Ancient Chinese Weapons

Why do we train weapons in this modern age. After all we cannot put one of the spears in our coat when we walk down the street. It is stupid to keep a staff in your car when driving around, at least to use as a weapon against someone, even if it is to defend oneself. The only reason we practise ancient Chinese weapons is to keep ancient wisdom alive and well for the next generation of students to pass on to their students and so on. We practise all kinds of weapons, throwing, long, short, double, single edged, double edged, some that chop, some that slice, the list goes on. In China's ancient past, they were amazing artists that worked on creating new weapons for war. You have to remember before the gun, they had to create very workable weapons that would be useful in battle. All cultures around the world had their own method of defense before the gun came to be.

    But in China I find it absolutely amazing, the various ingenious types of weapons that were created. One such weapon could be thrown towards the enemy, and take off only his head. The head would be inside of the Frisbee type weapon, so that the person using the weapon could show who ever hired him that he really killed that individual. If someone was wanted for reward dead or alive. This again was useful to proof that you really did kill this individual. Throughout China's long history, they created some of the most unique weapons ever seen to date. Some that come to mind, are throwing needles, threw pains of glass. Or throwing coins, threw objects. These types of weapons took years of practise. Catching a fly with a pair of chop sticks, the control one would have with it. Again one could throw chop sticks threw boards, and if you could make it stick into a board, it is most definitely going to stick into the human body. We are always taught to throw into targets that can never be covered up, like the eyes, the neck, under the ear, these are very important targets, and it gives you an idea of just how much skill you had to have. Another thing is, talking about this day and age, we never ever train weapons to use them against others. We train weapons in this day and age, to take them away from our attacker.

    Put it this way, if someone is going to attack you with a weapon, they truly have no skill with that weapon, nor have they been studying in any type of martial art. You see a true martial artist, is not going to use any type of martial art weapon on someone else. Some one that is trained in Chinese Weapons, trains them to pass them on to the next generation of students, this is most important. Next, they train weapons in order to learn how to use each type of weapon, each motion they can make, the range of motion. They can make a figure eight motion or if they slash or smash or and the list keeps on going. The point is, once you have experience in most weapons, you can defend against them with bare hands, I have heard some instructors, and yes I mean teachers that have some fame in the martial arts world, actually tell people that they could not defend against weapons with their bare hands, all I can say to this, they must be piss poor. And I have to say also that I know exactly the type of person who is saying this. Usually someone who is not trained in these areas, usually someone that comes from a sport karate type art, why I say that type is it is usually the only type that has thrown away the wisdom of the ancients, for the commercialism of the future, which is sports. Something that I do not agree with. Martial sports has ruined the reputation of the martial arts, it has been made into a fast food, to make money, nothing more, nothing less. So once more, what is one of the reasons we train ancient weapons, in order to learn every possible motion that can be used against us in an attack. Like for instance, if you take a whip, it can be used to this day to attack you, but what if you have no training in a whip, then you would be frightened, and rightfully so, all people are frightened of the unknown. that is why we want to make it known, to practise all or most of the ancient weapons to give us an idea of what could be used against us. If someone attacks us with a baseball bat, we can use our knowledge in defending against a large sword, or short stick, as you can see we can take the wisdom of the ancients and use this knowledge for today, against the type of weapons that people would use against us in this day and age. One of the most dangerous weapons is the knife, that is why I made sure to take course after course with the knife, not only short knife, but long knife, throwing knife, doubled edged knife, single edged knife, each type of knife can be used slightly different, so you have to be educated in these weapons, and if you are, you will be able to take yourself and family out of any dangerous situation, any time in your life.

Sword against spear

Weapons can be used for many types of training

Above GM Chow used to push a staff against Sifu Fiedler's neck, harder and harder as the weeks went by, until the day came that Sifu Fiedler could have a spear pushed against his neck without injury. There is a trick to this however, also skill, but there is a trick to it. The skin on your body is very stretchy, the slower someone pushed something against your skin, the more it will stretch, even if that thing is sharp, it will not go through the skin if it is pushed very slowly. However if you take something that is not even sharp, and push it against the skin, it will pierce the skin easily, but again you must use a very sharp sudden push, it cannot be slow. Fast and hard.

Ying Yee Short Sword

Sifu Fiedler above training the Ying Yee sword, in private training grounds from the late 1980s

Double End Short Staff

Ying Yee Single Edged Double Handed Short Sword

Spear Form

Grand Master Chow, long staff

Ying Yee short sword, Sifu Charles Croy

Sifu James Croy with long staff

Sifu Gallant training Spear and short Ying Yee sword

Sifu Gallant with Three section staff

Sifu Dee, Three Section Staff

Sifu Dee doing form with Three section staff, Sifu Dee started this form when he achieved his second degree black belt ranking from his teacher Master James Croy. As soon as he achieved this level he was started on the three section staff form, now at third degree black belt, Sifu Dee is an expert with this weapon.

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Last modified: 10/30/07