Weapons have always featured strongly in Shaolin kung fu training and are one of the most popular parts of our syllabus. Even in the modern era, there is something incredibly satisfying about swinging great big blades around!
You can try your hand with knives, swords, axes, hammers, spears and a variety of unique pole arms amongst many others. Training starts with simple basics such as how to stand, grip the weapon etc and extends to cover simple and advanced moves, strategies, tactics, target areas etc.
Our weapon training is not just ‘show style’. We teach the genuine art of weapon use for combat. Unlike in many other cultures, the Shaolin weapons were still in for war very recently: for example by the Chinese army in world war 2 and by kung fu groups as recently as the 1970s. A lot of living kung fu teachers have direct experience of fighting with these weapons, including some of the MTC instructors. This is not something which you will find in many schools!
Benefits of Shaolin weapon training include the following:
- weapon training teaches us to extend our concentration and our energy (chi) beyond our bodies into the weapon. This means that when we go back to freehand training, it is very easy to get our energy right down to our hands and feet.
- weapon training works like a sort of weight training: performing with weapons, especially heavy weapons, strengthens our muscle and tendon and conditions us to exert more power.
- many weapon techniques are complex and intricate and develop our co-ordination: this is particularly true of the double weapons.
- heavy weapons require a great degree of stability and balance so as to be able to wield them with speed, power and accuracy. This provides excellent stability training.
- advanced practitioners train to project Shaolin springy power (‘geng’ in Chinese) through their weapon. The emission of ‘geng’ is considered to be one of the highest skills in Shaolin kung fu: to be able to transmit geng to the hand or foot fluidly and effectively shows a high level of achievement, to be able to project it right to the end of a weapon is a very high skill and means that the practitioner can very easily bring their ‘geng’ to their hands feet for freehand techniques.
- fixed sparring with weapons develops timing, distancing, co-ordination, and observation as well as conditioning us to having weapons swung at us at high speed from all angles! (To react rationally against an attack with a weapon requires that we do not panic, but this takes practise!)
- a broad range of genuine weapons skills means that we understand how to defend against weapons generally, including improvised weapons, and that we can use more or less any weapon that we pick up or can improvise most objects for use as a weapon. These are very useful survival skills!
- weapon training is fun and motivates us to train harder and not give up!
We teach the following weapons:
- Staff (straight pole)
- Tan tao (single knife or Chinese broadsword)
- Shuang tao (double knife of double Chinese broadsword)
- Kwan tao (General Kwan’s knife or Chinese halbard)
- Spear
- Double axe
- Double butterfly knives
- Double thumb hook knives
- Double daggers
- Chinese straight sword
- Monk’s spade
- Monk’s crescent
- Hook spear
- Snake head kek
- Double short kek
- Water carrier (peddler’s staff)
- Single ended staff
- Tiger fork
- Double crutch (tonfa)
- Double small trident (sai)
- Double iron ruler (tee pit)
- Double thunder hammers
- Double tiger hooks
- Nine ring big knife: long handle
- Nine ring big knife: short handle
- Horse cutting knife
- Shield and knife
- Three section staff
- Nine section chain whip
- Rope dart
- Meteor hammer
- Cane
We also teach the following weapon sparring sets:
- Three section staff vs spear
- Single / double knife vs spear
- Double knife vs three section staff
- Single knife vs freehand
- Stool vs hoe
- Staff vs staff
- Double dagger vs freehand
Shaolin weapon training is great fun and a great workout. To give it a try, book a course of training with us now using our booking form. If you would like more information, contact us using the contact form.
Please note that different instructors specialise in different weapons and may not always be available. If you wish to train with some of the more obscure weapons, please arrange with us well in advance so as to avoid disappointment!