#kwandao

A Guan Dao, Kwan Dao, orKuan Tao is a type ofChinese pole weapon that is currently used in some forms of Chinese martial arts. In Chinese it is properly called a 偃月刀 yan yue dao("reclining moon blade"), the name under which it always appears in texts from the Song to Qing dynasties such as the Wujing Zongyao andHuangchao Liqi Tushi. The blade is mounted atop a 1.5 m to 1.8 m (5–6 foot) long wooden or metal pole with a pointed metal counter weight used to balance the heavy blade and for striking on the opposite end. The blade is very deeply curved and therefore unlike most polearms, solely useful for sweeping cuts where it relies on range and power.

I traveled to China in 2002 and visited his tomb in Northern China. Guan Yu was reputed to be a huge man, some say 8 feet tall! A ferocious warrior so feared in fact that when he was killed in his sleep his body was buried at one site and his head at another for fear he might return from the dead! A BMF for real.

According to legend, the guan dao was invented by the famous general Guan Yu during the early 3rd century AD, hence the name. It is said that he specified its form and size to be made by a smithy, and was uniquely able to wield such an imposing weapon due to his large stature and legendary strength. Guan Yu’s guan dao was called “Green Dragon Crescent Blade” (青龍偃月刀) which weighed 82 Chinese jin (estimated either at 18.263 kg or 48.38 kg—a Han Dynasty jin was 222.72 grams in the metric system, while the jin used in the Ming Dynasty—during which the Romance of the Three Kingdoms was written—was about 590 grams). If Guan Yu had actually used any weapon resembling the Green Dragon Crescent Blade, it could not have weighted more then 10 jin. There are several reasons for this. First, it would have been physically impossible to use such a weapons in combat; it would be too slow and easy to off balance the wielder. Second, it would strain and pull muscles, ligament, and tendons too easily. Third, it would be impossible to make one in its shape unless it was made of some material such as lead or uranium. A modern barbell or prying iron of steel or iron (the only materials you could make such a weapon from) would weigh no more than 30-40lbs, so a guan dao made completely of iron, even one seven to eight feet long, could weight no more than 40-50 jin depending on the thickness of the handle, blade and butt-end. But most evidence would point to a steel or iron blade of one to two feet in length,iron or steel guard and handle device with a wooden shaft from five to six feet, and an iron or steel butt end. The shaft, could weight no more then 5 jin depending on the type of wood. Simply put, no such weapon would be manufactured for battle.

According to legend, the guan dao was invented by the famous general Guan Yu during the early 3rd century AD, hence the name. It is said that he specified its form and size to be made by a smithy, and was uniquely able to wield such an imposing weapon due to his large stature and legendary strength. Guan Yu's guan dao was called "Green Dragon Crescent Blade" (青龍偃月刀) which weighed 82 Chinese jin (estimated either at 18.263 kg or 48.38 kg—a Han Dynasty jin was 222.72 grams in the metric system, while the jin used in the Ming Dynasty—during which the Romance of the Three Kingdoms was written—was about 590 grams). If Guan Yu had actually used any weapon resembling the Green Dragon Crescent Blade, it could not have weighted more then 10 jin. There are several reasons for this. First, it would have been physically impossible to use such a weapons in combat; it would be too slow and easy to off balance the wielder. Second, it would strain and pull muscles, ligament, and tendons too easily. Third, it would be impossible to make one in its shape unless it was made of some material such as lead or uranium. A modern barbell or prying iron of steel or iron (the only materials you could make such a weapon from) would weigh no more than 30-40lbs, so a guan dao made completely of iron, even one seven to eight feet long, could weight no more than 40-50 jin depending on the thickness of the handle, blade and butt-end. But most evidence would point to a steel or iron blade of one to two feet in length,iron or steel guard and handle device with a wooden shaft from five to six feet, and an iron or steel butt end. The shaft, could weight no more then 5 jin depending on the type of wood. Simply put, no such weapon would be manufactured for battle.

However, while the famous novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong describes him as wielding the guan dao, this description may have been an anachronistic one intended to make the character seem more imposing: historically speaking there was no evidence to show that Guan Yu used the weapon that is thus attributed to him, and indeed there is no indication of the existence of what is now known as the guan dao prior to the 11th century, when it was first illustrated in the military manual Wujing Zongyao. The guan dao, therefore, possibly did not even exist during Guan Yu's era, meaning that it is somewhat of a pop culture-derived misnomer. Furthermore, the scholar Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (456-536 AD) recorded in the Gujin Daojianlu (古今刀劍錄, "A Catalogue of Ancient and Modern Sabers and Rapiers") that Guan Yu forged a pair of sabres using iron ore he harvested from Wudushan mountain (武都山) himself, which may have inspired the story that Guan Yu invented his weapon. However, this would also indicate that he did not use a guan dao or even anything resembling a guan dao, since the pole-mounted or long handled dao weapons such as the Pudao or Dadao were all wielded with two hands and so would not have been made or used in a pair.

