meversbergii wrote:... which in turn lead me to "Yin Yuzhang's Baguazhang".
I've only begun to peruse the latter recently. Kennedy's book implied that this Baguazhang's sabre section (which if memory serves he described as being for the miaodao, when it clearly depicts a dadao) was written towards the Chinese Army in some capacity, which is why I bought a copy. In addition to Rovere's work, I also have experience with Jin En-Zhong's "Practical Big Sabre Techniques", translated a few years back into English by Jack Chen. All this leaves me with a few questions that someone here might know the answer to.
1) Is Yin Yuzhang's sabre teachings - the dadao teachings - actually written towards the army? I know several units deployed this weapon during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and it would not surprise me if Jin En-Zong wasn't the only author targeting them.
2) What about his Bagua section? I'd expect that if Section B is written towards the army, so would Section A be, but it could be two different books compiled together.
...
M.
Yin Yuzhang wrote 2 books: one on Buguazhang 八卦掌簡編, the other on broadsword 砍刀术练习法. If you see them together in one book, most likely someone just compiled them together.
The broadsword skill he wrote about is not Bagua skill or Miao Dao skill. According to the book itself (
https://tieba.baidu.com/p/3821299219): the weapon 砍刀 Kan Dao is the same weapon popularly used in Qing Dynasty infantry. It's on the heavier side (in western units - 35.5 inches in total length, 3.5 pounds) with long handle (8.5 in). Yin compiled what he thought was the most easy to teach, easy to learn, easy to practice, and easy to use techniques. As for the skill, because of the weapon it's designed for, it's mostly 2 handed skills. Like spear, there are one handed applications, as when you're trying to reach an opponent far away.
"Whether it will achieve widespread use in the military, I do not yet know", but he had hoped that the martial spirit will spread amongst the general population, that this 2 set routine will achieve popularity amongst the average citizen. It was his hope this will strengthen the body (notice the incredibly low stance) and spirit. The book itself is an official publication of the school Yin taught at - Qingdao Guoshu Guan. In the book he states that he realized we are in the age of air war now, but after the January 28th Incident (1932), even the Japanese military saw the value of broadsword in close quarter combat, and was attempting at the time to assemble Chinese Dao experts in Dalian and import this skill to the Japanese military. "Whether this scheme is successful we don't know", but Yin and others at the school obviously felt an urgency in arming the Chinese side with same skill. Hence the publication of this book in June of 1933.
It was a hugely popular and influential book upon publication. The book covers 2 sets, 40 skills. In my lineage there were some Tongbei masters who trained some of the army units of the north. According to them they never taught more than 10 skills to the troops, and in reality 90% of time they used just 1 skill in combat (big down-to-up sweeping block from left turned into immediately up-to-down chop from right). As Yin Yuzhang himself states, none of the skills he compiled here is novel, they were all time-proven techniques. So if we find some army units using skills covered in his book, it's not so much his as they are the most common, useful technique of big heavy dao itself.