New Book and DVD-Chinese Combat Sword for Sport
New Release! The Complete Jianshu by Jason Tsou
Chinese Combat Sword for Sport
Jason Tsou and Arthur Schonfeld
237 pages, photographs, spiral bound for easy display
$44.95 includes Accompanying DVD
 | This truly lives up to its title as a “complete” presentation of the art of the sword. The manual starts with basic warm ups, progresses through static postures to individual movements and finally to sparring. The best thing about the writing, though, is that it continually circles back to the meaning and the cultural background of the art. |
Of great importance, to our minds, is the general growth of the fencing art. We spent some time over ten years ago watching Adam Hsu, from the same lineage as Jason Tsou, doing his best to promote Chinese style weapons sparring. In fact we were some of the first judges certified to do this and we saw that the addition of weapons sparring—which we had tried to promote even earlier—would be an invaluable addition to a real understanding of Chinese Kung Fu. What do we mean by real?...
All of Kung Fu's funny stances and stretched out limbs make one hell of a lot more sense in the context of weapons training. These would allow a practitioner to immediately adapt to either empty hand or weapons at a moment's notice. Weapons training, in Kung Fu history, often took precedence over empty hand training which was sometimes seen only as a foundational method for weapons training. On a higher level there are many special skills which people can use in empty handed combat which originated in the weapons division of the art. Fencing will allow people to see these presently weakened connections.
This book is an important step not only in preserving a great tradition but also a contribution to setting a standard. As weapons sparring progresses we must use the hard-won lessons of hundreds of years of experience to keep the art from disintegrating into smashing one another with plastic poles. Real movements, well explained, with both the Dragon and the Tiger sides shown, footwork clarified and strategy revealed. Not only important, but great fun!
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