Scott M. Rodell about our weaponry

Scott M. Rodell
Scott M. Rodell is the founder and director of Great River Taoist Center headquartered in Washington, DC with Branches in the US and Europe. There he teaches Yang Family Taijiquan, and Chinese Historical swordsmanship based on the Yang Family Michuan Taiji Jian he studied with Wang Yennian and the public Yang Style Taiji Jian he studied with T.T. Liang. He has over 25 years of training experience in these styles.

Rodell is author of the books: "Chinese Swordsmanship, the Yang Family Taiji Jian Tradition", "Taiji Notebook for Martial Artists" and the forth coming, "Late Qing Swords and Swordsmanship." He is also moderator of the Chinese swords and Swordsmanship discussion forum at www.swordforum.com.

As proprietor of Seven Stars Trading, a company specialized in imperial Chinese arms and armor, Rodell has examined and handled roughly 3000 antique swords and owns more imperial swords than most museums have in their collections.

In short, if there is anyone knowledgeable on how Chinese swords should look, feel and handle, it is Scott M. Rodell.

August 2006

When our wooden jian development had came to an end, I sent two of them to sifu Scott Rodell for product testing. Here are his conclusions:

"Historical Design Authenticity- Both the weights & lengths of the examples provided are within the norm for Qing dynasty jian. The same is true of the overall proportions of the guard to hilt, grip to blade length etc.

Rating- Mandarin Mansion's Wooden Jian are excellent training tools. It can be quite difficult to reproduce an accurate model of a steel sword in wood. While no wooden jian is ever going to play & handle just as its steel counterpart does, the Mandarin Mansion Wood Jian gets as close to it as can be expected."

The full review can be read here.

April 2006

This time I had arranged a factory visit at the Huanuo Sword Arts factory, where he did some test cutting on material. Sifu Scott M. Rodell was very impressed about the Royal Peony jian and said it was "exactly right" in terms of weight, balance and most importantly, feel. He also stated that he found it's fittings very nice and said he had encountered some antique jian that looked a lot like it. When handling and cutting with the niuweidao he also found it to be right on in terms of handling, weight and balance. The fittings were a bit more detailed than normally seen on these swords, but their style was an existing style of fittings on antiques. The only downside on the niuweidao (both jian we cut with did not have this) was that the nut needed an occasional retightening because it came loose, making the grip rattle after cutting for a while.

Some of the anvils at the Huanuo workshop. This is the room where the folded swords are beaten into shape, heated, and tempered.

Peter Dekker of Mandarin Mansion cutting a piece of bamboo, in a succesful attempt to apply sifu Scott's instructions.

Sifu Rodell securing a stalk of bamboo for another cutting attempt by Peter Dekker. To see how Scott does this himself, watch the video clip below.

Scott Rodell and Fred Chen discuss the construction of the hilt of the niuweidao.

You can take a look at a video I shot of Scott M. Rodell cutting at the Huanuo sword factory below. The editing of this video was his own work.

Historical Sword and Saber Test Cutting

This footage of Scott M. Rodell demonstrates historically accurate cutting techniques with both a sword (jian) and saber (dao).

DISCLAIMER: This video presentation is for demonstration purposes only. THE PRACTICE OF SWORDSMANSHIP, LIKE ANY OTHER MARTIAL ART, IS ITSELF A DANGEROUS ACTIVITY. You can absolutely expect to be injured, perhaps seriously, in the course of studying and practice martial arts. That is the nature of serious training in any martial art, this one included. Neither the author nor the publisher has any responsibility for injuries that you or anyone else might incur.

November 2005

By Peter Dekker
Final edit and approvement by Scott. M. Rodell

When Scott M. Rodell came to teach a seminar of historical Chinese swordsmanship in Amsterdam, I brought some of our weapons for review. Scott briefly examined them during the break and gave us a first impression.

jian
As a jian swordsman, Rodell examined the feilongjian and carp jian first. The length, weight and balance of the swords were good (hearing that from Rodell means it's within historical limits.)

Tapping the pommel Rodell noticed these swords did not have the heat treatment antique weapons have, thus giving them a different feel when vibrating. He stated this is a major difference between new and antique swords, and that nowadays only skilled sword smiths can make swords with this kind of heat treatment and those swords come with a considerable price.

The fittings were not the standard fittings you would find on antique jian. In contrary to what is commonly believed, the guard of a standard jian was backward swept and not forward swept as the many replicas we see today. However, he said it would be reasonably safe to say they were inspired by Ming dynasty style. Most jian have unwrapped wooden handles or handles covered in ray skin and the handle wrapping of our jian is more common on dao, but did exist on some jian.

liuyedao
Rodell was very pleased about the appearance of this sword. The dragon mouth collar, handle wrapping, fitting style and scabbard construction were all obviously directly inspired from an antique. The backedge does not run all the way to the tip and is not sharpened so it is not a functional backedge as seen on many yanmaodao (goose quill saber). The blade is more curved making it a less potent stabbing weapon than the yanmaodao. He concluded it was a liuyedao (willow leaf saber) with some yanmaodao influences.

yinyuedao
Rodell found it a very nice replica, and he could see the blade and dragon mouth collar were taken from an original example. He did think that the original guard might have been thicker on the original one and not decorated with clouds as this one was. Length and weight seemed to match the originals as well.
"Overall teacher Rodell felt, for the price, these swords made good tools for contemporary training.