Grandmaster Tse’s Chùn Yuén Diaries 俊元日記 24

Not all sword forms will use the short tassel. The sword forms Qīng Lóng Jiàn 青龍劔 – Green Dragon Sword, Bái Hè Jiàn 白鶴劔 – White Crane Sword and

Lóng Fèng Jiàn 龍鳳劔 – Dragon and Pheonix Sword , all use a very long tassel, and these  Zhǎng Suì Jiàn 長穗劔 –  Long Tassel Swords. Having such a long tassel makes the form much more difficult to practise than a normal sword form.

How long should the tassel be? To answer this we first need to know how long the sword should be. Generally, when we hold the sword by the handle with our hand down by the side, the tip of the sword should reach the top of our ear, it can be a little bit shorter or a little bit longer, but it should not be too short or too long, otherwise you cannot use the sword well. This means the length of the sword actually depends on the height of the person.

The weight and balance of the sword is also important. We test the balance point of a sword by using the middle and index fingers. We place the sword across our fingers to find where the sword is balanced. The balance should be roughly 1/3 of the length of the sword, closest to the handle. So, for example, if the blade is 36 cm long, the point of balance should be on the blade, around 12 cm from the base of the handle. When the balance is right, then playing with the sword feels much better and we feel we are in control of it.

The length of the tassel and string should be the same length as a sword, so if we place the tip of the sword on the floor, the string and tassel should hang down from the top of the handle to the floor, the length of the string should be slightly shorter than the length of the tassel.