Wudang Sword
武當劍A tradition of straight-sword jian fencing tied to Mount Wudang. It was made public by General Li Jinglin, pupil of Song Weiyi, whose manual appeared in Beijing in 1923.
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About Wudang Sword
The Wudang sword is a body of techniques for the straight sword jian, which English Wikipedia places under wudangquan, the internal martial arts, and which Ben Judkins's blog Kung Fu Tea describes as a tradition and a system of swordsmanship. It has no separate listing on the national intangible heritage list. The national listing for Wudang martial arts (item VI-8, Shiyan city, Hubei province, 2006) states that many distinctive methods of fist and sword developed from them.
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By tradition the lineage is traced to Zhang Sanfeng and his pupil Zhang Songxi, but that is a claim of the lineage, not a historical proof. We have not found evidence of a founder or a year of origin. According to the agency Chinanews, Song Weiyi was the ninth heir of the Dan branch and the first to write a manual on the Wudang sword, published in Beijing in 1923. According to Chinanews, he accepted the fourteen-year-old Li Jinglin as a pupil in a unit of young soldiers in Shenyang, while Kung Fu Tea gives Luoyang instead. In 1922, according to Chinanews, they met again in Beizhen and Song gave Li his manual, making Li the tenth heir. Kung Fu Tea also gives a version in which they met for the first time in 1922. Li Jinglin (1885 to 1931) made public, with Song's consent, a method that had until then been passed on in secret. In March 1928 he became deputy director of the newly founded Guoshu Academy and in the same year helped organise the first national martial arts examinations. According to Kung Fu Tea, Song's curriculum had no fixed forms, and for mass teaching Li created the forms Xing Jian, Dui Jian for two people and a longer form of six sections. His pupil Huang Yuanxiu wrote the book The Essence of the Wudang Art of the Sword, which Kung Fu Tea dates to 1931, while the publisher of the English translation dates it to 1930. The national description of Wudang martial arts names as obstacles to transmission the old Taoist principle of secret single-line transmission, advanced age and the dispersal of today's heirs.
History
The national listing for Wudang martial arts (item VI-8, Shiyan 2006) names Mount Wudang in Hubei as their cradle and the Taoist Zhang Sanfeng, from the end of the Yuan dynasty and the beginning of the Ming, as their founder. According to the agency Chinanews, the Wudang sword is divided into three levels and nine branches, the upper and middle levels were lost and only the lower level with three branches survived, and the first heir of the Dan branch was Zhang Songxi, the ninth pupil of Zhang Sanfeng. This is a transmission of a lineage, not a historical proof. English Wikipedia says that the earliest credible accounts begin with Song Weiyi around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and that he learned the sword from the Taoist Zhang Yehe, the eighth holder of the lineage.
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According to Chinanews, Song Weiyi was the ninth heir of the Dan branch and the first to write a manual on the Wudang sword. At fourteen, Li Jinglin joined the unit of young soldiers in Shenyang, and Song taught him in secret. Kung Fu Tea says that Li entered a youth corps in Luoyang in 1898 at the age of thirteen and that, according to some sources, Song guided him. In 1922, according to Chinanews, Li commanded the First Division of the Three Eastern Provinces in Beizhen, teacher and pupil met again and Song gave him his manual, making Li the tenth heir of the Dan branch. According to another version given by Kung Fu Tea, an officer brought Song to Li in 1922 and Li invited him to live with him as a personal fencing teacher. In his biographical appendix, according to Kung Fu Tea, Huang Yuanxiu derives Li's lineage from the hermit Chen Shijun of Anhui and does not mention Song at all. Song's manual was published in Beijing in 1923 and, according to Kung Fu Tea, was, as far as the author knows, the very first publication on the Wudang sword. With Song's consent, Li Jinglin made public a method that had until then been passed on in secret. In March 1928 he was appointed deputy director of the new Guoshu Academy, in the same year he helped organise the first national martial arts examinations, and in 1930 he co-founded the Shanghai Guoshu Institute. In 1931 he fell ill, returned to Jinan and died at the age of 47. After his death, according to Kung Fu Tea, other pupils adapted and compiled a number of Wudang sword forms.
