The Art of Chinese Swordplay
The sword is an ancient symbol of prowess amongst martial artists the world over. Thousands of years old, each incarnation of the basic design indicates the status of the bearer, be it king, scholar, soldier or even priest.
In China there is a strict differentiation between the dao and the jian swords. Dao is best translated as broadsword or sabre (the literal translation meaning 'knife') and has a curved single edged blade. The jian on the other hand features a straight, narrow, double-edged design ending in a triangular tip. There is no generic word to cover both types of weapon in the way the word 'sword' is used in English.
The jian is the older of the two types. According to tradition it was first used during the reign of the legendary Yellow Emperor, Huang Di (2690-2590 BC) when the first swords were made of jade. Later on, as the technology of metallurgy and smith craft developed, swords were made of copper, brass, bronze, iron and finally steel.
There are two types of jian. The male jian is larger and heavier. It was used on the battlefield. The female sword on the other hand was light enough to be worn everyday and so was favoured by scholars and officials at court.
Within these two jian types there were many different variations. Some swords had only the first third of the blade sharpened, some had half the blade sharpened. Some were flat in the cross section and very flexible. Others had a rhomboid cross-section to re-enforce the blade. In most designs around a third of the blade closest to the guard was thicker and left dull to be used to parry an opponent's weapon. The characteristic triangular guard of the jian was designed to trap incoming blades and wrench them from the opponent's grip with a deft twist of the wrist.
In general the jian is a very light and flexible weapon (even in its male variety) which determines the way it is used. Instead of blocking and meeting the force of an opposing weapon head on, the jian is usually used to parry and deflect and counter strike with lightning speed. This requires flexibility, speed and spring-laden power, particularly in the waist. The wrist also needs to be sufficiently relaxed to allow quick changes of direction and the shape of the sword (long and narrow) allows small movements at the wrist to be translated into big movements at the tip of the blade. The flexibility of the jian means that it is not strong enough to be used for hacking. Instead it is able to cut, slash, pare and stab the opponent, relying on razor sharp edges instead of brute force.
The delicacy of the weapon means that jian patterns are amongst the most elaborate (and difficult) of any Chinese weapons. Mastering the jian was considered a challenge which was taken up by many famous fighters and scholars. In fact, jian patterns, known as sword dances, were among the first to be recorded in ancient Chinese texts. The most famous of which was the Hongmen Banquet dance in the third century BC, when an assassin pretending to perform a sword dance came close to killing the future first Emperor of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang.
If the jian was considered the pinnacle of all short range weapons, the dao was seen as the keystone of them all. Usually the first short range weapon to be taught to students of martial arts, it teaches them the basics of using their wrist, arm, waist and legs to control the weapon.
The dao's characteristics include a curved blade with a single sharp edge and a circular or semi-circular guard. With a heavier and wider blade than the jian, the dao can stab, chop and slash, while the unsharpened back edge of the blade can also be used to block an opponent's weapon.
Using a jian is often said to require the graceful movements of the dragon, whereas the dao reflects the courage and ferocity of the tiger as the nature of the weapon is best suited to all out attack.
The dao has a history that stretches back almost as far as that of the jian and over the centuries it became one of the most popular and widely used of all the weapons in the Chinese arsenal. This has meant that the many different variations of the dao far outnumber most other weapons. Although the blade is always single edged and almost always curved (the curve increases the force of impact of any chopping or hacking movement) it varies enormously in shape. The miao dao for example is a thin, long curved blade reminiscent of the Japanese katana (the katana's design originated in China and was exported to Japan during the centuries of Chinese cultural dominance of the Tang and Song Dynasties). The guan dao on the other hand is an elaborately curved, broad and heavy blade affixed to a long stave and for that reason counted among the long range weapons, despite still being a dao.
The dao was particularly popular during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, when it was the standard weapon of issue for every soldier in the Chinese Army. This continued as late as the first part of the Twentieth Century during the wars between the Nationalists and Communists and the war against the Japanese occupation.
Today both the jian and the dao are widely practiced in the Competition (Modern) Wushu format. Traditional patterns of the dao are also common, but unfortunately traditional patterns of the jian are harder to find. Many of the internal styles continue their study of the jian, but the external varieties are slowly disappearing, which no doubt reflects the difficulty of mastering this ancient weapon.
