Spear is considered the king of long weapons in Chinese martial arts. More of a speciality of Northern kung fu styles. What makes it the 'king' is the many options the tight spiral thrust gives to the weidler. Equally effective in both offense & defense, it has the ability to pierce or slash on many planes. Also being more of an aggressive finesse weapon it dosen't take much effort on the spearman's part to keep the tip of the spear in front of his opponent. Traditional spear has few single handed moves or jumping arcing swings common in Wushu performance.

The funny thing is spear is my least favorite weapon. Just doesn't fit me. Go figure.

Thanks, HG. That makes a lot of sense.

I'm not terribly fond of the spear myself, but I figure to beat something, one must understand it, so I try to train with it anyway.

I agree. The Jian will scrape you, but it will do it without any mess. A jian cut is like a damascus blade, it goes in clean and it gets the job done. A dao gets the job done, but the hacking motions could make a fight bloody if you miss or set stuck in bone, like a battle axe.

The advantage of the dao of course would be that it would be more physically traumatic due to the variance in the blade.

As you said though, would make a lot of mess!

This is a bad thing?

(THAT WAS DISGUSTING! I CAN'T BELIEVE I SAID THAT!)

(Okay - yes I can)

This sounds so much fun. It's a shame there isn't anywhere like that round here. The martial arts scene isn't exactly huge in north east England

check and see if you have an SCA branch near you.