If Guan Yu did use a pole arm, it is most likely that he used a halberd(ji戟), which was one of the most common horsemen's pole arms during the era, and also because historical citations mention Guan Yu attacking his opponenets both with thrusting and hacking attacks.

While some historians still contend that the guan dao was simply an uncommon, rare weapon prior to the Tang dynasty and was thus not illustrated before then, historical evidence does lean towards the attribution being an instance of creative license—historically, the guan dao, for the most part, was not actually intended for field use, but was instead used as a tool to test the strength of those who wished to become military officers: weapons of various weights were made, the test composed simply of performing various required maneuvers using such weapons. During the Qing dynasty some extraordinarily heavy versions of guan dao were made for this purpose: a candidate had to be able to wield a weapon weighing 80, 100, or 120 jin (48, 60 or 72 kg, using the modern value for 1 jin = approximately .6 kg), with weapons of each weight being successively higher grades in the exam, the passage of which led to appointment as military officers of various ranks based on the grade. The heaviest known "testing guan dao", which resides in a museum at Shanhaiguan (山海關), the site of one of the gates on the Great Wall and a Ming Dynasty outpost that marked the division between territories controlled by Han Chinese and Manchu forces, weighs a whopping 83 kilograms. While the examples are taken from the Qing Dynasty and therefore may have been influenced by the book (which was written in the Ming Dynasty), military officer tests (which began in the Tang Dynasty) have always involved lifting heavy stones of standardized weight and maneuvering them about, possibly contributing to the writer's decision to assign an unusual weight to Guan Yu's weapon.

The weapon was also widely adopted by martial artists for the purposes of training and for demonstrating their strength, perhaps also to train specifically for the military officer's tests. It is likely that such practices influenced the attribution of the weapon to Guan Yu despite the lack of historical evidence for his use of it—the use of a weapon that was intentionally made too heavy to be of practical use would make the character more imposing in literature.

Where it was used, it was largely used by infantry. In the Qing Dynasty, it was used by the all Han Green Standard Army. Apart from that, the lack of standardization of the antique examples that survive to today seems to indicate that at least from the 19th century onwards it was popular in the civilian martial arts realm as well.

The modern guan dao as adopted by martial artists today usually weighs between 2 kg and 10 kg (5 and 20 pounds), and is typically composed of a wood shaft of about three to five feet in length, a short blade of about 12 to 18 inches on one end, and a mace head on the other (which serves mostly as a counterweight to the blade but can also be used for striking), the whole assembly rarely exceeding five to six feet in total length. The greatly reduced weight and length reflects its nature as a more practical form for martial artists.

The particular one I train with weighs over 50 lbs.

Combat uses

The guan dao is used quite frequently in the part of contemporary Wushu derived from the Shaolin or Wudangquan form of martial arts in modern times. According to contemporary Wushu practice, its purpose is more to disarm an opponent and deflect his strikes rather than to attack. To that end, a large veil cloth is attached to the end to dissuade and confuse opponents. However, there is no evidence of this being an authentic aspect of the weapon's usage. Tassels and cloths are attached to numerous weapons such as jian, dao, meteor hammer, and guan dao used in Chinese opera, one of the sources of movements found in contemporary wushu. In actual combat a guan dao, or any other member of the family of long handled sabers, was used to hack and slice through an opponent. The considerable weight of the blade and the leverage of the handle would have allowed it to cut through most leather, chain, scale or light lamellar armor of medieval China. It was obviously an offensive and not a defensive weapon. Deflecting motions would be done with the back of the blade and rear of the handle, with direct blocks done more often with handle than blade to avoid chipping it.

Forms utilizing the weapon in nearly all traditional styles of Chinese martial arts, emphasize strong slashing movements and momentum to keep the heavy blade moving through a series of spinning cuts. The considerable weight of the weapon also makes guan dao forms good for training the overall conditioning of the body.

I don't know why, maybe it's because I've never gotten in trouble with the police before, but I just got my first ever police warning ticket and I feel SOO excited/angry at the same time!!!

So my suite-mate got his laptop stolen this morning. After reporting it, University Police came to the suite to investigate and ask questions. The officer peeked into my room, and saw this:

Well, apparently weapons are prohibited on campus :( I received a phone call from the officer while I was working. Pretty much he discovered "an impressive trove of inappropriate/illegal weapons" hanging on my wall:

Kwandao

Pudao

Spear

Staff

Three-Section Staff

3 Broadswords

3 Chain Whips

Nunchuck

RANT

I feel like martial artists are being discriminated against. We get stopped EVERYWHERE for possessing a weapon. A weapon to a martial artist, is like a paintbrush to an artist or a camera to a photographer or an instrument to a musician. How come nobody else gets stopped but the martial artist? I've been stopped numerous times at Greyhound Stations and the school's REC. It is not fair martial artists receive this treatment. In my opinion, anything can be a weapon. I just want a bit more consistency. But seriously people, how many fights in REAL LIFE have you seen started by nunchucks/broadswords/chain whips/ kwandaos/ etc? EXACTLY!

Last day with my Great Wall of Weapons :(