I’m not sure where to put this thread. I hope this is ok.
I started Wushu a few months back. My coach asked me at the end of last class whether I wanted to do Long Form weapons or Short Form weapons. I said I’d think about it. We didn’t really have time to talk about it after class, and I’ll talk with him at the next class about it, but I was curious as to what exactly the differences are between the two types of weapons? Which one is better? Can I learn both eventually? Thanks for the help.
It looks like the “short” weapons are all swords, and the “long” weapons are spear/staff weapons.
I’m not sure that’s correct. In Wushu, I think the Broad Sword is a Long-Form weapon while the Straight Sword is a Short-Form weapon, and I think the Staff is Long-Form while the Spear is Short-Form. I could be incorrect, though.
I’d ask your coach.
It’s not necessarily a standardized convention.
Several forms have a long and a short version. It’s basically the same form more or less - focusing on the same issues and principles - but one has more to it than the other.
Compare the 13 golden Postures of Wu style Tai Chi to the “long form” of 108.
Theoretically the “same” form, yet one is a whole lot longer than the other
Yeah, I’ll ask him on Tuesday when we have class again. Thanks for the responses.
If you mean the form itself then I’d imagine you’d want to learn the short forms if you’ve only been doing it a few months. If you’re talking about short weapons vs. long weapons, that’s slightly different.
At my old public wushu club where I first started the coach had it set that you had to have been atleast in the 3rd semester before you could really start picking up a short weapon. Then I think a semester or two later you were allowed to start learning long weapons.
Short weapons usually = broadsword/straigthsword, long weapons usually = staff/spear. If your school is more flexible they might let you learn the exotic “Other Weapons” such as daggers, 3-section-staff, etc., though usually they’re somewhat difficult to learn for beginners. I’d imagine you’d be best off learning short weapons first.
What school are you attending? I live in the Los Angeles area and have been to several wushu schools.