Hey Tim,
My Sifu started me last week on the basic Xing Yi big spear exercises. I was thrilled since I had read your Nei gong book and had always wanted to learn the basic power development drills.
Anyway, we are currently practicing with a pole vault (its long and flexible). At home I've been using a 12ft long electrician grade pvc pipe (1 1/2 inch diameter) from home depot. The electrician grade is grey, and both heavier and stiffer than the plumbing variety pvc. It was also less than 4 bucks while the pole vault is several hundred!
Question: Do you know of a source for an actual tapered wood big spear shaft? And what do you guys use?

In baji, we hand-plane them. I don't make them but a friend of mine does---he has a woodworker glue the wood together so it is square initially. Then they hand-plane it.

Takes a lot of time. What he sold them for (what he was able to get for them) relative to the hours of handwork he put in, came out to less than $5.00 and hour.

Good luck in your search.

Bob, what kind of head is used on them? How much would your friend want for one of them?

Kenneth:

There is no head on them, they are planed to a tip. We've tried machine drive planes and at 12 foot, there is no cheap way to ship them---my guess is that Jim, the guy who makes them, would not do it under $300.00 plus shipping. Jim is now working in factory and works 7 days a week, 5:00 am until about 2:00 or so. I don't think he woudl take on a project.

We tried a couple of summers to make about 5 or 10 to sell at $150.00 but they took too long, too tiring, and the machine planed ones didn't weigh out right.

We had a Wutan student in California ask for one and really, by the time everything was costed out, it really wasn't worth it.

I can't remember the wood used, but we tried one with oak and it was far too heavy--that's dangerous. You can simply use it to turn the spear over and back in place.

I am sorry that---James Guo of Toronto also might be another source you might want to check out.

I bought ten heavy waxwood ones from someone from Chen Zhenglei's line out here for about $70 each but don't remember the source.

I don't know if this holds for taiji or xing yi but in baji the lance must be tapered to a tip--that is the hardest part.

The movement of the tip and tapering are often a marker for power development and alignment.

Carlos,
I don't know of anyplace that sells long spears. I also have staffs and "spears" made with pvc. They are fine as long as you don't hit anything with them.

Buddy,

Were those from the same batch as the 20 foot long waxwood poles that Kumar and Bernie have?

Jog your memory dude, I miss training with those things...

Mike,
No these were from some guy here in Mass a couple of years ago, about 12 feet long. I'll see if I can remember the info. BTW Luo is going to be at Bernie's in a few weeks.

???...ONLY 12 feet long? th th then my...must only be...ahh, man!!!

Mike,
I have a source but the shipping will be an issue and obviously costly. They can be ordered in bulk as well, as I did before.
Buddy

Buddy,

Why not put a deal together after you have confirmed orders from all these other guys ,( there is no substitute for waxwood).

...and put me down for two.

Mike

Mmmm I'm not too inclined to organize something like that but I will enquire for you.

So if you go to:
boston_internal_arts@yahoogroups.com
and ask Erik, he is open to putting an order together. Anyone up for it?

Thanks Buddy.

Sifu James Guo has developed two sectioned Carbon Fiber lances when attached come to about 10 feet.

Where in the hell would you keep, or how would you transport a 20 foot spear/stick? Sounds like fun, but I don't thing there is a room in my apartment that is over 20 feet, and I don't think I could get it down the stairs to take it outside (or ever get it inside), and once out side with it, Id have to walk it to the park because it wouldn't fit in my car. A 20 foot stick sounds like a lot of work.

Plus you need a big empty space to practise as well as another couple of hundred of guys all armed with the same length of spear to practise drill and formation. Oh, and if you want your training to have even the smallest amount of realism then you need attacking cavalry to practise against and the front row of your formation needs armour and a really hard attitude ...

It's marginally easier to practise with a short staff, sword or broadsword; but you still need a partner to train two-person drills unless you are content to just wave a piece of wood or metal around in fancy poses.

Next thing you know, martial arts competitions will be featurning "glow-in-the-dark" weapons swung in time to rock music and strobe lights. Whoops, too late ...

No. Made of carbon fibre, the entire spear is 10 feet in length. It can be disassembled into two 5 foot sections. Similar to professional billiard cues.

Michael Andre Babin: You are obviously missing the point. Read here http://www.bajimen.com/liu-weapons-lance.html

No, I don't think that I am missing the point ... training by yourself with a long heavy weapon like a ten foot spear can certainly teach certain types of whole-body usage and provide strength-building as well; but, martially, it is pointless to spend a lot of time training solo with a weapon whose dimensions make it only useful on a battlefield against cavalry or similar formations of spearmen.

Even then, it is worth serious study only if you have competent instruction and do a great deal of two-person training with a partner who uses a spear and/or a variety of antique weapons .

P.S. By the way, the market for mercenary spearmen seems to have dried up in recent years. ;-}

If you put it in that context, everything, martially is pointless. What is the purpose of training solo with a sword? For that matter, when will you be carrying a sword?

Why don't we all just skip training martial arts and just go learn how to use a handgun. Certainly that would be more worthwhile. ;)

The point is, all martial art weapons are outdated. Most of us learn for the sake of tradition, while others learn for the sake of sport.

