I’ve just come indoors after a session of zhan zhuang, shoulders aching…
It’s a lovely evening again; we’ve had a few in the last week. The sky is clear, and the stars are out, bright and clear. At the moment, Venus and Jupiter are visible, outshining everything else in the sky. As I stand, I can hear the waterlogged soil groaning and shifting; the warm sunshine has started it into a slow motion, rising and stirring the plants into spring growth.
Last week, I planted a Snowdon Queen pear tree, and an Abergwyngregyn damson tree – heritage Welsh varieties that should be well adapted to the damp climate. I’ve planted two climbing roses, both very fragrant varieties; one flowers in early summer, the other in late summer/early autumn, so we should get scent for a good half of the year.
I’ve had a few practice sessions with my new Weaponedge shashka now. The video I posted, Dance with a Shashka, has led me to adjust the way I hold the handle. In Beijing, I got into the habit of holding the handle high, right next to the pommel; the pommel effectively became the pivot as the sword swung around. After watching ‘Dance with a Shashka’ closely, though, I saw that she was holding it much lower, at the base of the handle where it joins the blade. Copying this, I’ve found that a finger on the ricasso becomes the pivot, with my little finger occasionally using the pommel to guide the movement. Doing it this way, I’m finding it easier to do a lot of the moves, and the sword swings much more freely. However, I still need to practice much, much more – even this evening, I managed to hack my leg just above the ankle, drawing a little blood. Good job the shashka is blunt! The other day, I even managed to smack the back of my head with a glancing blow…
Anyway, swinging the shashka, and transferring it from one hand to another, is really showing me that my shoulders have tightened up a heck of a lot over the last year; that’s the tension from work… I don’t have the endurance in zhan zhuang that I did, either. It’ll be easier to practice now that spring is coming, though – I’ll be able to stand outside in fresh air at last! Thank goodness for that, I’m so tired of winter!
Spring is definitely on its way, at last. In the last week, we’ve had some very misty mornings followed by cold, bright days. The earth is beginning to warm up; flowers are pushing their way to the light, and trees are beginning to bud.
I’m finally able to breathe a little; the last few weeks have been very, very hard work. I don’t mind working long hours when it’s constructive; I definitely object when it’s to clear up someone else’s mess, with no thanks for it.
Still, this afternoon I got out into the garden. I’ve got two more fruit trees on the way to me for planting – heritage Welsh strains of a damson plum and an ordinary plum – as well as two fragrant climbing roses for hedging.
I managed to get a few minutes with my new shashka – yes, I gave in and bought one! It’ll take a while to get back to the fluency I had in Beijing, and more to get to the standard of the woman in the video I posted, but I’ll get there. This Weaponedge shashka handles very well, I have to say. I suspect I’ll wind up with a second, to train double-handed.
In the late afternoon I walked to a nearby village (the one with the church dedicated to Hilarion). It was a beautiful day, with warm sunshine causing me to sweat as I walked along the Roman road, and through ancient sunken lanes. I had a couple of pints as I read the Times, and then came back the same way, the road illuminated by stars and a waxing moon in the cloudless sky. I found that yiquan’s mo ca bu worked rather better than bagua tang ni bu on the broken ground in the half-light…
A couple of years ago, when I was first getting interested in shashkas, the Cossack sabres, I spent quite a bit of time searching YouTube for clips. I was using Google Chrome as my browser even then, and using its auto-translate feature to find Russian-language videos. I think I searched pretty comprehensively, and found most of what there was to see.
Anyway, that was a couple of years ago, and some good stuff has appeared since then. Here’s some of the clips that I’ve been watching recently:
Dance with a shashka:
Some work with a shashka from the ground:
Keeping the shashka close to the body:
Some basic sparring moves with a shashka:
As some readers will remember, I had some shashkas while I was in China: two stainless steel reproductions, and one ‘real’ shashka that could hold an edge, although I never did actually sharpen it. The first two were a make I’ve never seen anywhere else; very similar to the Denix model, but with big differences in the decoration of the hilt and scabbard. The other one was supposed to be an original Soviet sword, according to the seller, and came with a Moisin-Nagant bayonet attached to the scabbard, which was missing its leather cover. It turned out to be a fake, of a sort that was being sold in large numbers on eBay, but it handled very nicely all the same.
