Grandmaster Tse’s Chùn Yuén Diaries 俊元日記 23

The length of the string on the tassel should not be too long, the string and tassel together should be around 10 cm to 13 cm, which is a good length for an ordinary sword. Of course, there are different kinds of swords and they may require different lengths of tassel. The colour of the tassel is traditionally red, but nowadays we can have any colour we like, people will have white, yellow, pink, even tassels which are rainbow coloured, what colour you choose all depends on the individual and nobody will mind what colour it is. The most important thing is that we can use it comfortably and it will not affect the handle of the sword. Short tassels are generally only for decoration, but we do have long tassels. When I was studying martial arts in Beijing, my Sīfú 師父, Wu Chun Yuen 武俊元, was good at the long tassel swords, and so I was very lucky to be able to learn it. They are more difficult, as we need to consider not just the movement of the sword, but also, we need to think about which way the tassel goes when we move the sword, and this is not easy. Today this kind long tassel sword forms are not so common to practise, but in my time, in the 80s, it was so popular in China, and I am glad I caught it at the right time.