Horse Chopping Blade "斬馬刀"

Horse Chopping Blade "斬馬刀 (Zhan Ma Dao)" also known as "雙手帶", is one of the most practical weapon used by both soldiers and martial artists.

Horse Chopping Blade combine the agility of single handed dao and the power of 2 handed weapon.

Contrary to common belief that Zhan Ma dao is a simple weapon to learn and only requires force. To learn the real Zhan Ma Dao skills will requires much more than just force and strength.
The skills/moves of Zhan Ma dao is ferocious but also tricky and sneaky. Instead of directly against enemy's attack, it often choose to be "sticky" and use different parts of sword to counter-attack effectively. For instance, The tip of blade can be used for stabbing (刺), picking (挑) , pointing (點); the first section edge for slicing (切), intercepting (截) and main edge for chop, cut (劈 斬 剁), the back for block/stick (格, 攔, 黏) and even the ring pommel (獻鑽打) and etc...


The photo in left hand side is an example move of using tip of blade to intercept (截點) incoming attack towards to lower body (下盤) by intercepting perhaps enemys' wrist. Please note the sword I was using in the left photo was a shorter version of Zhan Ma dao, the common Zhan Ma dao should be around 130 CM in overall length. The form I learnt years ago in Taiwan was called Zhong Yi Dao (忠義刀) translated as " the sword of royality & rightous". A senior had told me once long time ago that this sword was also called Hon Men 36 Dao (洪門三十六刀) .