The first International Taiji Sword Festival (June-July 2002) was an outstanding success. Over 80 practitioners of taijiquan (tai chi chuan) from Western Europe, Russia & North America converged on Narva, Estonia to spend a week learning new skills & refining old ones. The core program was structured to be a thorough study of Chinese swordsmanship in the Yang Family Michuan Taijijian tradition. Everyone began the days training with practicing hundreds of basic cuts, then two person drills and free swordplay, while the afternoons were spent learning the form.
To add depth to the understanding of the jian art, four evenings were spent practicing Miaodao. The Miaodao, a form of Chinese two-handed swordsmanship, derives from Chinese tradition of military swordsmanship. As such it represented the type of swordplay likely encountered by the Yang Family during their Taiping Rebellion when they worked as military trainers. Two other evenings were devolved to lectures by Philip Tom, a noted scholar in the field of Asian & Islamic arms & armor. One focused on the Life & Times of the Yang Family, presenting a real life picture of Chinese life during the late nineteenth century & one focusing of the Qing battle field & the weapons in use at the time. Together these two talks provided everyone with a sense of the environment in which the arts being studied was developed & was practiced.