The Way of Least Resistance

I had the following query from a fellow named John: How often do you practice forms with a sharpened blade vs training weapon, do you see extra benefit from using the live blade? My answer was as follows: I actually practise almost entirely with a live blade - at least on forms with which I am sufficiently familiar (I tend to start with a blunt weapon first - until I feel I know it well enough to move to the next level). I wouldn't recommend it however to beginners or to anyone who isn't interested in martial application but just wants to do forms for the sake of the art form. What are the benefits? For starters, you are wielding a real weapon, with proper weighting (not some wooden "equivalent" or some flimsy wushu blade etc.). You realise a whole lot about where you need to improve when you start working with a real sword. You also realise how much conditioning you lack (not just in your wrists/forearms but also in the rest of your body - your back, yo...

I am pleased to announce the pending release of another video, this time on the Chang Dao (2-handed sabre) of China. The promotional blurb reads as follows: This video contains a distillation of techniques of the long sabre known as the "Chang Dao".  It does not attempt to present one single style, but rather a synthesis of practical fencing techniques of the two-handed sabre in China, using forms primarily intended for 2-person practise. More modern martial arts forms, particularly ones created after the Cultural Revolution, might be very acrobatic and crowd-pleasing in their performance value, but they give practical application a back seat.  In this video, researcher Dan Djurdjevic (author of the award-winning blog "The Way of Least Resistance") attempts to present the techniques relating to the chang dao in the form they were originally intended: as training for war.  So rather than serve an aesthetic function, the two forms in this video are in fact ...

Introduction In my recent article " How the internal arts work: Part 1 " I discussed the issue of " dead time " - ie. time which is not productive or efficient in relation to achieving your desired outcome. Some of the comments made in relation to that article raised the issue of whether "reversal of momentum" is a subset of " dead time ". I believe that there are many instances where reversal of momentum is far from " dead time ". This is true of both unarmed and armed fighting. In fact, as I will detail in a forthcoming article, taijiquan makes extensive use of this tactic. However my recent immersion in the study of traditional Chinese swordplay, including the long military saber most recently known as the miao dao 苗刀 (used by the Chinese military in the Second Sino-Japanese War ), has provided at least one other concrete example of why it is sometimes necessary (and useful) to reverse your momentum. Reasons for reversing ...