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The gem, mirror and sword are the three sacred symbols of Japan.

The origin of the warrior goes back to the divine age of antiquity when the central ruler of heaven, the Great Goddess Lighting the Sky, made a pact with her august descendant Ninigi-no-Mikoto, saying, “Let the emperor use artful subtlety like the curve of the sacred gem to govern the earthly administration; use clarity like the sacred mirror to oversee the mountains and rivers, seas and plains; and wield the sacred sword to pacify the earth and benefit the populace.”

The sacred gem symbolizes flexibility and accommodation. The government of the earth should be carried out with the warm, rich quality of humaneness represented by this object. Artful subtlety is expressed by its rounded curvature; the path is not a single fixed straight line but adopts what is suitable to the time, in accord with the context. So it is a way of adapting to the time.

The sacred mirror symbolizes honesty. A mirror doesn’t retain anything but reflects everything impartially, so right and wrong and good and bad features all show. Virtue is to respond sensitively to those features. This is the basis of honesty. For a mirror the essential feature is clarity. When the essence of mind is clear, compassion and decisiveness are therein. If observed with honest intelligence clear as a mirror, there will be no one corrupt at court and no savant neglected in the countryside. With the operation of government honest, and good communication between superior and subordinates, all people will find their places.

The sacred sword symbolizes decisiveness. It implies the imperative to take the side of absolute firmness and freedom from greed to destroy the internal mental enemies selfishness and treachery and execute the external bandits crime and violence, being straightforward and uncorrupted in body and mind and government affairs as well, imbued with the commanding presence to overawe the world.

- Izawa Nagahide

The Wudang sword was developed during the Song Dynasty by Zhang San Feng himself, the first patriarch of Wudang Kung Fu.  Zhang San Feng first practiced Shaolin Kung Fu at the Shaolin Monastery.  Later, he retired to the Wudang Mountain to cultivate Taoism, and where he also developed Wudang Kung Fu, which later became Taijiquan.

“As one of the Wudang martial arts traditions, Wudang Sword was originated at an unknown time.  Famous for its ability to dissolve the enemy’s strength in flexible rotated movements, the swordsmanship focuses on thrashing, stabbing, shelving, etc. The footwork requires gentleness, steadiness, and quickness.  The body moves continuously with the sword forward or backward, in rotation or turning.  It requires the body to move like a flying dragon, the sword like a snake’s tongue, with the unification of hands, eyes, body and feet.  In pair bayonet practice, it requires the triangle skill from the upper, lower, left and right and the skill of Yin-Yang sword rotation.  It stresses non-withstanding, attacking the void and avoiding the solid, changing with motion and striking with nicety and celerity.  Besides a set of formula for moving-pace pair bayonet practice, the tradition contains five sets of formula.”

-  Yuan Kangjiu, Wudang Jian,
Translated by Luo Tongbing, Edited by David Palmer

“Attack during the weak point of the opponent, avoid brute force, and get the opponent in one single attack.  This is the strategic principle of Wu Dang sword play. It suggests “following the flow of opponent’s force and borrowing the opponent’s power”; “remain tranquil to wait for opponent’s movement”; “launch the attack later but hit the opponent before his attack reaches you.” When fighting with an opponent, avoid direct confrontation with his strong force and attack him when his force is weak or near an end. Go around the opponent but attack him along a straight line. Circle around the opponent to enclose his attacks. It also points out that the uniqueness of using a straight sword as weapon is that it is not used to intercept and contact physically with the opponent’s weapon. Instead, a swordsman just finds the gap in the opponent’s defense and attacks him in lightening speed.”

-  Wudang Sword Principles

Wudang Sword Principles:
1.  Change based on opponent’s movement without any fixed rule.
2.  Attack during the weak point of the opponent, avoid brute force, and get the opponent in one single attack.
3.  Body in harmony with the sword and the sword in harmony with the spirit.
4.  Neutralize attack by body movement and walk swiftly lightly and stably.

-  Chinese Taoist Martial Arts Association

Git yr old manuals right here…

Mounted Broadsword Match; USA, c. 1910

U.S. Navy Cutlass Practice 1898

Singlestick practice in Cadets in Brownsville, Texas practicing with hickory sabers.

This are from J. Christopher Amberger’s Fencing Blog. He also wrote The Secret History of the Sword: Adventures in Ancient Martial Arts, which is one of the best sword books out there and highly recommended.

I’m reading this book on dueling that’s really interesting in a number of ways. Here’s one of them.

Certain things were bound to lead to fights, and in particular, being called a liar was at the top of the list of things worth spilling blood over. The below passage from Ludowick Bruskett’s A Discourse of Civill Life (1606) shows such an Old world rhetorical flair, such noble restraint in what we moderns would describe as talking shit and calling somebody a punk bitch.

“I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier’s beard; he sent me word, if I
said his beard was not cut well, he was in the mind it was; this is called
the Retort Courteous. If I send him word again, it was not well cut, he
would send me word that he cut it to please himself; this was called the Quip
Modest. If again it was not well cut, he disabled my judgment; this is
called the Reply Churlish. If again it was not well cut, he would answer I
spake not true; this is called the Reproof Valiant. If again it was not
well cut, he would say, I lie, this is called the Countercheck Quarrelsome.
And so to the Lie Circumstantial and the Lie Direct.”

And then its sabers in the dawn light.

This article by J. Christopher Amberger is good and scholarly.

The Filipino arts of arnis and eskrima have their own specimen of diffusionist theory to show for. One of the most pervasive is the recently publicized assumption that espada y daga and doble baston are not only analogous to the conquistadors’ rapier and dagger, but directly influenced by the Spanish systems.

From a pre-politically correct Western point of view, the uninventiveness of non-Western societies has always been a mainstay of diffusionists and cultural colonialists alike. And in the case of eskrima, there are indeed superficial similarities that would point at Spanish influence:

Both systems involve a longer and a shorter bladed weapon. And the footwork of both the modern eskrima and that of the Spanish rapier schools involve geometric patterns.

But nobody who has been at the receiving end of the rapid double-barreled barrage of cuts, the fleeting yet granite-hard blocks, and explosive disarms of a modern arnis master such as Mark Wiley and then witnessed the nimble-footed, deliberate application of fencing space and time as exhibited by Spanish rapier master Ramon Martinez can shake the impression that when it comes to the Filipino and Spanish systems, we’re looking at two different animals indeed.

A closer look at the combative backgrounds of the two systems points out considerable incongruencies.