I used to take them to Zhongshan park – slung over by back in sword bags as I cycled through the Beijing traffic – and try out sword dancing of the kind shown in the videos above. I got reasonably proficient, although not to the standard of the women in the clips! Nobody ever gave me any problems, although I was a source of fascination to the Chinese squaddies marching out the barracks in the centre of the park, and on their way to train in the Forbidden City.
Anyway, when I came back to Wales, I decided I couldn’t bring my shashkas; it seemed that they would fall foul of very strict UK laws on the import or sale of curved swords (under the same laws, straight swords are fine, which makes no sense). So, with great regret, I left them with my friend S., along with my Chinese sabres.
Since I returned, I’ve discovered that I probably needn’t have worried; there are plenty of shops selling Chinese and other sabres. Nobody was selling shashkas, though. I found some sites overseas selling them, but they were either the Windlass version (which I wouldn’t buy, as the handle looks completely wrong to me), or Russian makers I knew nothing about. I also didn’t want to run the risk of buying one and then having it confiscated by customs.
However… last week, I found a UK-based retailer selling shashkas from WeaponEdge, an Indian-based manufacturer whose swords seem to get pretty decent reviews – and the shashka, in particular, got a very good write-up on the Sword Buyers’ Guide user forums.
As I mentioned, the Small Steps school train in a different Beijing park every Sunday. Yesterday, it was the Temple of Heaven, right down in the south of the city. There’s now a subway stop outside the East Gate, so that’s how I went – but it seemed to take a loooooong time, and I joined the class about an hour and a half late. Next time we train there, I’ll go on my bike – I think it would be quicker!
The east side of the park is where the crowds are; loads of elderly Beijingers practicing ballroom dancing, Beijing Opera, that weird taiji badminton, kicking feathered weights and so on and so on… There was a new one I hadn’t seen before, of tossing large rubber quoits at one another, and trying to get your head through the centre so that you build up a set of them around your neck like some strange African tribe…. Past all these, and the tourists (both Chinese and foreign), past the vendors of chilled water bottles (yi kuai wu! yi kuai wu! Harlo! Two yuan!) Hehehehe, past the surreal flying saucers of the temple itself, and over the the quieter west side – more open and forest-like. Here, every grove seemed to have its own group of martial artists… One group, near where we were headed, were practising xingyi and bagua; young, heavily muscled, standing motionless in santi, or gliding in circles….
Then I joined Liu Lao Shi, Dalida, and a group of others, who had been there for a long time before I arrived! I was set to working on some of the qigong postures, including a long stretch of zhan zhuang. By the end of all this, my shoulders were really aching! After that, a session of the bagua ‘tea cups’ exercise, which I haven’t done in a long, long time! It was fun, though. All too soon, it seemed, the session was over, and we all went our separate ways.
One of the other students, the Canadian I mentioned, knows something about systema, and we’ve chatted about it before. We agreed yesterday to catch up some time to try training together; I think we could work on some of the exercises from Scott Sonnon’s Softwork DVD….
I went pretty much straight on to my afternoon yiquan class, pausing only for a plate of baozi. Mmmmmm, there’s a branch of the Qing Feng Steamed Baozi chain just around the corner from Yao Lao Shi’s school, and I often eat there on my way to class.
There were four of us there; two foreign, two Chinese. It was a good session, pretty strenuous towards the end. I managed to get in a tui shou session with all three of the other guys, and was feeling pretty strained afterwards; one of them is a lot taller than me, so I had to work pretty hard. Luckily for me, he has a habit of locking himself into a position and then pushing, so he’s pretty much unshiftable if you push against him – but with a swift change of angle, he can’t defend himself. He’s going to be tough to beat once he figures that out…
Then, on to Zhongshan Park. I worked on the ZMQ-37 as usual, giving it a few rounds. Next, the wuji long xing bagua form of Master Zhou – which I haven’t done for a good long while, and needs a bit of refreshing. That’s got a move very similar to one in the ROSS systema ‘wave’ DVD, of stretching out the arms and sending a wave rolling from hand to hand; something got a bit crunchy in my left shoulder when I tried that….
After that, a bit of xuan xuan taiji dao. Mentioning that, I should note that on my way to the park, I’d noticed that my bike was shaking unusually when I braked, so I stopped at the Drum Tower to get it fixed by the bike repair man there. It turned out that the rim of the front wheel was a bit buckled, so that needed changing. While he was building the new wheel, one of his friends noticed the sword bag slung over my back and wanted to know what was in it, so I told him it was a taiji dao. Oh, he said, a taiji jian. No, a taiji dao. Is it long? he asked. Yes. Ahhh, it’s a bagua dao. Sigh. I got it out of the bag to show him. Hahaha, it’s a Japanese sword, not a Chinese sword, he told me. Sigh. I gave up.
