Wushu Weapon Manual by OscarReyes

Practical Manual for the Assembly and Conditioning of Wushu Weapons

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Foreword

Wushu (Pinyin: wu3 shu4; Chinese martial arts) adepts are always in search of an ideally inexpensive, source of the great diversity whushu weapons.

Low-price brackets naturally impose limitations on quality. The construction of a "ready-to-use" weapon, though easy, is work-intensive, which greatly raises the price tag, though not necessarily the quality of the weapon parts. The Chinese have solved this dilemma in an original way:

Low-priced Chinese wushu weapons are almost always delivered as packages containing just that minimal number of parts that require very specialized labor. Such a package contains a blade made from mass produced blanks, partially finished by an artisan blacksmith. The wooden parts, lathed or machine-carved by the hundreds, are summarily adjusted to the blade with partially finished mass-produced fittings, and made by casting or semi-artisan procedures.

In these parts, provisionally assembled to prefigure the finished weapon, there is no pretense of a complete product; indeed all precautions in the quality of the adhesives involved, and even in the weapon design have been taken in order to make this assembly provisory; the product is clearly intended for one or more additional steps requiring low skills, in an hypothetical production line.

Such a weapon package, as delivered, is usually worthless for training, though has the potential to be converted into an excellent practice weapon. In this regard, it appears to represents the Chinese conception of a weapon in kit form, and so it will be called hereafter.

For the Chinese wushu adept such form of weapon presentation provide, in addition to the ancient tradition in which they grew, all the instructions they need to re-assemble these parts into a good and serviceable weapon. All the extra parts eventually needed to finish the assembly of these Chinese weapon kits are assumed to be locally available –in China.

There is no Western equivalent of a Chinese wushu weapon kit. Wushu weapons made in Western countries are assembled from parts made by industrial techniques more elaborated than those used for Chinese weapons; thus these parts are better finished. Also the weapon designs are modified as to eliminate all need of conditioning to produce a serviceable exercise weapon; Western made wushu weapons are ready for practice as bought.

One disadvantage of the "ready to use" approach is a sacrifice in the diversity of weapons available, which is much reduced in the Western facture. Other sacrificed feature is the price, which is at least doubled comparatively to that of Chinese-made weapons kits including parts of equivalent or even better quality. Finally, the most important sacrifice is the disappearance of that appealing artisan aspect of the Chinese wushu weapon facture, which is absent from the Western production.

In this regard, always the blades of even quite cheap Chinese weapons are decorated with incised calligraphy and drawings; often these are even inlaid in copper and brass. The patterns for these drawings are transferred to a batch of blades, and then manually incised on each one. This is true for other decorations sometimes incised in the scabbards and handles. It result that is impossible to find two identical weapons in a batch dryly described by the supplier as by catalog designation, as if it were a standard mass produced object.

Considering the fast rate of China's industrialization, we may belong to the last generation that has access to such kind of affordable Chinese semi-artisan crafts. Exercise wushu weapons define on themselves a class objects whose interest, as decorative items, goes beyond their original utilitarian purpose. In this regard, many affordable wushu weapons of interesting facture, whose continued availability I took unfortunately for granted in the middle 1980's, now are almost impossible to find. Kits for rare exercise wushu weapons also are good investments for the weapon collectors.

However, this semi-artisan nature of the parts of Chinese wushu weapon kits often disconcerts the average Western buyer, who is accustomed to a better finishing. Also the Western wushu adept would appreciate a kit where other parts needed to complete the weapon are included, as pre-cut weights made of high-density metal to assist in the weapon balance, and materials difficult to find locally, as lengths of cord or leather strap adequate to wrap the handle, finishing products, traditional weapon decorative items, etc.

Above all, a wushu weapon in kit should provide that most essential component in a kit: a carefully written complete Instruction Manual intended to guide the buyer through the steps to complete her -or his- weapon.

