I had an interesting e-conversation with Master Bing of Wudang Dao some months ago

about the technical specifics for the staff shown in his Wudang Eight Immortals staff video. He said waxwood, single tapered (as is typical of waxwood), smoothed so it flows through the hands AND definitely longer than the more common eyebrow height staffs found in Hung Gar, Shaolin, Chen style Ta Chi Chuan, Hebei style Xing Yi Quan and Cheng style Bagua Zhang to name a few.

That got me thinking: other than being able to comfortably poke yourself in your own eye, what advantage is there in an eyebrow height staff? Saving a couple of ounces

and maybe picking up a very slight increase in speed by shortening the staff seems to be insignificant [to me] but I have noticed that I prefer lighter weight staffs like red

oak versus white oak when doing extended filming. Has a reader ever heard of anyone who does or [preferably] filmed Wudang staff versus eyebrow height staff? Or the more extreme bo versus jo? Note that one critical challenge for the jo is your hands are

closer to his bo tip than his hands are to your jo tip. Or lau gar pole versus eyebrow staff?

At a certain point, a staff is just a staff, and the details don’t matter. It is more important you do the set 1000 times. That said, in a real fight small differences like being slightly faster or having a lighter weapon or another inch longer weapon can be the difference between winning and losing. Fighting with a significantly shorter sword blade (say 2″ shorter) is probably going to be a lethal disadvantage.