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Wushu - Weapons -
Qiang Shu
The spear is one of the 'long'
weapons used in wushu. It's a weapon that was used a lot on the Chinese
battlefields. It's fabricated from very flexible wood, which makes it very hard
to break the spear.
In wushu competition the spear is a spectacular event, while the spear is often
thrown in the air, while the performer makes a difficult move, to then again
catch the spear and continue the routine.
Qiang (Chinese: 槍;
pinyin: qīang) is the Chinese term for spear. Due to its relative ease of
manufacture, the spear in many variations was one of the most ubiquitous weapons
of the pre-modern Chinese battlefield. It is known as one of the four major
weapons, along with the staff, saber, and the sword, called in this group "The
King of Weapons".
Common features of the Chinese
spear are the leaf shaped blade and red horse-hair tassle lashed just
below. When the spear is moving quickly, the addition of the tassle aids
in blurring the vision of the opponent so that it is more difficult for
them to grab the spear they are being attacked with behind the point. The
tassle also served another purpose, to stop the flow of blood from the
blade getting to the wooden shaft (the blood would make it slippery or
sticky when dried). The length varied from around 7 feet (2 meters) long,
commonly used by infantry, increasing up to the length of 13 feet (4
meters) favoured by cavalry. The spear is typically made of Wax Wood, a
strong but flexible wood. It bends to absorb impact preventing breakage.
The bending motion combined with the horse hair tassle makes the spear tip
very hard to follow.
Many Chinese martial arts
feature spear training in their curriculum. The conditioning provided by
spear technique is seen as invaluable and in many styles it is the first
weapons training introduced to students. Moreover, some schools of empty
handed fighting in China credit spear technique as their foundation,
notably Xingyiquan and Bajiquan.
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on the picture to enlarge...
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