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Weapons - Saber (continued) |
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I had an interesting e-conversation with Master Bing of
Wudang Dao some months ago about the technical specifics |
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for the staff shown in his Wudang Eight Immortals staff video.
He said waxwood, single-tapered (as is typical of
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waxwood), smoothed so it flows through the hands AND definitely
longer than the more common eyebrow height |
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staffs found in Hung Gar, Shaolin, Chen style Tai Chi Chuan,
Hebei style Xing Yi Quan and Cheng style Bagua Zhang |
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to name a few. |
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That got me thinking: other than being able to comfortably poke
yourself in your own eye, what advantage is there in |
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an eyebrow height staff? Saving a couple of ounces and maybe picking
up a very slight increase in speed by |
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shortening the staff seems to be insignificant [to me] but I have noticed that I prefer lighter weight staffs like red
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oak versus white oak when doing extended filming. Has a reader ever heard of anyone who does or [preferably]
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filmed Wudang staff versus eyebrow height staff? Or the more extreme bo versus jo? Note that one critical challenge |
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for the jo is your hands are closer to his bo tip than his hands are to your jo tip.
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At a certain point, a saber is just a saber, and the details do not matter. It is more important you do the set 1000
times.
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That said, in a real fight small differences like being slightly faster or having a lighter weapon or another
inch longer |
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weapon can be the difference between winning and losing.
Fighting with a significantly shorter saber blade (say 2
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inches shorter) is probably going to be a lethal disadvantage. I
currently do not know of any measure (like student |
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height or arm length) to use to guide choices of individual blade
length for the nan dao and the butterfly sword. |