A misunderstanding of the Chinese kit concept bears a large share of the responsibility in the Western misconceptions of wushu weapons. The most likely outcome of these frustrating, but charming and potentially excellent weapons in Western countries is a humiliating life as a misbalanced rattling weapon, often cobbled together with bits of twine and electrician's tape. Such weapons are seen even in hands of highly competent Western wushu adepts.

My intention here is to provide the serious Western wushu adept with a first draft of that so long needed "Practical Manual for the Assembly and Conditioning of wushu Weapons".

The most usual choices as first wushu weapons learned are double-edged straight swords and sabres; hence is for these that this first installment of the "Manual" is principally devoted. On a near future it will be extended to cover others examples of the rich fauna of wushu weapons.

I practice T'ai chi intensively since nearly 22 years; I become amateur repairman and restorer of exercise wushu weapons first by need, later by pleasure. The examples in this Manual are mostly illustrated with the rich diversity of weapons found in the ChinaTown-Shop (CTS) catalog; however the solutions proposed in the Manual are susceptible of being applied to similar generic exercise wushu weapons that can -at least in principle- be obtained elsewhere.

I'm connected to the CTS staff only as benevolent contributor. I took a personal interest in the CTS venture as being a valuable educational tool, which may at last shake off some received ideas from the Western wushu community.

CTS achieves this goal just by offering the richest and most affordable source of wushu weapons in today's WEB. A supplier worthy of continued attention. CBS staff realizes innovations may change forever the marketing of wushu weapons. For example, CTS offers a limited possibility of realizing affordable customized combinations of parts taken from diverse weapons from their catalog. I hope this interesting idea will further develop, and that will continue to be other hallmark of ChinaTown-Shop.

Other unique feature of CTS is that its staff's acknowledges the gap existing between the Chinese wushu weapon products, and the expectative of the Western wushu adepts. Thus CTS staff currently considers to further enrich their catalogue with accessories that facilitate wushu weapon conditioning, but are of difficult access in Western countries (for example, lengths of specialized woven cord or leather strap to wrap weapon handles, stone rings, to assist in ballasting sword tassels, etc.; these points will be further examined in this Manual. In this regard, feedback on these pages would be welcome, both by the ChinaTown-Shop staff and me.

My qualifications as first contributor and self-appointed editor of this Manual are:

First, a formation in Biology, Chemistry and Physics, which gives me a good understanding of the materials I use, and some experience in delicate manual work.

Second, more than 22 years of theoretical and practical study of T'ai chi.

Third, I'm an avid builder of high-end kits of historic Western keyboard instruments, which as a class present many similarities to the Chinese weapon kit concept.

Fourth, and most importantly, I'm blessed with a select group of Chinese and Sino file friends always willing to lend me their knowledge of Chinese traditional arts.

However, the historical and technical points of view raised here are exclusively my own responsibility. Please do blame for them neither the ChinaTown-Shop staff, or my friends.

From the point of view of a wushu weapon repairman doubled of a aging swashbuckler, often the experience acquired in the shop seems to contest some sources and commonplace notions about wushu weapons. This is not surprising, since most of the available information on extant historic weapons is of little relevance to wushu practice.

The description of the ideal weapon that our assembled kit emulates must be inferred from fragmentary evidence that includes actual shop experience, historical sources that often do not raise over the anecdotic level, and actual performance with arguable reconstructions of historic weapon. The approach just described has proven its value in other fields [Reference 6].

Lost in this maze, the wushu weapon repairman and performer must steer its own way. In these cases, since I must produce at a workable weapon as end result, I apply the principle that "a decision perhaps wrong is better than no decision at all".

If you don't agree with these 'techno-historic' considerations, or have better technical solutions than mine, by all means write to me, and correct my mistakes. If the situation requires so, I'll apologize in these pages, and present your solutions here under your byline.

Given to my limited time availability, I CANNOT keep these pages as one more weapon forum. However, if you have specific questions relative to your own weapon project, I'll put them in my "urgent" mail list, and I answer them as soon as I can.

Oscar Reyes

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