World's largest miao dao

[jonathan.bluestein]

Title says it all

http://cookdingskitchen.blogspot.co.il/ ... o-dao.html

[Bhassler]

Once you get some time with your new friend, I'd love to see some video of you training...

[jonathan.bluestein]

Maybe in a year or two? I cannot wield it so well, of course. I can barely do some of the jibengong, though I manage somehow. A weight that would have been both challenging and reasonable is maybe 4.5kg. This is a 9kg sword. Why? Because you only order something like this once in a lifetime, so I wanted it to remain challenging for the next 30 years. The down side is that it takes a lot of time getting used to. The next heaviest weapon I have is one of my bigger large spears, which is 4kg tops. Currently I can barely sustain a 5 minute training regime with it, with much awkwardness. For comparison, my training miao dao, weighing about 1.5kg, I can wield 2 hours without any problem. The difference is quite huge. Perhaps in a few months I will make a comparison video of a regular sized miao dao vs. this new one.

[Ba-men]

Pardon me... but I got to ask. "what's the point of it?" One can possibly wield that with any skill.
And if your doing it for weight training etc... seems an Iron bar would have been a lot cheaper.

I guess my practical side is keeping from seeing what your seeing. However if it gets u motivated to weight train etc... then its of value ay?

[wayne hansen]

I would caution you if training with a heavy weapon to do both sides
I pulled out my back using a heavy broadsword over time
Ba men look at people doing forms with giant knife and you will see it is not about either weight training or application

[Lu da]

Thanks for sharing. It's nice to see people pushing the limits of what is considered normal in training. As a fan of strength training I actively encourage people to pick up heavy things and move them around. Remember to train antagonist muscles, wielding such a large weapon can create imbalances in strength that can have a detrimental effect on joint health.

[jonathan.bluestein]

Ba-men - Firstly, because I like the design and the added artistic value. Secondly, because I practice actual miao dao techniques with it, which is preferable to do with something which bares the actual shape of that sword.

Wayne - thank you for the warning. I practice 95% of my martial arts on both sides, the miao dao included.

Lu Da - thank you as well. Most of the body gets a decent workout with such a sword. Perhaps the latissimus are slightly neglected compared to the others because gravity does a lot of the work for them, though they are still active. I do a little bit of extra strength training, maybe 5-6 additional compound exercises. High-rep deadlifts and pullups among them. I guess that's enough to balance things out. The abs are supposedly neglected too but with the sideways cuts they get quite a lot of static activation.

[Lu da]

Deadlifts will do great things for you though I am a fan of singles vs repetitions whatever works for your plan works.

Be prepared for symptoms of tendinitis in the elbow and wrist, they are small muscles exposed to tremendous loads with oversized weapons.

Sometimes when there is nobody at my gym I use the barbell for some guan dao practice. what I've noticed is that my movements become more rooted and are motivated by my hips and legs more, essentislly I cannot cheat.

[Bill]

Nice. Your new dao is really the cat's meow.

[D_Glenn]

I've got an about 10lbs Bagua Large Saber and it's difficult to wield and it had to be balanced with a lot of weight on the end.
My 7 lbs one is much more useful for heavy weapon training. Doing rough 'foot-pound' calculations it's about 28 lbs of weight at my shoulder when saber and arm are held out straight horizontal.

You should have had them make handle out of solid steel so there would at least be a chance of getting it to a proper balance. To balance it now (which you should do) is to figure out how to add some lead weight to the end of the handle.

.

[edededed]

Pretty nice blade, and pretty awesome service, for a rather low price. I always wanted a bagua (big) saber - since there are actually probably plans sitting around for those, I imagine that those would be a lot cheaper. Just not sure how a sword would handle being imported to Japan (curious as to how the Japanese swordsmiths were going to handle producing your sword - certainly for a lot more money!).

So I guess it will have to wait until I live somewhere in the States perhaps...

[leftwose]

waste of money, and more importantly, yi

https://books.google.com/books?id=RMd3G ... na&f=false

[Graculus]

Much as I like Neal Stephenson, he got it wrong that time – for a start, the top of the head would not be a choice target area anyway; and secondly many Japanese sword cuts are about follow-through, but I suppose the idea was correct – that you don't want to get your blade stuck in an opponent.

Graculus
http://www.ichijoji.blogspot.com

[Bo Fei Li]

I don’t think the idea itself to use a heavier weapon for training is bad.
But to have one with a balance which differs greatly from a normal weight one, is a bad idea in my oppinion.
First of all you get used to the wrong kind of handling for that kind of sabre, secondly as others said before, it increases the risk of injury…

Heavy practice weapon yes, but with the same balance as a real one. Kind of a waste to spend all this effort for a weapon which is incorrect in its handling, isn’t it?

[Bhassler]

Heavy practice weapon yes, but with the same balance as a real one. Kind of a waste to spend all this effort for a weapon which is incorrect in its handling, isn’t it?

I hate to be the one to break it to everyone, but MA practice in general is kind of a waste of time, except that it's fun. Personally, I think oversized, heavy weapons are awesome, in a purely visceral caveman sort of way....