being nicked from being stored next to a lot of steel swords. A fresh coat of good wood oil might bring out that exquisite rosewood grain glow even more. Like so many exotic woods, rosewood dust is an irritant, and I don’t have a shop anymore. I would have to prepare. That’s been my excuse. At least I already have face masks for that sanding process.

Maybe after the pandemic subsides, I’ll get around to it. But then again, I probably stop using it when this is all over. Whatever lies ahead, the pandemic taught me an unexpected lesson about wooden swords, one that I’ll integrate in my Kung Fu from now on.

There are Kung Fu lessons to be found everywhere if you just know where to look.