Thanks for watching! I just wanted to chime in and provide more evidence for Matt’s argument!

Yeah, fantastic. Thanks so much for elaborating on Matt's video which was also very informative. Holy smokes!

Thanks for watching! Yeah blade on blade binding does not happen in Chinese arts the same way it does in German ones. There are binding actions with the dao, but many of them involve overpowering the opponents defense but putting the off and on the spine of the blade and "half-swording". There is also binding against spears and polearms but that doesn't work the same way as blade on blade contact.

Thanks for watching! And yes I think people get hung up on the “never do this, never do that” mentality.

If you train enough and it becomes an automatism you always block with the flat

"Always" and "Never" are two words that shouldn't be used regarding martial strategy, IMO. Every engagement has innumerable variables; adaptation is the only path to victory/survival. I know this is a very heated topic among Chinese swordsmanship practitioners, but it's not that much of an issue in other sword styles. Chinese swordsmanship (particularly jian) is the only system I've formally trained where the act of edge-on-edge contact is *said* to not exist. I have trouble seeing what makes jianfa the exception to the majority of East Asian sword styles; edge-on-edge is not taught as the "correct way to parry", but it's accepted as something that can and does happen in combat. My $0.02. :)

The proper historical fencing with chinese martial arts is still a fairly small, but growing community. In the future I will do some sparring videos, and some of them will certainly be against weapons which are common in HEMA.

Thanks for watching! Perhaps you could make a video presenting more evidence from Japan!

I was in two different Kenjutsu styles, and one of them taught to deflect with the shinogi, and the other prefered the mune.

Thank you for watching! When it comes to living lineages I just thing we have to view them with the same critical thinking that we use on every other historical source.

I am glad that you are here! Thanks for watching!

Yes I think that things certainly changed across different time periods and somewhat with swords as well. Although most jian do not have disc guards they likely preferred flat deflections to edge parries as well, but I didn’t get into this too much here because our evidence is not as substantial when it comes to jian. We have interesting damage on antiques and we have the living tradition, but oldest and only text I know of which says to parry with the flat on a jian comes from the early republican period. So, I decided to focus on dao in this video for these reasons. There driving forces behind how and why jian change over time is a little more complicated because they were not a standard military weapon, but were perceived as prestigious blades worn by elites. In the future I may make a follow up video to this one talking about jian guards

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gr6qlNFyrqu1g4E.html&ab_channel=CHAMPARCHER i have never seen that but here is the inverse (jian v sabre)

Great question! I will make a future video on this topic. Earlier designs were not cupped but this became more common over time.

Thanks for watching! And yes, going to the sources is what I am all about on this channel!

Thanks for watching!

The Shoubilu by Wushu mentions this

Yes, I can understand your concern. Most of the time, I do not let the pets out when I am training. When I filmed the video, I was making sure to keep an eye on them and kept them at a distance.

@@thescholar-general5975 reading my comment now I see that it could have come across as advice or criticism - mos def wasn’t meant that way! Seeing your puppet just made me feel the moment every time I practice when I’m interrupted by a cat.😅

@@mulli032 No problem! It is always a good reminder to be aware of the pets.

Thank you for watching!

Yes I am aware of those. I think that they are interesting, but I am not sure how much the design would impact function. It would be interesting to experiment with one though!

Thanks for watching! I am not sure how a downwards thrust or zha would damage the false edge of the jian. The deflection I am using there is with the flat of the blade and not with the spine.

@@thescholar-general5975 Hi, thanks for responding. Apologies for the confusions with my question. It reminded me of a similar deflection call ci (hopefully I got the term correct).

If you dont want to demage youre sword dont fight with it !

Thanks for watching! Which sources do you have for this? I am certainly open to changing my views in light of new evidence.

@@thescholar-general5975 I’ll make a vid. 👍

@@thescholar-general5975 you’ve probably seen this discussion pops up all the time on Chinese sword forums and groups. I already started working on a vid response and ran into yours as well. I probably should have made a vid about it a long while back but life be cray. I’ll let you know.

@@theravenswoodacademy8796 That sounds great! I look forward to seeing your video! Perhaps a little back and forth between us can approach a consensus in the community. I am definitely being a little overly optimistic but hey its worth a shot!

@@thescholar-general5975 yeah, I basically “agree” with most of the things mentioned in your vid. I’ll just add the addition of edge-cuts/blocks with my new video. I think you mentioned elsewhere that too much of an absolutist, all or nothing approach probably isn’t right anyways for hundreds of sword methods over many years spread across tons of geography (and all that just in China!). Anyways, I’ll get on the vid which is mostly already filmed/edited and is more a reaction to the general community, not a “jab” at you or anything. All the Best. (I hate typing on my phone).

