In this video taken from our online course, Master Iain introduces the Shaolin tan tow and discusses how to use this weapon, in particular how to cut off arms! The tan tow shown in the video is still here at the Kung Fu Retreat for you to take a look at if you are interested!

Full Video Transcript

Yeah so this is really about the best Tan Tow that we have here at the retreat.

And what's good about it is, it's, this is real forged sword steel and it's pretty heavy. It's quite a heavy, uh, weapon. Not so easy to do their routine with but certainly gives your wrist a work out.

It's kind of like the same thickness as a machete so it's like, kind of like a long machete which is what a Tan Tow is. The Tan Tow is really just a kind of elongated machete. Uh, it's got a nice Rosewood Scabbard here.

This was actually left by a student that we had here a long time ago who's never come back to collect it, maybe one day.

And it's, it's not particularly sharp, we've never actually sharpened it up, you could, you could put a good edge on this, but they get a bit, a bit dangerous. Um, never, never used it. Kind of came close. Once we had a, there's a big argument going on in a training area and I had this, but it was about 10 m away, and I was working out if I could get over to it in time, but you got to then get it out the case and kind of you know get ready for a cut.

So in the end I did what I usually do and talk my way out of it but uh, I reckon, especially if you sharpened it up, you could definitely take an arm off with this, maybe a head. You might need more than one cut for a head. But I reckon it'll take an arm off in one cut. You have to draw them through the cut. You can't cut like this and expect a Tan Tow is going to really bite deep. It's a knife, you got to use it like a knife. You slice. You slice through. Or you put your hand on the back and push it - push and slice. Yeah, push and draw through.

But yeah...

Especially if it was sharpened up, that would definitely, definitely do the business.