|
Weapons - Jo (continued) |
|
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 Tai 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 a combat of
|
|
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. At a certain point, a staff is just a staff,
and the |
|
details do not 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 inches shorter) is probably going to be a
lethal |
|
disadvantage.
|