Swords up, swords down

I take it quite practically: in martial arts sword down touching the ground means offering peace or waiting, this gesture has to be well trained in order not to get hurt by a better adversary. This also applies to sticks and staff techniques.
Best would be to throw the weapon on the ground. The latter is a common practice when fighting with knives where you only can rely on that the adversary has given up if the weapon is out of reach.

Eberhard said:

I take it quite practically: in martial arts sword down touching the ground means offering peace or waiting, this gesture has to be well trained in order not to get hurt by a better adversary.

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This is an interesting perspective..... OFFERING PEACE OR WAITING!...... and i like the notion of bravery, the confidence that supports such a move, or non move.......

> this is an interesting perspective

honestly, it feels utterly horrible if you really try to maintain your stance against one of the Chinese masters ready to chop you (at least they can activate this intent quite credibly). In a warrior society codified gestures were quite reasonable because any small unawareness could be fatal.
I would assume that in the Middle Ages when near-distance combat and fencing was common everybody recognized these gestures without further explanation: sword or lance movements or flying a flag--just like our "thumbs up/down" gesture which also goes back to Roman times.

Eberhard said:

honestly, it feels utterly horrible if you really try to maintain your stance against one of the Chinese masters ready to chop you (at least they can activate this intent quite credibly). In a warrior society codified gestures were quite reasonable because any small unawareness could be fatal

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OK.... so if someone were to take that stance, they would either be a fool or a master, correct?

Either stupidly arrogant or extremely confident in their ability......

The other point I keep thinking of is the idea of Grounding.... that the movement of Kundalini into the Earth is very Grounding to the meditative practitioner....... I keep seeing the downward pointing sword as a 'point' of grounding..... maybe getting real..... maybe taking a stance, as we have mused here......

It is certainly a BOLD stance, what ever it means.........

I just had to pick up my sword and feel it ... because as I pointed to in this thread the discursive mind doesn't have immediate access to the mind of the body: Gurdjeff's analogy of The Horse, the cart, and the driver applies here again.
The energy movement is just the opposite as you describe it: when aiming at an enemy you try to reach him so the energy is going out, not sucking the life force in from him. And where does it come from? From the unweighted foot up the back to the shoulder blade into the sword arm just until the tip of the sword. Image that the sword only is an extension of your pointing fingers. The better you are grounded, the better you can raise energy up from the ground.

But as they say in the East, the sword is simply a tool for decision making. That is why it is used in martial arts training: it emphasizes the movements of a, say tai chi chuan form and so gives a better feedback, shows up the weaknesses regarding your balance.
So, so, no big secret here that it is associated with air and the mind.

Eberhard, your comment about picking up the sword to sense into it is SO important, and one of the reasons I usually bring both a Martial Arts (Chinese) sword and a replica Mediaeval one (with correct weight) in any Tarot course.

To hold, wield, and allow the whole body to respond to the instrument, and the instrument in turn to respond to the whole body, and its controlling 'Charioteer'... only this can give a fuller sense of the suit. And then to have been trained, no matter how little, in one of the Martial arts which uses Swords in their various guises.

Thanks again.

history

Hi - this is an old thread, but I thought I would comment as I do know a thing or two about both the history of tarot and of medieval art & symbolism. In the case of the oldest of the decks, the swords were painted originally as a *suit*, just like regular playing cards. The intent was to play Tarocchi, which I have not even seen mentioned here (although I may have missed it - if not, however...). I had to add that the question of what the swords are doing is purely a design technicality. I imagine that the ace is displayed as it would be on a wall: hung point down. When read, this is entirely up to the interpretation of the reader (as amply displayed by this discussion - & a lively one it was, too!).

Welcome to Aeclectic, danubhe.

There are probably a number of reasons of omission why Tarocchi was not mentioned in this thread... and it certainly is worth mentioning again

With regards to the earliest cards, they of course pre-date the Visconti/Sforza and Italian Renaissance, for the pips very likely emerge out of the Mamluk cards with their depicted scimitars.

With regards to depictions of the sword as upright or down, it may be that, if on the wall, they are pointing down. The other quite early depiction of swords - especially judicial or ceremonial - seem, on the other hand, to favour an upright form.

The Ace, in the Marseille rendition, definitely seems upright (point up), irrespective of other considerations. I would suggest that it is possibly from the more 'obvious' uprightness of this card that many (but not everyone) tend to view point up of the straight swords as upright.

As implied by danubhe, however, in specific readings, the divinatory art needs to transcend any preconceptions as to which is which, and permit the reading to unfold