Leading senior citizens to the "Dark Side" - Right or wrong?

[Wing Woo Gar]

I don’t actually make the blades, only hilts and scabbards. I’ve done jian, long swords, and dao. It started with my frustration at the consistently poor quality of swords coming in from China, for the TCMA community. Hilts and scabbards poorly fitted and made from junk. I finally decided to just rebuild myself, if I can acquire blades of acceptable quality. I’ve done a bunch over the years, grips and scabbards are made from hardwood (curly maple is my favorite) and for a long time all the metalwork (guard, pommel, scabbard fittings) was cast bronze. Lately I’ve been shifting the guards and pommels to steel, cutting and shaping them from bar stock and rod stock. Some samples below.

Beautiful! Live edge or for practice? Again I don’t know much about swordplay but I am interested.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

He is. We are still very much in contact and I consider him a good friend. He has always been very supportive of my own teaching, as well as my sword making and other weaponry.

After training with him for over a decade, he took me to meet his Tibetan crane Sifu, Quentin Fong, and Sifu Quentin accepted me as his student. So I guess Bryant is my Sihing now.

Is Quentin his uncle?

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

T

Is Quentin his uncle?

there is some connection to Wong Jack Man there I think.

 

[Flying Crane]

Beautiful! Live edge or for practice? Again I don’t know much about swordplay but I am interested.

Some of both. I have a couple that are quite sharp, but even those that are not sharp, I generally put an edge on them so they can be sharpened.

 

[Flying Crane]

Is Quentin his uncle?

Not in the Western blood relation concept, but in the wider, Chinese notion. Bryant was born in the US, but his parents are immigrants. Quentin immigrated from the same area. That apparently is close enough, and Bryant says that Quentin always treated him like family.

Bryant always referred to him as his uncle. It took me a while before I understood the relationship.

 

[Flying Crane]

T

there is some connection to Wong Jack Man there I think.

Bryant trained for about a decade under Sifu Wong, Jack Man as well. He says Sifu Wong was an exceptional martial artist.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Bryant trained for about a decade under Sifu Wong, Jack Man as well. He says Sifu Wong was an exceptional martial artist.

That’s what I heard too.

 

[Flying Crane]

That’s what I heard too.

I believe Sifu Wong is deceased now. But some years back one of Bryant’s other students branched out to study with him for a while. He then Moved out of the area and I only had limited opportunity to talk with him about the experience.

 

[bill miller]

We have an excellent facility in Memphis that caters to all types of metal work, including blades. The blacksmith shop is first class, and the workers are very good at what they do.I'm not sure if any of these folks have done an Asian style blade, but I'd be willing to bet that they would be very good at it.

 

[Flying Crane]

We have an excellent facility in Memphis that caters to all types of metal work, including blades. The blacksmith shop is first class, and the workers are very good at what they do.I'm not sure if any of these folks have done an Asian style blade, but I'd be willing to bet that they would be very good at it.

In my opinion, there is not a lot of difference in the blade shape of a Chinese jian and a European single-hand straight sword (arming sword?). Jian tend to be on the narrow side of things, but I’ve seen (and have) European blades with similar profiles. The oxtail dao is kinda unique to China, and Ive heard it is a later development that came after most of this stuff was no longer being used on the battlefield. Perhaps they are a bit removed from battle reality and represent a fantasy ideal of a dao. I find the oxtail dao to be somewhat awkward because of the mass toward the end of the blade. The narrower willow leaf dao is more lively and might be comparable on some level to a European saber. I think it is a more realistic design as a battlefield weapon.

The hilt is where you often find differences. The Chinese jian tends to have a more compact, blocky guard, less of a cross shape like you often find in a European sword. When I was doing the guards in cast bronze, I was trying to create something of a blockier guard in that respect, although I was not concerning myself with being true to any specific historical designs. I just wanted it to be durable and functional. As I have started using steel, I am leaning into a more European cross style, and am finding that I kind of prefer that. Either way, I think they are fine for practice of Chinese methods.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

In my opinion, there is not a lot of difference in the blade shape of a Chinese jian and a European single-hand straight sword (arming sword?). Jian tend to be on the narrow side of things, but I’ve seen (and have) European blades with similar profiles.

Functionally, I think a jian is pretty much a rapier, but without the complex hilt.

