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Wudang Daoist Traditional
Kungfu Academy
Wudang Straight Sword (武当剑)
— The Four Sword Styles
Wudang is famous for its traditional straight sword styles. Training sword forms has long been viewed as a higher form of martial arts training. The training guides the body through powerful and smooth movements, and in an adept martial artist the sword becomes another "limb" to their training and techniques.
There are four sword styles taught in the San Feng lineage: Mysterious Gate (Xuan Men), Dragon (Long Hua), Eight Immortals (Ba Xian), and Tai Ji sword forms. Each style has its own unique qualities and adds its own personality and flavor to the basic Wudang Sword techniques.
The Wudang Sword Tradition
Long Hua Jian combines the body style of dragon forms with sword techniques — both parrying and striking — to create a powerful, lithe, and vicious style. This form embodies twisting, striking, moving, yielding, and deflecting quickly in circular patterns. Just as a dragon flying through the clouds, Dragon Sword is meant to be abrupt yet smooth, smooth yet fast, fast yet powerful, powerful yet calm.
Xuan Men Jian (玄门剑) — Mysterious Gate Sword
Xuan Men Jian flows through movements, building momentum from slow to fast, striking from high to low, and opening the body in large thrusts to closing into close patterns. This form teaches how to parry sword attacks and turn the body naturally, making the following movement into an offensive advance. Yielding and advancing simultaneously, the practitioner learns to adapt body coordination into a beneficial position after each movement.
Long Hua Jian (龙华剑) — Dragon Sword
Ba Xian Jian (八仙剑) — Eight Immortals Sword
Ba Xian Jian is designed around the personalities and attributes of the Eight Immortals of Chinese and Daoist lore. Each Immortal has characteristics portrayed into movements with the sword, giving the style a poetic feel — many moves interpreted as "play" performed by each immortal. This style is more advanced because one must have the basics of the straight sword before adding the styles of the Eight Immortals.
Tai Ji Jian (太极剑)
Tai Ji Jian brings the coordination of the sword into the Taiji postures, patterns, and internal cultivation. This style carries balance into the practice by aligning the body to adapt the sword into a "living limb" — an extension of the martial artist. It must become natural to move the sword as one would move the body through various techniques.
Prerequisites
Sword training is generally introduced after a student has established basics and is comfortable with at least one empty-hand form. Tai Ji Jian requires prior Tai Ji foundation.