Huanuo Carp Jian - 華諾的鯤鵬劍

Having recently quit my job to take a little time off, I thought that I had much more time to devote to martial arts and my own interests, but my kids' demands have expanded to take up quite a bit of the freed up time. Anyhow, I have used part of the extra time to keep improving on my Bagua Jian, and as a reward to myself I bought a new sword from Huanuo through a company called Realistic Sparring Weapons. Their mission is to keep the traditional sword arts alive through full contact bouts with body armour. For those who are interested they can look up more information on the site.

 

The owner, Lancelot Chan knows a great deal about swords and based on the recommendation on his website, I opted to buy a Carp Jian 鯤鵬劍 (altough it is not clear there is a picture of a rather fierce looking carp on the hilt and the scabbard). The website stated that this sword was the closest that he had found in terms of the balance to antique swords, where the balance is further up the sword as opposed to the modern blades where the blades are generally lighter and closer to the hilt.

 

 

Due to the 18th Party Congress in China, the transhipment of weapons was delayed and the blade arrived last week. However, when he received the blade Lancelot informed me that the sword was narrower and thinner than earlier models and the balance was closer to the hilt at 34.69% versus 37% in the earlier model, to cater more to the modern tastes, where there is less emphasis on heavy cutting power. (Antique swords are closer to 40%). He complained to Huanuo who promptly sent him another blade which was a little wider and heavier. I will visit him later this week to try them out.

 

There were also some scratches on the blade that he alerted me to which were a result of poor quality control at Huanuo. For this he was very apologetic (event though it was not his fault). But one good thing was the line of the blade was exactly straight which was one of the outstanding points of this sword. I was very impressed with his knowledge and dedication to the art and he is also a professional sword polisher. I will meet him later this week and will report on our conversation.