 

[Flying Crane]

Functionally, I think a jian is pretty much a rapier, but without the complex hilt.

I wouldn’t classify it that way. There can be a fair bit of variety in the width of the blade, with a sharp edge. Rapier is mostly thrusting, quite narrow and without an edge, yes? Jian technique includes a lot of sweeping cuts, depending on the system.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I wouldn’t classify it that way. There can be a fair bit of variety in the width of the blade, with a sharp edge. Rapier is mostly thrusting, quite narrow and without an edge, yes? Jian technique includes a lot of sweeping cuts, depending on the system.

Rapiers have an edge and can cut. How well they cut varies quite a bit, depending on the vintage. Earlier rapiers were more balanced between cutting and thrusting. Later rapiers became more and more specialized for thrusting. (This is a generalization, but it holds up pretty well.)

The system I train (Meyer) includes a fair balance of cut and thrust for the rapier (or “rappier” as Meyer spells it), but systems from a century later are primarily focused on thrusts and the swords of the time evolved to meet that focus,

 

[Tony Dismukes]

 

[Flying Crane]

Rapiers have an edge and can cut. How well they cut varies quite a bit, depending on the vintage. Earlier rapiers were more balanced between cutting and thrusting. Later rapiers became more and more specialized for thrusting. (This is a generalization, but it holds up pretty well.)

The system I train (Meyer) includes a fair balance of cut and thrust for the rapier (or “rappier” as Meyer spells it), but systems from a century later are primarily focused on thrusts and the swords of the time evolved to meet that focus,

Interesting stuff. I guess I don’t have the familiarity with the European methods to really comment in a coherent manner.

 

[Flying Crane]

Nice video. I would say that for the most part the jian i have held have had wider blades than that. Actually, as I think on it, I have a couple Chinese imports that have quite heavy and wide blades, I think little different from a European long sword. That photo i posted a few clicks back of the longsword hilt, is the one. This was made in the 1970s and I believe the blades were being heavily overbuilt at that time. I think the makers didn’t understand the historical blade geometry as well as they do now, but even today you still see some bridge supports disguised as swords coming in from China. It’s funny, they seem to either be over heavy or super- light modern wushu stage props. At any rate, that heavy sword was built as a single-hand jian. I was able to recapture more tang for the grip and it’s got a seven inch handle now. Weird, how they constructed some of these things.

So I guess sometimes I see jian that are on the narrower side, and other times I see wider blades that would compare with an arming sword or a long sword.

 

[bill miller]

Nice video. I would say that for the most part the jian i have held have had wider blades than that. Actually, as I think on it, I have a couple Chinese imports that have quite heavy and wide blades, I think little different from a European long sword. That photo i posted a few clicks back of the longsword hilt, is the one. This was made in the 1970s and I believe the blades were being heavily overbuilt at that time. I think the makers didn’t understand the historical blade geometry as well as they do now, but even today you still see some bridge supports disguised as swords coming in from China. It’s funny, they seem to either be over heavy or super- light modern wushu stage props. At any rate, that heavy sword was built as a single-hand jian. I was able to recapture more tang for the grip and it’s got a seven inch handle now. Weird, how they constructed some of these things.

So I guess sometimes I see jian that are on the narrower side, and other times I see wider blades that would compare with an arming sword or a long sword.

What would the epee be used for?

 

[Flying Crane]

What would the epee be used for?

That is modern sport fencing, heavily removed from old combat swordplay. It is thrust only, to my understanding. I only did a bit of foil fencing, a long time ago. Epee is kinda the big brother of foil, with some differences in the rule set. Olympic stuff.

 

[Xue Sheng]

thing to know about the jian as compared to a rapier. The rapier is a specific sword. the Jian is a family of swords. The Chinese put things into categories that the europeans did not. We tend to see only one Chinese sword, called a jian...

but there are several different versions that fall under that name
these are also fall under the category of Jian

 

[Tony Dismukes]

The rapier is a specific sword. the Jian is a family of swords.

The rapier is a family of swords as well, although the variety of the rapier family doesn't exactly map to the variety of the jian family.

This is the sort of jian I was thinking of when I compared it to a rapier:

Jian like the ones in the 3rd and 4th images in your post would be closer to what we might call an arming sword in HEMA circles.