How it differs
Wudang sword has no separate inscription on the state list. The state description of Wudang martial arts names taijiquan, xingyiquan and baguazhang as their core, from which many distinctive methods of fist and sword arose. Kung Fu Tea speaks of a tradition and system of swordsmanship with thirteen techniques, English Wikipedia of a set of jian sword techniques within wudangquan, and the Wudang Dan Pai school treats it as the main element of its lineage. Green states that the Central Martial Arts Institute in Nanjing, founded in 1927 according to him, was originally divided into a Wudang branch, which included only taijiquan, baguazhang and xingyiquan, and a Shaolin branch for all other styles. Kung Fu Tea explicitly states, as its own conjecture, that this division may have reflected Li's zealous promotion of the term Wudang.
Technique
According to Kung Fu Tea, Song's jian curriculum had no fixed forms, but it contained supplementary neigong exercises and bare-hand exercises. The form Wu Jian, a dance with the sword which Song handed down, was a kind of free play or shadow fighting in which the practitioner moved fluidly and improvisationally between the thirteen techniques of the system. So that the Wudang sword could be taught to groups, Li Jinglin created, according to Kung Fu Tea, forms for teaching. First Xing Jian, the sword with flowing steps, which took its steps directly from baguazhang, then Dui Jian, a form for two, and a longer form of six sections. The Wudang Dan Pai school states of its curriculum a form of 132 movements in six sections, a fighting form for two, a form with sword and Taoist whisk, and exercises for both hands with the fundamental four and thirteen techniques.
Training
The Wudang Dan Pai school states about its training that sword sparring has three levels, fixed-step, triangle and free-step sparring, and that it works at three heights called heaven, man and earth, with training swords and protective gear. According to the same school, there are two branches of Wudang Dan Pai, one focused on a form with six sections, the other on the sword with flowing footwork. Kung Fu Tea states that Li's method of Wudang sword was studied by Chen Weiming and Chen Zhijin shortly after his arrival in the south, and that in Hangzhou Li accepted Li Yulin as a student, who then taught the Dan branch sword in Beijing. We have not found an independent description of how the training is structured.
Today
The state description of Wudang martial arts lists as obstacles to transmission the old Taoist principle of secret single-line transmission, the advanced age and dispersal of today's heirs, and insufficient theoretical research. Among martial arts with the sword, only another sword tradition, Qingpingjian, has a separate inscription on the state list. Kung Fu Tea judges that the Wudang sword tradition would not exist in its present form without Li's pioneering efforts, and that it is an open question whether today's enthusiasm for Wudang would exist without him.
Did you know
According to Kung Fu Tea, Li Jinglin invited swordsmen from all over China to visit him and test his art, and the folklore of many lineages tells of masters who defeated him or were defeated by him in these exchanges. He was called the Sword Saint, and the blog's author notes that when he acquired the nickname will probably remain unclear. Chinanews gives his honorary names as jianxian and shenjian Li. The festival on Mount Wudang, which was inscribed on the state list in 2008, includes, according to the state description, watching competitions in Wudang martial arts on the leitai.
Frequently asked questions
Who founded Wudang sword?
We have not found a documented founder. The lineage tradition traces it to Zhang Sanfeng and Zhang Songxi, and according to English Wikipedia the earliest credible reports begin with Song Weiyi around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Is Wudang sword a style in its own right?
It has no separate inscription on the state list, and the state inscription of Wudang martial arts includes the sword among its methods. Kung Fu Tea describes it as a tradition and a system of swordsmanship.
Who was Li Jinglin?
Li Jinglin (1885 to 1931) was a general and sword master who, according to Chinanews, took over the tradition from Song Weiyi and made it public. In 1928 he became deputy director of the Guoshu Academy.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.