Taiji Sword by Wu Tunan (1936)
Presented here is a modified version of Paul Brennan’s translation of "Taiji Sword (太極劍)" published here with his permission. Be aware that Paul Brennan continously improves his translations with new updates, which means that the version presented here will diverge from the original as time passes.
The original up to date translation can always be found at Paul Brennans site:
https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2015/11/25/wu-style-taiji-sword-qiankun-jian/
The changes to this modified version include:
- Adapted to double sided printing.
- The Chinese characters and pinyin has been added directly to the English translation for key terms such as basic sword methods and technique names.
- Minor cosmetic changes to improve printing and readability, such as different colors for the Chinese and English text.
All changes, except purely typographic changes, has been marked with a separate color.
The modified version can be downloaded here:
PDF version
ODT version (for further editing)
Some notes about this book
Wu Tunan’s book "Taiji Sword" from 1936 is the earliest documentation of our sword form - the Qian Kun Jian - so naturally this translation is of quite big interest for us. The sword form we practice today is not identical with the one presented in the book, but still quite close which indicates a common ancestor.
Also of interest is the last chapter which details the same eight basic sword methods that we still use. The extent to which the actual interpretation of these sword methods are the same as ours is subject to further study.