A few of us have the original swords designed by He Jinbao almost 10 years ago. While attractive, they were only suited for practice, being of poor quality steel with blunt edges. He invested a great deal of effort in trying to find a supplier of steel that could make something to his specification, but never was successful.

The Cold Steel Chinese swords are exactly what we had been looking for. Flexible enough to bend 30˚ and then spring back into shape without warping; strong enough to punch through a car hood or door; and sharp enough to slice through a carcass of meat. They were just small for Yin Style Bagua standards.

In all honesty, I was quite disappointed when I first opened the box. Aside from being short compared to what I was used to, the fittings were very ‘Chinese made’, seemingly slapped together in a factory like the ones we had our sabers made in. The wood did not fit neatly into the handle, creating sharp edges to cut the hand; the screws holding the handle together were made of a different metal and obviously lower quality; and the decorative finishes and scabbard made it look like something you might find in a Kung Fu shop down in Chinatown catering to tourists and 14 year olds just discovering Bruce Lee.

But when I swung it, it was a whole different story. It had excellent balance, better than the swords He Jin Bao had made and felt great in the hand. I then took it into a bamboo forest and sliced through every thickness there was with incredible ease. If you can afford to own it, it is worth owning simply because it carries a real blade and is the closest thing to a Chinese sword currently out there on the markets. I look forward to adapting the weapons form to double bladed weapons and having this be the main weapon of choice.