Home > Dao (sword)

The same character, 刀, is used in Japanese, and one of its readings is katana.

They changed shape significantly through the centuries and are named according to standard shapes. As well, different regions of China have their distinctive styles. They are characterised by a whole or partially curved profile and come in a large range of sizes, sometimes attached to the end of a long staff and known as "Long-handled Broadswords" (see halberd). This is commonly called the guan dao or Kwan dao ( Cantonese), after its eponymous creator, the historic literary figure, Guan Yu, of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, who later became popularly venerated as the Taoist god of war.

Dao were popular with central Asian cavalry, especially that of the Mongols and ManchuThe Manchu manju in Manchu; ( pinyin: mnzu) in Chinese, often shortened to ( pinyin: mn)) are an ethnic group who originated in northeastern Manchuria. They conquered the Ming Dynasty in the 17th century and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China unt. JapaneseThe term Japanese can have several meanings: Japan Mainland Japan Japanese people people of Japanese ancestry living in Japan Ethnic Japanese people of Japanese ancestry living outside Japan Japanese-American an article primarily about the immigration and samuraiSamurai ( or sometimes ) is a common term for a warrior in pre-industrial Japan. A more appropriate term is bushi (lit. warrior or armsman") which came into use during the Edo period. However, the term "samurai" now usually refers to warrior nobility, not swords share many features with the dao. Most recently, dao were used by some Chinese militiaPolitical movements A militia is a group of citizens organized to provide paramilitary service. The word can have four slightly different meanings: an official reserve army composed of non-professional soldiers; the police in Russia or East European count units against Japanese invaders in the Second World War. Many Chinese martial artsChinese martial arts often abbreviated as CMA refers to the enormous variety of martial art styles native to China. Chinese martial arts are also often referred to as kung fu or wushu. History of Chinese martial arts Many Chinese martial arts, and several schools still train extensively with the dao, seeing it as a powerful conditioning tool and a versatile weapon.

The Chinese spearA spear is an ancient weapon, used for hunting and war. It consists of a shaft, usually of wood, with a sharpened head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with bamboo spears, or it may be of another material faste and dao were commonly issued to infantry due to the expense of and relatively greater amount of training required for the effective use of Chinese straight sword, or jian.

One measure of the proper length of the sword should be from the hilt in your hand and the tip of the blade at the brow and in some schools, the height of shoulder. Alternatively, the length of the sword should be from the middle of the throat along the length of the outstretched arm. There are also significantly larger versions of dao used for training in some Baguazhang and Taijiquan schools.