Sweeper Monk vs Dugu Qiubai vs Huang Shang

[tape]

Hrmm guess you can scratch my last post.

"He broke a branch and formed a sword with it and pondered, “The heavy iron sword is around seventy jin in weight, there are only two possibilities on how to overcome it with such a light and fragile wooden sword. One is through ingenuity of the sword strokes, using speed to overcome the slow; the other is through overbearing internal energy, using strength to subdue the weak.”

Yang Guo just chose to go the second route, but failed. Maybe he should have went the first way.

[ChanceEncounter]

Hrmm guess you can scratch my last post.

"He broke a branch and formed a sword with it and pondered, “The heavy iron sword is around seventy jin in weight, there are only two possibilities on how to overcome it with such a light and fragile wooden sword. One is through ingenuity of the sword strokes, using speed to overcome the slow; the other is through overbearing internal energy, using strength to subdue the weak.”

Yang Guo just chose to go the second route, but failed. Maybe he should have went the first way.

He failed in the second, but I'm not sure he would have succeeded in the first either. He obviously knew about the first (he thought it up after all) and chose the second for whatever reason. Maybe he knew he couldn't be fast enough to overcome the HIS with pure speed, or maybe he tried and wasn't able to do it. Or perhaps, Yang Guo did not even know how to overcome the HIS stage at all.

Remember, DGQB's very first sword was probably the most conventional. He relied on sharpness and speed of form in order to overwhelm his opponents. His second sword was flexible and relied on disguising of technique. His third form was heavy and relied on strength and simplicity. Perhaps Yang Guo simply did not know what to do beyond that. He could've tried being faster than the HIS, but in a way, that was a regression back towards stage 1. That's what I mean by the sense that no one else in the JY canonology quite reached the same philosophical plateau. No one else seemed to discover the magic formula of what is the next order of progression from strength and simplicity.

We know from FQY's teaching that DGQB did not emphasize forms or stances. The idea behind DG9J was to be direct, creative, and free-flowing. LHC had to shed conventional thinking and embrace a more random pattern of thought before he could become a better swordsman.

The analogy of the football players isn't bad, I'd say, but it lacks the critical element that the wooden sword is supposed to be better than the HIS. As in, it's not debatably better on account of being more 'in the spirit of football' (though to be fair, running through people is just as much in the spirit of football as it is to run around them), it simply is better via tangible results. It literally 'overcomes' the limitations of HIS in order to be a better fighter. It may also have the wrong order of development. Perhaps DGQB feels that the football player that can run through would-be tacklers as if they weren't even there was, in fact, the better football player.

It's a very Daoist/Confucian philosophy of radical simplicity. The more advanced an art becomes, the simpler and less involved it gets.

[tape]

I can only imagine the wooden sword being similar in power, but better in speed and less restrictive in terms of technique. It is almost like regressing back to conventional sword styles where you have some technique again, but now you built up a buttload of power after the HIS stage. Just as being formless first requires you to master form and regress back to a formless stage that you arguably had before you had any martial arts.

I actually think the concept of simplicity brings superiority is a bit contrived, and is only valid because it is paired with incomparable strength. Sure a straight forward thrust works when you're the strongest guy in the world and they can't block it, but the simple thrust itself is not superior to one of the more traditional and valued sword stances (in accordance to wuxia fiction).

So perhaps the wooden sword stage is merging the power you get from the HIS back with the previous levels where you had technique again. I imagine the no sword stage is just generation of massive inner strength where you can produce that type of power with your barehands, except now u can hack them with your palms much swifter and with incredible variation and angle that you cannot achieve with a sword. In essence, just a really powerful guy like Sweeper who reaches out and taps you. Isn't that eerily similar to what a no sword stage could look like? Simple and superior, relying on massive inner strength to just tap the person to death through superior speed and strength.

I mean it seems like a simple enough progression of how a sword turns into no sword: Learn normal sword techniques, learn tricky sword techniques, abandon techniques for sheer power, incorporate sheer power back with your techniques, drop the sword and just use sheer power and technique with your hands.

[Candide]

I have a theory. You're all assuming that wooden sword and no-sword are meant to be more advanced.

Dugu Qiubai developed the wooden sword and the no-sword stages after he became a hermit with the Giant Penguin being his only companion. That kind of life makes a man senile and more than a little crazy. Whatever he came up with then weren't necessarily better than what he had before, when he was still roaming jianghu and had real encounters with good fighters to test out his theories.

The HIS was the last stage of DGQB's sword development prior to his hermit days. It's field-tested and can be trusted. Can't say the same about the last two.

[ChanceEncounter]

I actually think the concept of simplicity brings superiority is a bit contrived, and is only valid because it is paired with incomparable strength. Sure a straight forward thrust works when you're the strongest guy in the world and they can't block it, but the simple thrust itself is not superior to one of the more traditional and valued sword stances (in accordance to wuxia fiction).

It may be contrived, but it seems to work even without superior inner power, such as is the case with LHC, who was smacking foos left and right even when he couldn't use his internal at all.

[islandmaster108]

You know... Breaking a steel sword may not be an accurate indicator of lower internal level.

If YG use a steel sword and clash against something that is much stronger, the sword will break but if YG uses the heavy sword in the same situation he might be force to release the sword or risk injury since the force of the opponent will be conducted efficiently to YG. In the case that the opponent is stronger than yourself having your weapon break is a better alternative than being injured.

If the level of power is equal or at least relatively equal, with the weapon material is fragile than both weapon will break or thrown away, basically the contact will be broken. If the weapon material is strong like the heavy sword than it will result in a deadlock and the battle will be decided with an internal energy contest like what happened between YG and JLFW in Quan Zhen HQ.

Weapon break or not, if you are stronger you will still get the upper hand when you clash weapons.