This lightweight and unique spear was designed for wushu rather than combat. The hand forged steel blade is chrome plated to resist corrosion and keep the good looks important to that style of martial gymnastics.
Although this 77″ spear has been toned down a bit from the combat version, the old designs were also much lighter than might be expected. One of the advantages of a long weapon like the snake spear was that an expert could use its whip-like quality to bend an attack around an opponent’s defenses rather than through them.
The unique blade style, the wavy pattern of snake or flame, is common among weapons used to disarm the opponent. The long wavy blades acted like saws to cut through the weapons of the attacker. Obviously this spear isn’t of the quality necessary to do that, but this spear was intended for the practice of movements, not actual combat. Whether there were other uses of such an odd design is unknown, since much of the original knowledge regarding the unique patterns like this one is now forgotten.
Everything about this spear still has purpose, however. Even the fancy red tassle had a practical use in times when spears were a mainstay weapon on the battlefield, causing blood to drip off the strands rather than down the shaft of the spear.