In the bag, I also had my shashkas, of course, and I ended my training session in the park with a spell using those.That, and trying a few simple Cossack dance moves…. I’m getting faster and more accurate with one, and a bit more coordinated with two. I don’t think I’m being too forward if I say that I can already do a lot of what this guy is doing (not as well; not as smoothly; but getting there, bit by bit); what I can’t, I should be able to do soon….
My left wrist is going to take a while to train up to be as strong and flexible as it needs to be, though, and my shoulders definitely felt the strain. The left, in particular, is still too tight; it’s difficult to let the sword in my left hand swing naturally. Hehehehe, and one day I must get someone to take a picture of me doing that while a platoon of PLA soldiers marches past, staring at me in curiosity whilst keeping perfect step….
Oh yes, and I mentioned recently that I was still working on finding the correct way to grip the shashkas. Well, since I bought my new MacBook I’ve switched my default browser from Firefox to Chrome, and discovered with great pleasure that it’s got an auto-translate feature by default – which has seamlessly made a whole lot of YouTube comprehensible… Thus, I found myself looking at this, which kind of answered my immediate questions:
I had planned to work late in the office last night, but by the time I’d finished teaching I was feeling a bit jaded and in need of exercise and fresh air. So, I got on my bike and cycled to Zhongshan Park, stopping at home to quickly change and pick up my shashkas.
I got there a little after 7pm; the gates close at 8, so I got in just under an hour of practice. I’m working out various different patterns of swinging the shashka, and I’m getting to understand how to hold it now – which is quite diffferent to the Chinese swords I’ve used in the past. Still, I need to think about this a bit more to be sure I’m doing it properly; I’ve never studied this, but I’m aware that there are many different ways of gripping sword handles. Apparently the ‘handshake’ is the best for the shashka.
There weren’t that many people in the park at that time, which was nice. On my previous visit, last Tuesday, it was a public holiday, and the place was packed; not necessarily a problem, but I had to keep stopping when people tried to photograph or film me (which I don’t want!). Last night, though, it was just me, a few elderly couples, and some security guards. The guards never give me any bother; that’s one of the nice things about China, actually, with its martial arts traditions – you can swing swords around in a public park and it’s regarded as entirely natural
Anyway, I’ve made enough progress with the shashkas that I’m now able to work with one in each hand; when I first tried this, my co-ordination wasn’t good enough. It’s interesting to note some of the sensations here. Long-time readers know that my left shoulder used to be really tensed up. Yiquan really made big improvements there, as I’ve previously noted. When I started using the shashka in my left hand, though, I could still feel that there was stiffness there; that’s going away as I use the swords more.
Using the swords is quite good exercise; I work up a sweat, and afterwards can definitely feel the effort in arms and shoulders, while ‘dancing’ as I move works the legs pretty well. I still need to improve the strength and coordination of my left hand, though – I found little nicks in my leg where the sword had caught them – good thing they aren’t sharp! One other interesting thing: the stainless steel replicas that I bought from taobao feel heavier than the carbon steel one that I bought in Panjiayuan Market; however, I notice that my hand and arm feel more tired after I use the latter. It may just be because of the grip: the replicas have resin handles, the other has a wooden handle and it may just be that I have to work harder with that because it doesn’t slip around in my hand as much as the replicas…
One thing that has amused me in the yiquan classes is that Master Yao and other students have mentioned several times that I’m very strong – which can’t be true as I don’t do any strength training beyond carrying my groceries, and haven’t done so for years. What they’re referring to, I think, is actually that I’ve gotten better at relaxing, so they’re pushing against body mass, not muscle strength. Still, I’ve been thinking that I need to get a bit more active; I’m doing a fair bit of aerobic work simply by dashing around Beijing on my bicycle, but some strength training would be good….
With that in mind, I bought Scott Sonnon’s Flowfit from Amazon. I was under the impression that it was based on his ROSS background, which it isn’t. It’s actually derived from his Prasara Yoga system. Yoga’s totally new to me; I’ve never really looked into it at all, though I have plenty of friends who practice it. Still, since I had it, I thought I’d give it a go, and I’m really enjoying it. It progresses through four levels of difficulty, and I’m taking it easy – just working on the beginner’s level using a stool as a support. Very nice; perhaps I should look into Yoga a bit more.
