Ta Ji big pole

[SPJ]

http://www.jingwuhui.org/eshop/goods.php?id=418

do you make your own or buy?

Da Gan or big pole.

[jpaton]

you want wax wood right? the ones i've seen used for the two man tai chi stuff are wax wood and around 16+ foot. the problem is that anything over 8 or 9 feet is really expensive to ship and hard to find. i know there's a place in chinatown in nyc where you can just go pick one up thats 12+' but that's probably not going to do you any good.

if you are in orange my suggestion would be to head into LA. there must be a ma supply store that will order you one. if you buy one over the internet you can spend as much for shipping as you do for the stick.

how would you make your own, wood joiner? you'd need a bunch of pretty thick wax wood stock and i don't know if you can even get that.

[edit] i bet you could get some ash stock though and that should be about the right weight, strength and flexibilty...[edit]

[jkuo]

I once got one of those 10 foot wood poles from Home Depot and attached a big, really stiff spring to the end of it. Not quite the same as using a wax wood pole, but you get a similar effect. You have to drive force to the tip of the pole to get the spring to deflect and then stabilize as the spring oscillated side to side. I liked the solution mostly because I got to break out some tools to make it and it was also a heck of a lot cheaper than buying a 10+ foot wax wood pole.

[Wuyizidi]

Impressive, I wonder if they will ship overseas?

From the description of the types of processing they do, they really know what they're doing. We'd be hard pressed to find items of similar quality here. Whenever I'm in NYC Chinatown I always check in with the martial art stores. Over the years I bought a couple of nice 9 ft long staffs. But finding ones over 10 ft is very hard. I've seen a few. But they were moldy from spending long months in transit over the sea. They definitely were not processed the same way these are.

Traditionally, the spear used by professional martial artists for contests of skill are classified as short spear(length = reach of your hand over your head). Within that category white waxwood is the lowest class of wood for spear, that it's really for staff. It's considered too soft. Supposedly the best type of wood for that is called Niu Jin Mu (beef tendon wood) from An Hui province.

If you want to make one yourself, keep these things in mind:

General Chen Chong Dou (Qi Ji Guang's contemporary) lists the ideal characteristics this way:
惟取坚实体直，无大枒枝节疤者为上。根头可要盈把，便好持拿，自根渐渐细至稍上。不软不硬为妙，如太软太硬，则拿捉不如意。调制如法，便好运用也。
Only pick those that are solid, substantial. Those having no major branches (no scars left by removing them) are best. The end need to be large enough so that your fingers just touch when holding it, this way it's easy to hold and manipulate. From that point on it should taper very gradually. Neither hard nor soft; if too hard or soft, then you will not be able to execute the basic skills as intended. When treated/processed correctly, it will be easy to wield.

He mentioned "major branches" because:
大木取小劈刨而成，多不坚牢易断。必选生成者为上，有檕条木，有牛筋木（赤者为佳，白者次），有茶条木，有米枯木（有名乌檕），有拓条木，有白蜡条木（有名水黄荆）。
When you cut or plan down (using a traditional plane) a larger piece of wood to make a spear, often it will not be strong enough and break. Must select one that is a complete tree of desired size, such as .... Niu Jin Mu...

So for spear, the shaft of the spear must be made up of the entire trunk of the tree. You can strip the bark and branches (carefully), but beyond that, you shouldn't sand it, or do anything more to make it thinner, lest you weaken it.

Is anyone here a woodworking expert? What are some woods we can get here that share those characteristics (toward the hard end, but still some elasticity, shock absorbency)?

Wuyizidi