Review - Wuwu (悟武) Sparring Jian

Wuwu Sparring Jian

The Specs

  • Overall length: 101cm
  • Blade Length: 82cm (From rear of guard)
  • PoB: 12.5cm (From rear of guard)
  • Weight: 883g
  • Flex weight: 15kg
  • Tipping: Rolled

Tl;dr An extremely stiff blade, with a slightly too flat handle for comfort. Minor changes in future versions could make this a safe and interesting beginner option.

Overall Rating: 3/5


Balance and Handling:

The Wuwu (悟武) isn’t the most lively of blades that I’ve handled. While it definitely falls within the whole range of period jian, the handling is relatively sluggish, and doesn’t have any real characteristics to make up for it. Many period jian are a bit on the heavier, or more blade presence end, but they feel like they have command in the bind or presence in the cut, the Wuwu doesn’t manage to capture this feeling. Note that my preferred sparring jian is in the 830g range as well, so not substantially lighter than this, but it has a very different behaviour to it, so this criticism isn’t from a preference of lighter jian.


The point of balance is in a good place for a blade of this length and weight, and once the blade gets moving, it’s got presence, but the overall dynamics of the sword feels slow in the hand.


The handle has a lozenge shape in one dimension, however, on the parts of handle along the flat of the blade, the handle is entirely flat, giving a lack of proper feeling in the hand, leading to the sword not feeling particularly responsive when trying to do circling motions, like jiao.


B&H: 3/5


Construction:

First, the good. This is well put together, each of the parts has a crisp machined finish with tight tolerances. The upturned quillons of the guard resemble those of the Lanling Shiwei Jian (Blue Feather Imperial Guard), an antique jian that was in use by the Qing Imperial Guard. See this reproduction from Art of Fire and Iron for an example and some historical background. The handle is put together in a standard construction, guard, grip, pommel, and secured with a capped nut over a threaded tang. The tang is a solid one piece construction with nicely rounded shoulders and a small step from the shoulders to the tang.


Wuwu Sparring Jian tang

The grip is wrapped in cord, tightly and appears to be glued in place, to prevent shifting in the hand. It’s comfortable in the hand, but the shape feels like it was made from pictures rather than handling actual jian and making them match.


However, the largest problem is the lack of flex in the blade, at 15kg of flex, this blade is stiff. And it doesn’t start to flex easily, so a lot of that impact is transmitted directly into your sparring partner. Further, it’s not helped by having a relatively narrow tip which ensures that the pressure during the thrust is focused. Fortunately, in the future it is possible to change the heat treatment to have more flex would quickly fix this issue, so hopefully this won’t be an ongoing issue.


Construction: 3/5


Aesthetics:

The simple, clean lines, and upturned guard will definitely appeal to some people. Personally, it’s not my cup of tea, but from comments on social media, that is a preferred look for a lot of people.


Wuwu Sparring Jian

Sparring Performance:

We did some light sparring with the Wuwu sparring jian, while wearing hard plastic sparring gear to account for the extreme level of stiffness in the blade. While a higher level of risk, we wore an extensive amount of protection and were very careful with where we aimed thrusts to avoid an injury, but on the few times a thrust landed on an area with only the gambeson, or other padded areas, it was noticeable and left bruises at a regular level of intensity.


Wuwu Sparring Jian

With that disclaimer out of the way, the slower handling of the Wuwu jian felt like a disadvantage, while it certainly has presence in the parry and bind, sparring with it felt like being at a disadvantage, and stereotypical jian techniques like the jiao (stirring), or quick and light cuts to the hand/wrist were slower to initiate and land.


The shape of the grip made catching the opponent’s blade relatively simple in the quillons, allowing for those techniques to be practiced with confidence, however, many of them are based around a thrust centric style, keeping the tip on-line and deflecting, catching, then counter thrusting.


Sparring Rating: 2/5 (unsafe)


Price:

The price is a very competitive 680rmb at the time of writing, ($150AUD/$100USD + Shipping and taxes), which puts it well into the entry level price bracket. It is definitely one of the more durable and well built options at this price range. Available from Wuwu’s store on Taobao, it claims to have a 1 month construction time.


Price: 4.5/5


Overall Thoughts:

Frankly, there’s only a couple of critical failures that make it unable to be recommended as a beginner option. A different heat treat that gave a sub 12kg (sub 10kg preferred) flex would move this from fail, to a decent beginner buy. The grip shape is definitely a cost consideration and at this price point, would be an easy fix with a 3d printer for someone interested in it.


Hopefully we’ll see some fixes to this shortly and will have another option on the market.