Sword study, tassels, books.

This is the sword tassel I made for Janet's jian and I made a very similar one in black for Sandy. The materials come to about £24 and these will be the kind of nice weighty tassels we can make at a workshop during the weeklong intensive this Summer. I can order all the materials nearer the time. For knot enthusiasts; this is a variation on the 'Pan Chang' knot or 'Mystic Knot', which is one of the eight Buddhist treasures, (it is often seen on Tibetan Thankas and Chinese fabrics) as its seemingly endless pattern symbolises the interwoven and cyclical nature of all existence. Those who have known me some time know how much I enjoy fibre and fabric crafting, T'ai Chi weapons study, and learning new skills. It's rather lovely to find something that combines all three. Regarding tassel length, Mark said one's tassel should not quite touch the floor when the arm is in a good rounded starting posture, as when holding the sword in the left hand to begin the form and with the sword tip at ear height. I learned Chinese knots from the book 'Chinese Knotting' by Lydia Chen and the editors of Echo books. Thanks to Davina for the loan.

It's worth keeping the old flimsy short tassels that often come with swords, however, as we can 'pimp' them with heavy beads and longer loops so that they are useful for spares and instructing. All students who are studying sword with me need a tassel on their sword (!) as we will be looking at the posture 'Shaking Out the Duster' and a tassel shows very graphically how we are doing with the figure-of-eight motion: it will tangle round the wrist or swoosh us in the face or leg if we do it wrong. Also there are lovely tassel applications nearer the start of the form involving distracting the opponent when we get the movement of the sword just right. I plan to look at these over the coming months.

Regarding the Barbara Davis book, it seems amazon.co.uk is much cheaper at the moment than any other way to get the books, but I will finalise the London book orders next week. I can also order 'Essence of T'ai Chi Ch'uan' and 'Becoming One with the Tao' (Kobayashi). I will have a look for the other Chen Weiming, Kobayashi and Douglas Wile books too, and find the best sources for all who are interested.

Taichifinder.co.uk is where we get the telescopic swords, so go online and then call the very helpful David Radford, who runs the site, and order one yourself if you'd like one, as my discount is only available by bulk.