In this situation, it is for sport. As solo lance would be as interesting as solo chess. There are documented battles where two lances square off in a duel. For sport, it is trying to recreate those duels with lances.

This sport is still in its infancy, so it may explain why many people have yet to hear about it.
To summarize lance sparring would be best explained as "fencing, only with lances".

I should probably add that in ancient Chinese warfare, there were not formations of lances, rather more of a small platoon of various weapons.

A typical platoon would have been made of up several soldiers. One soldier would be carrying a large shield and a short sword (dagger). He would be at the front. Behind him would be a soldier with a broadsword defending the shield guy in front. Behind those two would be another soldier with a different weapon. Behind all of them would be the soldier with the lance. This group moves on the battlefield as a unit.

If you can imagine this, the lance, despite being the furthest guy in the back would reach the furthest out front. Upon meeting the opposing enemy force (typically using a similar platoon), the lances on both sides would make first contact.

The sport is trying to isolate this interaction by subtracting the other soldiers in the unit, to try to see what pure techniques were utilized with this long weapon.

In the end, what you get is a duel between two long weapons.

As a sport, you get clear unmistakable scoring of hits. You must use clean techniques in order to make the most efficient use of the weapon. As a side benefit, this sport enhances athletism in the competitors, in addition to it being very entertaining to watch.

Lastly, it brings martial arts, particularly kung fu into a popular arena.

Hi Guest;
I actually agree with some of your points and there's no doubt that any traditional weapon is less than functional in modern terms compared to a gun.

On the other hand, I can apply sword, broadsword and short staff techniques to a baseball bat, an umbrella or a piece of broken branch; can you do the same thing with tactics that are designed to use a ten foot length of wood or graphite in a sporting match that has a referree?

As to battlefield tactics ... I haven't been on a real battlefield but I have hacked away at other guys wearing protective equipment and using a variety of wooden copies of antique weapons while doing so (sword & shield, sword and axe, jian, dao, spear, staves of various lengths) and I did learn a few painful lessons that way.

By the way, I also don't recognize the tactics you describe from any military history I studied in university although it does sound a lot like the tactics I see on the Xbox® games that my son loves.

Sure, you can apply sword and staff techniques, albeit with a bit of compromise. The lance techniques are similar in *some* respects to staff, but from what I know, it is more applicable to Baji hand to hand applications. The lance is not the most simple conductive weapon to mimic with modern tools. But like I said, the emphasis is on sport.

While you were hacking away with wooden replicas, may I ask how you determined which of the two combatants came out the winner? Through our testing, we found it very diffcult to judge a clash of short weapons. It was hard to see which hit came first, and whether it can be determined that hit was lethal or just incapacitating. On the safety side of things, it was hard to keep injuries away, as safe version of the weapons weren't balanced like replicas, but replicas were not safe.

I cannot find an English source to describe this battlefield formation as my sources came from old Chinese texts and history books that were read to me. If you can read Chinese, or have a translator, I can try to find the names of these books for you.

In the folly of my youth -- although it was a lot of fun as well as instructive -- we used to judge who was doing better by who had the fewer bruises, implanted splinters and whose wooden weapons hadn't been broken. Not very objective it's true.

We tried using chalk smeared on the edges of bladed weapons to see who would finish with the most tell-tale stains on our sleeves and torsos; but that didn't work as well as we had hoped and went back to trying to control the impacts and cuts.

I have less historical understanding of Chinese battlefield tactics from the "good old days" so will bow to your interpretations of the translations.

By the way, I have seen Baji demonstrated with great skill and it seemed like an excellent way to spend one's time for a variety of reasons, at least if you had that person for a teacher.

how do you do it now, in the folly of your old age?

Still much the same way... I'm just more selective about who I train with and it isn't quite so much fun to get kitted-up like an extra in a bad remake of the Road Warrior just to avoid some bruises and splinters.

Hey Micahel and everyone else

I would point everyone towards their local Society for Creative Anachronism or HACA or whatever. It's still better than just doing solo forms and the ocasional two person set. That is, if you want to have an approximation of "battle", not dueling (they also do dueling of course, but melees are quite instructive).

In my experience, from what I've learned, most of what is taught in traditional styles is suitable for dueling, but not really to battle. I've studied Xingyi sword and Yang style Taiji sword, and had my head (and other parts of the anatomy) banged in too many times when trying to apply what I've learned - in a general melee.

I've sort of come to the conclusion that traditional styles require a lot of space, and use too circular, too wide movements. Even when compacted due to adrenalin, excitement and so on, still not efficient. In a general melee, dart in and dart out, straight strikes, aiming just for the ligaments in the arms and hands, and a strong emphasis on defensive tactics work much better than the traditional fare. On the other hand, if you get to fight one of the SCA people who are used only to their general melees, you will do much better.

Chalk or paint works well to determine who gets hit. It works even better with a combination of referees overseeing it.

For my part, I really don't care wether the spear is or isn't usable nowadays. Michael: what can you apply your experience of the deer hook sword to? Still, the deer hook sword is a lot of fun to practice, no? I know I wouldn't give it up! (Advice: don't bring one to a melee, it's a disaster waiting to happen....)

Best!

José de Freitas
Portugal