ICNBYS Chinese Extendable Tai Chi Sword

The media could not be loaded.  I saw this sword in a Kung Fu movie and wondered if it was something one could buy and did a quick search for it. Sure enough, I found it, and several others on Amazon. The others are a third or half the price and look cheap. I recognized this one as the one in the movie and bought it not expecting much. However, I was very surprised. It is made of stainless steel and has a nice chrome finish. It weighs 1.6 pounds and the handle - closed up - is 12” overall. Expanded, the sword is a bit over 38” from tip to tip. The grip, which is plastic over steel, is about 5 ½” long. The tassel is nice quality too, but one side pooped off with some use. I just put it back together. It comes with a zip up black case too.You can use the sword very aggressively. Whip it around, swing it fast and hard and it will be just fine. It is not sharp but it could hurt someone if you clubbed them over the head or smacked them on the hand or forearm. It is stainless steel after all, so be careful with it.The only issue is that it can get stuck in the open position. I have never had it close up on its own – it fits tight. I did discover that if you try to close it with the cap, it gets stuck a lot. However, if you hold the cap and push the handle toward the cap, it closes up fine. It does take a little strength – it won’t help you close it. Oh, and close it quickly in one fast motion; the momentum will help you a lot.I am very picky about my weapons and have been using them for 47 years – all types. And I can tell you this, for what it is, it is a nice little practice sword. Check out my YouTube Video on it. Just go to YouTube and type this in the search: TH2qgN1e0xg

Love this sword! I have another full sword from them that I use for regular practice, but I got the Extendable one to bring on travel with me and to work where I can bring it in my bag and then work out in the gym doing my sword form. This sword does not balance quite as well as a regular good balanced sword, but it does balance pretty close to it. It is about one inch from the sword guard which is pretty standard for a good sword, so it plays just like a real sword. Collapses really easy and fits into its nice carrying case. The tassels are of very good quality. Can't go wrong with this one.

