interesting kung fu swordsmanship video

The nat geo special shows a lot of flasy moves, as opposed to the "real" swordsmanship, but, hey, it's a TV show. Anyway, the Dao is the "general" of weapons, the Jian the "gentleman" or "scholar" of weapons, the spear "king" or weapons, and staff "founder" or "grandfather" or weapons - or so I understand, but, then again, I don't speak Mandarian or Cantonese so take what I say with a grain of salt.

That is a good documentary series. Swordsage had it playlisted on his Youtube channel so I watched it quite a while back. The mention of the legendary battle of the Yellow Emperor is the only known pre-Han era source of a mention of curved scimitar like blades in Chinese culture, and that pre-dates their mention and use anywhere else in the world. Yet, all the Chinese sources point to that blade style being brought from the West and curving swords weren't used in China until later in the Song dynasty. So it raises ones curiosity about historical blade development.

cool vids!!!

I dont agee with the fancy body moves either in the first clip. But that could be for distraction as well as other mans of defence other than just the sword. I do know that it is not part of the sword form tho... (except some of the flashy sword maneuvers.) I am talking about the flipping and kicking.

I am getting too old to do all of that, not that i could do much of that before. I am more into the simplicity of the form itself.

edit... it dosnt stop it from being one cool flick tho.