Gun
棍 · gùn
Literally: staff, stick
Also known as: bàng, côn
A Chinese staff roughly as tall as its user, thicker at the base and tapering to the tip; one of the four main weapons of Chinese martial arts.
Quick Facts
ChinaAbout the weapon
Gun is a Chinese staff, one of the four main weapons of Chinese martial arts alongside the qiang spear, the dao sabre and the jian sword. The character 棍 literally means staff or stick; the staff is also denoted by the character 棒 (bàng). When the staff became established as a separate weapon in Chinese martial arts, we have not been able to establish from the sources. The staff has a thicker end that serves as the base and a thinner end at the tip; it is cut roughly to the user's height, that is, about 6 feet (183 cm). Today's staffs are usually of waxwood or rattan, some have metal or rubber parts, and competition staffs are usually of light carbon fibre. The staff discipline gunshu was, for its popularity, one of the four main weapon disciplines at the 1st Wushu World Championships. IWUF created three standardised forms; the first compulsory form was composed and recorded by Yuan Wenqing in 1989. Competition rules list eight compulsory techniques, among them píng lūn gùn (horizontal windmill of the staff) and yún gùn (circling of the staff, "cloud"). Among traditional forms are the Shaolin Zhui Feng Gun, "staff chasing the wind", and the tai chi staff. In Vietnamese martial arts the same weapon is called côn.