Why Study Weapons?

In this day and age, with guns, bombs and missiles, the age of swords and spears as weapons is long over. So why do we still learn them? After all, while learning taiji pushing hands can be a skill for self-defence, no one is going to be walking around carrying a sword or spear anymore, so skills with them seems less practical.

Well, as a means for self-defence, you would be better off learning pushing hands than trying to get something out of taiji sword. But that does not mean taiji sword is useless in this day and age.

Learning weapons is a good way to see how far you have progressed in your taiji skills. After all, weapons or not, the same principles apply, which is to avoid using brute force, that strength comes from the legs, to relax the body, to keep yourself upright, etc. If your application of strength is wrong, you will see it all the more clearly when using weapons, as you will find that you cannot channel your strength to the requirements for each movement. For example, if your wrist is not relaxed enough, the tassel will start to wrap around your wrist when you practise taiji sword.

So the biggest reward from learning weapons is not in the self-defence skills that you may pick up, but in the self-understanding that you will gain about your own strength and its application.