Secrets of the Sword | Shielding with your Sword

A very important first principle when using a sword is that your body should stay behind the sword. It may sound obvious but it’s very much worth mentioning right at the start that you need to keep your sword between yourself and your attacker so that their weapon has to get past yours in order to reach you. This is especially true when using a Chinese jian where you might not be carrying a shield or buckler in your other hand, so it’s essential for your sword itself to provide an effective shield between you and your opponent.

When examining your own sword routine, the question to ask yourself is: “Where is the opponent?” Ideally, maintain this awareness, consciously or unconsciously, all the way through your sequence. Are there times when, however enjoyable or skilful the movement might be, you would be leaving your body unguarded in a real fight?

You might be better equipped to answer that question when you have explored the thirteen sword techniques that we are about to discuss but, for now, let’s start by asking “how is it even possible that a sword can be thought of as a shield?” and “what skills might you need to develop for that to happen?”

An essential type of drill to practice regularly until it becomes second nature involves circling the sword in large, sweeping loops that can wrap around your body in a figure of eight or infinity symbol. Just imagine that shape in the air around you as a three-dimensional surface and you can immediately see that this might present a more formidable obstacle for an opponent to get past than a stationary sword held out in front of you. But it’s not just there for show. The fact that the sword is moving continuously provides you with endless opportunities for both attack and defence. You can use it to intercept, parry, evade, stick, control, redirect and counterattack very quickly and with very little effort.

There are several ways you can do this, depending on whether your sword is moving clockwise or anticlockwise, whether your palm is facing inwards or outwards and whether the tip of the blade is leading or following the hilt.

With a broadsword (dao or sabre), there is only one cutting edge so this should be leading all the time, as there’s usually little to be gained from its blunt edge travelling backwards. It can travel in two directions, either slicing or chopping downwards (Pi – pronounced “pee”) in front of you and then circling up the outsides of the infinity loop, or the reverse, using an upward slicing sweep of the blade (Ti – pronounced “tee”) each time it passes your centre line before whirling round and down the outside of each loop. Ti can be used to slice vertically or diagonally upwards (in some systems this is an action known as Liao) or it can be used to intercept, lift and deflect an attacker’s sword upwards and outwards as you advance forwards or retreat backwards.

With a straight sword (jian) there are two sharp blades and a sharp point, so there are many more possibilities for this exercise, depending on which edge is leading at any time and which direction it’s moving in, and you can even do it with the point leading as it plunges down in front of you and is brought up and over to plunge down again, an action called Xi. The word Xi (pronounced shee) or “washing” comes from the image of a newly forged sword being lifted in the air and circled around to plunge downwards into cold water in front of you before rising upwards out of the water to dry. This requires larger arm movements than when leading with an edge of the blade, where the arm may barely move at all and the action can be mostly in the wrist, depending on how heavy the sword is. Pi, Ti and Xi are just three of the thirteen sword techniques we are about to discuss.

The loops formed by the tip of the blade can be large or small, circular or elliptical and almost horizontal, and you can practice them while imagining a combination of slicing upwards or downwards, right or left, diagonally both ways, or a combination of all these things, which in European sword is known as a moulinet, along with various parries off the curves. After lots of practice of these various sweeping circles as training exercises, you can develop greater dexterity, feel for yourself the natural momentum and flow of the sword and begin to see how it can incorporate many of the skills we are about to explore.

Looking at your own form, perhaps notice where the sword sweeps around in arcs during the sequence and how these assist the smooth continuous flow of the weapon. Imagine a light bulb at the end of your sword leaving a visible golden trail in the air as it sweeps in loops and spirals through the form. Notice how many of these are powered by the whole body, rather than just an arm, and feel how the sword is like an extension of your arm, allowing energy to flow smoothly via your dantien and waist, all the way to the tip of your sword. There will be sudden explosive movements where you issue that energy (Fa Jin) to lunge, draw back or strike, and others where the smoothness of the transitions is almost mesmerising.