A German friend of mine went to India last year for a month-long yoga instructor’s course at Svyasa University in Bangalore. It’s apparently very intense, with participants rising at 04:15 and training until 21:30, 7 days a week for the full month! Wow. She’s been training in yoga for several years, but her Bangladeshi husband had no yoga background, and he also passed the same course…. Hmmm That’s something to think about for the summer holidays – add another string to my bow, and see a bit of India as well…. Hehehehe.
I went down to Panjiayuan Market this morning. I haven’t been for ages, and I really don’t know why I’ve left it so long – it’s such an amazing place.
It’s called an “antiques” market, and the quote marks are there for a reason; some stalls, a very few, sell genuine antiques and rarities, but the overwhelming majority are essentially wholesale outlets for the vast output of Chinese cultural epherema, the likes of which can be found in Chinatown stores around the world…. The thing about Panjiayuan, though, is that it’s just so big, and there’s so much to be found here at rock-bottom prices…. The other reason to go is to people-watch – all kinds of tourists, vendors from all over China (notably Tibetans), and a vibrant, incessant, buzz of haggling, debate – the heartbeat of a great bazaar…
I was there for a purpose; I’d tracked down someone who was selling shashkas online. Unlike the two I bought from Taobao, these are real swords, not replicas. They are, purportedly, genuine Soviet-issue, and that’s why I’m writing this – I think there’s an interesting story here…
So: the shashkas are Soviet cavalry issue, which means that they have the bayonet of a Mosin-Nagant 1891/30 carbine mounted in hoops on the outside of the scabbard. Soviet practice in the 1930s was for infantry to keep their bayonets permanently fixed; for cavalry using carbines, this was obviously impractical, so the bayonet was carried with the shashka.
The seller was offering two different types of shashka. One, a trooper’s version, is obviously the model for the Windlass shasqua – the curve of the handle essentially follows the angle of the blade. The other, the officer’s version, has a rounded tip rather than the classic pointy shashka tip, with the handle being strongly angled counter to the curve of the blade, thus giving more leverage.
I’d done some research online, and found that there is a strong belief that these swords are fake – recently manufactured, and artificially aged. One writer points out that cossack swords were made to be used, and photographs of these swords show no sign of use in anger.
Now, let’s face it: this is absolutely plausible. Contemporary China is awash with fakes of anything that can be faked, not to mention determined efforts to fake things that shouldn’t be fakeable! So, it shouldn’t be in any way a surprise if these came out of a factory recently, or even are leftover props from a Chinese movie.
On the other hand, the seller insists on their authenticity. When I asked him how these Soviet swords came to be in China, his reply was that the Soviets and the Chinese were allies against the Japanese; after the end of WW2, a number of soldiers in the allied armies swapped weapons as souvenirs. He comes from a town in north-east China, and by some means has come into possession of a hundred or so of these Soviet-issue swords.
This is actually plausible – which is what I find interesting, because it involves an aspect of WW2 that is completely unknown to most Westerners.
The Empire of Japan occupied and colonized Manchuria, in north-east China, during the 1930s. They spread into Inner Mongolia, and attempted to take Mongolia proper as well. The status of Mongolia was unclear at that time; the Chinese Empire had claimed it as part of their territory, but since the declaration of the Republic of China in 1911 Mongolia had essentially been an independent, and Communist, state. As the Japanese threat grew, the Mongolians appealed to the Soviet Union for help, which was forthcoming. In a series of clashes, the Soviets decisively defeated the Japanese, and Mongolian independence was preserved.
This might not have been the end of the story, but then WW2 broke out. The Japanese needed their armies in South-East Asia, while the Soviets needed theirs in Europe. Neither side wanted to be tied up in northern Asia, so a neutrality pact was signed.
During WW2, Mongolia provided material and financial support for the Soviet war effort, but its armed forces, which were mostly cavalry, did not participate in the conflict.
With the allied victory in Europe, the Soviets – following an agreement with the US and UK – declared war on Japan, and invaded Manchuria.
Part of their invasion force was the Soviet Mongolian Cavalry Mechanized Group – which, as the name suggests, was mostly composed of Mongolian cavalry units – who hadn’t participated in the fighting against Germany, but were equipped entirely with Soviet weapons…. These cavalry units actually didn’t fight much against the Japanese either, capturing a lot of territory largely without resistance after outflanking Japanese units…
So, is it conceivable that Mongolian Communist cavalry, equipped with Soviet weapons including shashkas that had never been used in combat, were received as triumphant victors and allies by Chinese troops (either Guomindang or Communist)?
