How many weapons forms

[tshadowchaser]

How many weapons forms are in the system you study and how many are you required to know for your Black sash

 

[ST1Doppelganger]

There's a ton in CLF and for a black sash or senior level most schools of CLF require the basic staff, spear, Gim, broadsword, Kwan do, butterfly knives & what ever else that individual school considers a core weapon form.

Also most CLF usually require two person sets with weapon as well

 

[Xue Sheng]

First, none of the CMA styles I have trained have any belt ranks at all, there are no belt ranks in Traditional Chinese Martial Arts so there is no black sash

My flavor of Yang Taijiquan: 2 Dao forms, 1 Jian Form, 1 long staff form
If I stayed with Chen: Spear form, Dao forms, double dao form, Guandao form, jian form
Xingyiquan: style I trained, and I have only done staff: Staff, Dao but different versions have multiple styles
Wing Chun: Butterfly knives, long staff
Bagua: (I have not done weapons in Bagua but): Dao, Dadao, needles and I am sure there are others

Different styles and have different weapons and there are variations within styles depending on lineage and/or what the teacher felt was necessary

 

[colemcm]

Don't forget spear in Xing Yi and deer horn knives in Ba Gua.

 

[qianfeng]

In baji the main weapon is liu he da qiang and some da dao.

 

[wingchun100]

Two: pole and butterfly swords


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[DaleDugas]

View attachment $2014-06-19 15.22.01.jpg

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Baguazhang has Da Dao/Bagua Dao, Da Jian, Qiang(spears of all kinds), Staffs of all kinds, needles/judges pens, Rooster Knives, Wind and Fire wheels. Pretty much whatever weapon someone liked and learned to apply within their abilities.

 

[Blindside]

As sort of a side question, this is obviously an overly wide question since I am asking it as a generality for all of CMA, but how does the training progression work for weapons? How common is free sparring? How in depth is the training for each weapon?

I am not picking on CLF, I am just using this as an example since it was cited above, but it requires forms for both gim and dao, two weapons that I imagine don't really share much in the way of commonality in usage. Does the practitioner after getting basic familiarity with one, then have the option of selecting one and doing follow up training to gain expertise in a particular weapon? Again, just curious how it works.
thanks,
Lamont

 

[ST1Doppelganger]

As sort of a side question, this is obviously an overly wide question since I am asking it as a generality for all of CMA, but how does the training progression work for weapons? How common is free sparring? How in depth is the training for each weapon?

I am not picking on CLF, I am just using this as an example since it was cited above, but it requires forms for both gim and dao, two weapons that I imagine don't really share much in the way of commonality in usage. Does the practitioner after getting basic familiarity with one, then have the option of selecting one and doing follow up training to gain expertise in a particular weapon? Again, just curious how it works.
thanks,
Lamont

No offense taken at all and I can see why someone would ask why allot if traditional kung fu have so many weapon forms in their curriculum.

Just from my observations in my personal training id say its because Kung Fu uses the weapons to focus on individual ranges, concepts or energies as a training aid.

For instance you have weapons that focus on slashing & chopping, weapons that focus on slicing, poking & piercing, weapons that are bludgeoning & weapons that focus on whipping.

You can also break it down to short weapons, long weapons, soft weapons (rope darts, chain whips etc) and weapons that are pretty much training tools (weight lifting) or character building weapons.

I believe why there's so many different types of weapons is you have to remember the Kung fu was used in China's war fare and in terms of having an army or militia it would be more beneficial to have a mixture troops trained in long, short & projectile weapons.
You also have specialty weapons that are meant for troops on horses as well as anti cavalry weapons or tactics.

Then there's also the fact that people that traveled by foot would want to protect themselves against muggers so thats why you would have the short weapons or soft weapons that could easily be concealed and transported while traveling.

As weapon training progression goes thats up to each individual teacher or lineage.

Most go with staff as first weapon then usually pick an edged weapon after that and continue to pick up different weapon forms when they become proficient at the previous ones.

Progression of free sparring depends as well from teacher to teacher and usually is forgotten about.

The school I went to taught two man sets (staff vs staff, staff vs Dao etc) as well as did weapon sparring with foam swords, staffs & sticks as well as did some competition sparring.

I feel most martial artist leave weapon training on the side burner which is unfortunate because weapon training has allot of benefits for martial arts such as.

A form of light weight training that builds grip and arm strength, ging (energy) building since a weapon should be an extension of your arm the hand and wrist joint essentially turning the weapon in to another limb.

P.S. I will say that CLF has an insane amount of weapon and hand forms and you could simply pick up a few core weapon and hand forms and take a life time to master them instead of trying to learn all of them because its impossible to do so but each form I have learned has had an important influence on my personal strategy and fighting ability.

Sorry about the rambling and if there's any typos I did this while racing the clock at work on a break.

 

[mook jong man]

There are only two weapons forms in Wing Chun.
The Lok Dim Boon (pole) form and the Bart Jarm do (butterfly knives) form.

As with the rest of the forms in Wing Chun there are no flowery techniques , probably quite unspectacular for outsiders to look at I'm afraid.
The movements are compact and minimal in nature , in keeping with certain Wing Chun principles.

[video=youtube_share;V3CP0t9fAQ8]http://youtu.be/V3CP0t9fAQ8[/video]

[video=youtube_share;Ijcjb6DKGco]http://youtu.be/Ijcjb6DKGco[/video]

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

but how does the training progression work for weapons? How common is free sparring? How in depth is the training for each weapon?

This is a good question. Let's take the Miao Diao as an example.

1. training - a student will be asked to go into the woods, uses his Miao Diao to chop down 1000 tree branches.
2. free sparing - soft foam swords and face masks are used in sparring. A cut on the limb get 1 point, a cut on the head or body get 2 point. Whoever gets 6 points wins.
3. depth of training - one has to learn

- vertical downward chop,
- horizontal chop,
- 45 degree downward chop,
- 45 degree upward chop,
- stab,
- slide,
- ...
- deflect,
- sticky,
- glide,
- ...

 

[chen yaolong]

The four core weapons are sword, sabre, spear and staff (jian, dao, qiang, gun). Sabre and spear are normally taught first, with spear and sword being more intricate.

Other weapons are generally modifications of these. In Praying Mantis, we also use a large sword, which has both double and single handed movements.