I was waiting for someone to catch that!

Yes this is not something I mentioned, but it is one of the nice things about deflecting in this manner.

@@thescholar-general5975 as well as putting it inside your opponents weapon.

Thank you, though I still have lots of work to do on improving my swordsmanship.

I have studied with a few teachers. Primarily Scott Rodell and Jeremy Thomas. And yes, I can read the manuals.

Can you read Chinese?

@@loudradialem5233 Yes, I couldn’t really read the manuals if I couldn’t read the chinese.

That's awesome!

Yes I also agree that there are some interesting similarities between European saber systems and daofa. From what I have seen of wakizashi kata, they also appear to have some similar techniques.

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mpaWn890uMvGgYU.html

@@thescholar-general5975 Wow! Thank you! This sort of footage is not so easy to find

yes, this is a great observation! I believe that the prominence of the dhal or buckler in the indo-persoan world may have something to do with it.

Differential hardening can be found on some Han dynasty swords which date to around 100 AD or so. I am not aware of any places earlier than that but could be wrong.

Thanks for watching! I am bound to make this video eventually! There is a lot to say about this topic.

Thanks for watching and bringing up these counterpoints! You are absolutely right that you cannot control what the opponent does and they may use their edge to block your blade. However, the antiques that we have access to seems to suggest that hard edge parries on the forte of the blade were not done. We can find nicks on several other areas of the blade, but rarely in that section. I am not convinced that rotating the wrist while parrying is slower than not doing so. The simple fact is that the arm supinates and the wrist flexes while the arm is moving the sword into position. If pronating or supinating the wrist had a significant impact on sword speed, then we would not see it done so commonly with thrusts. But even smallsword which requires quick manipulation of a lightweight weapon still uses thrusting actions that sometimes involve twisting the wrist. Additionally, some military saber systems also involve flexing the wrist during deflections but interestingly this is done in order to make the edge face the opponents blade as opposed to avoid it. An example of this can be found in Hutton's "Parry of Seconde" as well as Roworth's "Outside Half-hanger". There is more to say about the biomechanics involved in this position, but it would take a while to explain. I appreciate that you brought up the possibility of weaknesses in the kinetic chain while parrying with the flat. Actually, I previously filmed a video in which I tested the strength of these parrying positions, but I decided not to put it on youtube because we did it with a sharp sword and did not use proper safety equipment. These basic parries were tested against a Hickory staff that was an 1.25 inches (~3cm) in diameter with no taper and it was just under 6ft (~1.8m) in length. What we found was that the guard positions successfully resisted powerful blows from the staff for a few reasons. For one, parrying with the forte of the blade makes the parry much stronger. For two, many of these guard positions involve bringing the saber much closer to your body than many of the parries which can be found in other systems like military saber where they parry sometimes parry with a more extended arm. Bringing the saber closer to your body has some disadvantages when fencing, but one of the advantages gained is that your parry is much stronger than it would otherwise be. Additionally, the dao that we tested had a point of balance of around 6.5 inches (~17cm) above the guard. Most chinese swords have a POB somewhere between 6 - 8 inches (~15-21cm) above the guard. This means that when you parry with the flat of the blade on the forte, the incoming weapon will be below the POB. Rather than easily rotating the sword like a lever around your hand, the POB which lies about the point of contact will resist this inertia and make for a stronger parry. Additionally, when it comes to high guards, even if the parry does blow through my structure, the result is that the flat of my blade then contacts my shoulder which means that the blade itself becomes a steel bar that can keep a strike from damaging me as badly. If you watch the section of this video where I demonstrate the head wrapping parries you may be able to see what I am talking about. Finally, when it comes to the blade itself flexing, I think that the differences in both the form and heat treatment of Chinese swords as compared to European ones make a difference here. Both single and double-edged chinese swords tend to be relatively thick in cross section which adds a lot of rigidity to the blade. Additionally, the traditional forging process involved softer steels on the outside of the blade and they were not always through tempered. This means that they are higher in stiffness or Young's Modulus than a through tempered blade. These things combined with the fact that parrying hard parries should be done on the forte means that the sword is unlikely to yield in plane of the flat. Also, everything I just said above applies to the context of hard parries. In actuality, Chinese swordsmanship heavy relies on voids, yielding parries, and beating deflections as well which work somewhat differently.

Thanks for watching!