I Need Help With A Bo Staff

[JowGaWolf]

The blade flew in one direction and damn near floated to the ground,

This is the funniest thing I've heard all year. That remind me of seeing a guy do a bow staff performance and he lost grip of the bow and it flew off into the group of students who were sitting and watching (about 5 feet away). When the staff hits the students they just giggled. I was truly amazed as there's nothing I train with that will make a person giggle if they get hit with it. ha ha ha. I would hate to be that guy whose staff broke. Do you remember if he had a macho look before he started his form? Was he embarrassed? Maybe he became a kung fu legend in his school and they talk about how his awesome strength broke the dao and how his Chi made the blade float. lol

 

[JowGaWolf]

When I was competing with my forms, I was using a dao that was thick like a meat cleaver, and a really heavy staff. When the judges would examine my weapons, they always commented on their heft. Once, when I named which dao form I would do, one judge commented that he knew that form (he had been a student of my Sigung [now my Sifu] many years before, although I didn’t know that at the time) and he raised his eyebrows that I was using that dao to do that form. I definitely got noticed by the judges, and got respect for my weapons. After several years of this, another judge (they were regulars every year) commented “you’ve sure got nice weapons”. They would see me there every year.

Some of the students from my old school who competed were noticed and appreciated for using a weapon and not a stage prop, which makes me wonder why some just insist on the stage prop weapons. I'm ok if children under a certain age has to use it or if the real version is not allowed by law. But to have a guy come out all tough yelling and twirling a staff that weighs less than a pack of notebook paper, puts things too much in the "world of pretend" for me".

 

[Flying Crane]

This is the funniest thing I've heard all year. That remind me of seeing a guy do a bow staff performance and he lost grip of the bow and it flew off into the group of students who were sitting and watching (about 5 feet away). When the staff hits the students they just giggled. I was truly amazed as there's nothing I train with that will make a person giggle if they get hit with it. ha ha ha. I would hate to be that guy whose staff broke. Do you remember if he had a macho look before he started his form? Was he embarrassed? Maybe he became a kung fu legend in his school and they talk about how his awesome strength broke the dao and how his Chi made the blade float. lol

To his credit he looked pretty sheepish but I think it was just the shock of realizing he broke his dao and had nothing to do his demo with. Another fellow rushed up to him and offered his dao to the fellow so the demo could happen.

This was back in the mid 1990s, I didn’t know much about kung fu at that time, I was still a capoeirista and we had been doing a demonstration at a public park down the street and then happened to wander into the end of the tournament that was happening at UC Berkeley. We sat and watched and had a chuckle at what happened. But even without knowing much about it, I had a feeling in my gut that I just witnessed something that definitely should not have happened and it spoke volumes to the lack of quality in the weapon.

A friend had his video camera and filmed much of the demo. I don’t know if he still has that, it would have been on vhs which maybe he converted to digital. I suspect it is just gone but I’ll ask him someday.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Some of the students from my old school who competed were noticed and appreciated for using a weapon and not a stage prop, which makes me wonder why some just insist on the stage prop weapons. I'm ok if children under a certain age has to use it or if the real version is not allowed by law. But to have a guy come out all tough yelling and twirling a staff that weighs less than a pack of notebook paper, puts things too much in the "world of pretend" for me".

I heard a story of a Ryu_kyu Kempo guy who was asked to judge forms. A guy came out and did a really exciting form with lightweight speed 'chucks. After he finished, the instructor pulled his real nunchuku out of his bag and said, "Here, now do it with these."

He wasn't asked to judge the next year.

 

[isshinryuronin]

I heard a story of a Ryu_kyu Kempo guy who was asked to judge forms. A guy came out and did a really exciting form with lightweight speed 'chucks. After he finished, the instructor pulled his real nunchuku out of his bag and said, "Here, now do it with these."

He wasn't asked to judge the next year.

Sounds like something I'd do.

 

[Flying Crane]

Sounds like something I'd do.

I knew you seemed familiar!! I shoulda won that tournament!!