What CMA styles would teach the dao and dadao?

**Dickhead** · Posted On: 12/30/2012 11:01am

Just curious. I've been debating on taking a weapons class at a local CMA place to try it out and see how it stacks up against Kali. There are a couple of kung fu places locally, and am wondering what styles would teach these weapons and any background info on them. The one place I stopped in at said they'd charge me less to go to just the weapons class, although the guy seemed like kind of a goof.

**Ming Loyalist** · Posted On: 12/30/2012 11:15am

the majority of CMA schools will teach the dao, but finding one that does *any* type of sparring with practice weapons or sticks is extremely rare, let alone on a regular basis and with any degree of intensity.

not really worth your time, IMO, don't bother.

**Anjin** · Posted On: 12/30/2012 12:37pm

I think a few Bagua schools use a big dao for conditioning purposes, like Ming said idk about the chances of you finding a place that will teach you how to actually fight with one.

**Dickhead** · Posted On: 12/30/2012 1:36pm

Thanks, guys. I think I'm going to not even bother.

**Cullion** · Posted On: 12/30/2012 1:47pm

I once heard of a Tai Chi teacher living in the US who used to teach Jian applications with sparring, using a bamboo stick or bamboo practice sword of some kind, but I don't think his students carried on the tradition.

**ChenPengFi** · Posted On: 12/30/2012 1:56pm

I really wish i could disagree with Ming's sentiment.
You'd be better served looking into HEMA perhaps.

***Omega Supreme*** · Posted On: 12/30/2012 2:16pm

Actually we used to do it. Unfortunately it was hard to mimick the true techniques as they were intended. As for the DaDao....um no.

**Dickhead** · Posted On: 12/30/2012 2:28pm

It's cool. I was basically just thinking about the dadao because it looks cool. It's not like I'd ever have occasion to use it. The same could almost be said of stick fighting.
Omega, do you say "...um, no" because it's hard to find the techniques or for another reason? Just curious.

***Omega Supreme*** · Posted On: 12/30/2012 2:47pm

Originally Posted by Dickhead

It's cool. I was basically just thinking about the dadao because it looks cool. It's not like I'd ever have occasion to use it. The same could almost be said of stick fighting.
Omega, do you say "...um, no" because it's hard to find the techniques or for another reason? Just curious.

Nah, truthfully never learned it so I could never pass it on.

**Ming Loyalist** · Posted On: 12/30/2012 3:59pm

Originally Posted by Omega Supreme

Actually we used to do it. Unfortunately it was hard to mimick the true techniques as they were intended. As for the DaDao....um no.

we did it a bit too, also with poles for the long weapon stuff, but it was a small group within the school, never caught on, and ended up being abandoned. the main issues were:

1) expense of masks and proper gloves/chest protectors
2) space constraints (weather permitting, we did this in a park in chinatown, which brought its own set of issues.)
3) once people got hurt they didn't tend to come back
4) lack of a competitive venue (we were training for lei tai, so getting hurt doing weapons work, when there was no real weapons tournament seemed silly.)
5) weapons were mostly seen as strength training workouts with some minimal benefit of the forms teaching some concepts that could benefit a fighter's empty hand techniques (debatable if you ask me.)

they weren't taken seriously as self defense weapons (other than the dao, or the village hung ga double dagger form i learned) because who would think that a kwan do, or a spear would be a realistic self defense weapon? therefore weapons work was very low priority stuff in our curriculum.