Balance: 3" from the guard.Blade length: 30 1/2"Guard Length: 1 1/2"Grip Length: 5 1/2"Pommel Length:2"Total Length:~39 1/4".My Review in a Nutshell:I personally hate the handle on this sword but otherwise it does what it says on the tin and it's very serviceable in regards to its intended purpose; as a mock jian for training purposes that collapses down to a very portable size. Very neat!As far as bang-for-your-buck goes in the realm of non-whippy tai chi straight-swords this is basically it. There are none better that cost less than this and if you bought an equivalent one at $80 bucks then that would still have been a very competetive price for one of these things. It's perfectly weighted and balanced for a scholar's jian and the fit and finish is excellent. It's mirror polished and has no sharp burrs anywhere. It even collapses! Its stiff enough that you have to jab it into the ground in order to release the hold. It's a friction fit. Take off the cap and with a flick of the wrist and *SCHWING*! Out flies the blade! It's kind of scary sounding but very satisfying at the same time. Its point of balance is 3" up the blade, right at the first joint. If you're a limp-wrist you can add the tassel onto the end and bring the P.O.B back another inch. But really, I don't think that's necessary as 3" is very generously near the hilt as it is. All-in-all its a very good buy but I do have some gripes. Mostly with the handle. Let me explain.The handle isn't sized correctly for either a 1-handed jian nor a 2-handed jian. Nor is it any good a hand-and-a-half jian! It's kinda rubbish in this regard. I have fairly small hands for a guy (3" wide) and I can almost - but not quite - fit both on here. 4" is the absolute longest I can conceive the grip being for a 1-hander, and this is 5 1/2! The problem with a too long handle is that this in tapered in such a way that the "sweet spot" is right in the middle of the grip. Making the grip this long makes that sweet spot very nebulous and puts it too far away from the guard to make trying alternatives grips any sort of comfortable. There's no using sword fingers nor pistol gripping this sword. It's hammer grip only in this case.3"-4" is good for a 1-hander. 6"-7" is good for a 2-hander. This one is a bastard length and most of the time that isn't a problem if the pommel is grippable. But this one isn't. It feels very awkward trying to grab the onion-shaped pommel even though the long grip beckons me to try both hands. If the manufacturer could remove the two metal ferrules (or maybe even just 1) adjacent the grip it'd be the right length for a 1-hander. If they kept the ferrules and flipped the pommel around and blended it in it would be a good 1-1/2'er. If they lengthened the grip by 1" it'd work for two hands! So much wasted potential! It best serves as a 1-hander at current, even if the sizing is a bit wonky.The other gripe I have with it the handle is the shape. It's a bit too thin and lenticular to make work well. That's a fine shape for a blade but for a grip its bites a bit much into to the hand. Worse the edge-feel of the grip is a bit whispy and diffuse feeling making it harder to change direction in a swing. I personally don't ever have the feeling of having a good grip on the thing. Gripping harder does not help. This kind of a blade is supposed to be amenable to a finesse of technique but it falls short of that. Again if the handle were thicker, then maybe it would work. Or perhaps better to change the shape from lenticular to hexagonal. Its a subtle difference but a hexagonal grip has more shoulder and a blunter edge which should give one more to grab onto and a bit more leverage to manipulate the point with. Or maybe that would still be too subtle a change.I think that the sword is supposed to be recappable but for the life of me I couldn't get the cap that it came with back onto the hilt. Doesn't engage. I suppose that it's not strictly necessary if you're going to carry the sword collapsed in its case but still. Bothering to include the rather substantial metal cap only for one to never be able to use it again seems wasteful. I think that thus mine came with a manufacturing defect in this regard.Also the sword doesn't comes with instructions. That's not necessarily a problem but I couldn't figure out how to attach the tassels properly. I cow-hitched them to the ring on the end of the blade for testing purposes but of course that lasted for the whole of 5 minutes. I personally would have preferred a satin finish as I can't keep from touching it and now its all covered in fingerprints. When it came I could see my face clearly in both the blade and the fittings. Now all I can see are the smudges! I could just clean it but that would only last for so long. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and in the this case not bringing the thing to a mirror polish is the first place would save more man hours over the life of the blade in both its manufacture and upkeep. But that's just my two cents.One can go to wooden dummy dot net and they have both jian and dao swords in either 1 or 2 handed versions. I haven't personally tried them yet and can't attest to their quality but I had been looking for a place that had ready made training swords and I was elated to see that they had all four of these at a reasonable price. They're made of wood (supposedly teak) which isn't the same as a metal training sword but they might be worth a look.My absolute last statement is that if one wants the sword for actual tai chi practice then consider getting a buckler as well. Most of the open hand techniques are actually sword and buckler techniques repurposed for empty hand combat and make more sense if one has both these tools. One also often finds himself practicing sword forms with an arm extending out in front of him where its likely to get lopped off! Interpretations of these techniques make sense if you consider that front arm to be grabbing the opponent in preparation for finishing them off but the literal interpretation is often that you're supposed to be presenting a shield with that hand and the sword coming out from behind it. So do bother to grab one! Often the hands are unequally weighted if one uses the sword alone and in some of the extended postures of the forms feel a bit unbalanced and the transitions lacking oomph. The buckler balances these techniques out quite nicely.So is this sword perfect? No!Would I recommend it to a friend? For the price? Yes! It's hard to beat.

I took a gamble on this, and for the money, it is my favorite sword for Tai Chi work. It's very light, and obviously portable. I take it to the park, and to the gym for practice. I have a solid $150 practice sword that doesnt collapse and I prefer this practice sword over that one any day of the week. I like to train for 1 hour minimum, so the weight of this is key for that. I like to walk down the street to the park so walking with a sword is not ideal in my neighborhood lol, so having this thing collapsed is much more practical. I've had zero issues with quality. Everything works, nothing sticks, nothing is lose. I've had this product for 6 months and I use it daily.

It's a decent practice sword. It is super hard to get I to compact size after it's been fully extended. The over structure is decent but I have others in my collection just like this one but made from better metal and made way sturdier. But, for practicing the slow moments it works really well. Faster movements, It feels as if the segemented sections are going to fly apart. All in all, decent. 3 stars.

Amazing experience, beyond my expectation! The product perfectly matches its description. This Tai Chi Sword is extendable so as convenient to carry with so class or for any external exercise. Arm-guard arc design makes you comfortable. One attractive detail: this sword is with warm skid! No worry about the slip in summer. For the quality, made up of stainless steel with no more than 500g, completely beats the cheaper plastic one. The seller is very nice, because along with the product, I also received a red china hoist! It makes my sword awesome! The fast delivery is a plus.