Absolutely it is….. And with the subsequent falling out between the USSR and Maoist China, it’s quite likely that these swords would have been kept hidden away….
Is this the real story of these swords? Or are they simply fakes? I don’t know, and there’s no way for me to find out at the moment. It doesn’t really matter, either – because there’s nothing wrong with the quality of the swords as far as I can tell. So, I’ve acquired today a pretty good sword at a price far, far below what it would cost in the West.
As to why all of my recent posts seem to have been about Russian martial arts, I’m coming to that.
The air quality was bad yesterday, so I didn’t try to get to the hills in the end… Pity, the day before was beautiful, sunny with blue, blue skies and a cool wind; I’d got quite excited about getting away from the city…
Anyhow, I went on to the yiquan class, and was really glad I went.
I’ve been working for a while on the mo ca bu stepping; trying to engage the kua as I step.. I think I’ve got it working fairly well now, at least in the slow shi li stages. I notice that when I get it right, I’m really rooted on the back leg, so the forward foot is both weightless, and slides naturally along the curve that Yao Lao Shi shows us.
There are a couple of German lads visiting; they train with Yao Lao Shi’s student who’s set up a school in Austria. There were also a few young Chinese lads, whom I’ve seen before but not for quite a long time.
The tui shou session was great. First, I trained with one of the Chinese lads, who was very good. He landed a few slaps and punches, but I delivered a lot more, I think. Then, I went straight on to partner one of the Germans, who was a bit better than me, but not by a lot. He managed to turn me and uproot my a couple of times, but on the other hand I was able to slip through his defenses with punches fairly easily and often.
So, in review: both of these guys were much younger than me and train harder than I do, but I think I acquitted myself well enough. My rooting is generally pretty good, and my defenses are strong. The German, as I say, turned me round, but I think I know what I did wrong. My use of my kua is good in the slow testing, but I keep forgetting to do it in the heat of tui shou; once I can remember that, I’ll be better placed to use fa li. I’m getting much better at staying focused on my partner’s centreline, and at redirecting force away from mine. I’m a bit too passive, and tend to just stay on the defensive.
Not a bad position to be in, and I have some clear areas for improvement.
Master Yao asked me to write an article about my experience of being a student at his school; it’ll go on his web site, and also in a magazine that will be published soon (not sure exactly what that is). Yikes! I need to think about what’ll be the right tone and approach to take for that….
After the class, I went to Beihai Park instead of the hills, and mooched around for a while. I hadn’t realized how close it is to my apartment if I cut through the hutongs! I finally saw the famous nine-dragon screen…
I took one of the shashkas and found a quiet spot to practice some more with that, alone except for the impassive gaze of an old man and his caged songbird….
I got up early this morning, and headed over to Ditan Park for a change, just north of the Lama Temple. As you can see, it was a beautiful morning, with large numbers of people standing below the trees – stretching, chanting mantras, meditating, and doing lots of different forms of qigong. I spent a while in zhan zhuang with my back to a cedar (?) tree, and facing a small pine, inhaling the intoxicating scent of an early northern hemisphere spring day…. ahhhhhhhhhh…….
I took the shashkas. The pictures will give you an idea of what they look like compared to my taiji sabre. What surprised me is that they’re heavy – much heavier than the taiji sabre; of course, they’re stainless steel, while the sabre is aluminium, so it’s natural, I just hadn’t thought of it. The scabbards are also steel, covered with a very thin layer of faux-leather, so it was quite a bit of weight to be carrying altogether! The handles are hard plastic. I think they may get very slippery if I use them in hotter temperatures than this morning; in addition, the grooves were really grinding the skin on my hands – I have a few blisters. I think that somewhere I have a roll of non-slip tape, and I may put that over the handles.
That aside, they were a joy to use; they handle really well. I can see that using these babies will be a good workout for wrists, shoulders, back and waist…. Once I get the hang of it!
OK, I’ll report more later; now I’m off to yiquan class, and then I think I may head off to enjoy a sunny afternoon in the hills….
Yes… Rather delayed, but that only added to the anticipation…. My shashkas have arrived… and boy, are they nice! I can’t swing them around much in my apartment without decapitating my Buddha statue or disembowelling the sofa, so a full review and photos will come after I’ve gotten them out to a park… but they handle really nicely, though in completely different way to my Chinese swords; that beak on the pommel makes a huge difference!
