Rope Dart

The rope dart or rope javelin (simplified Chinese: 绳镖; traditional Chinese: 繩鏢; pinyin: shéng biāo), also known as Jōhyō in Japanese, is one of the flexible weapons in Chinese martial arts. Other weapons in this family include the meteor hammer, flying claws, and chain whip. Although the flexible weapons share similar movements, each weapon has its own specific techniques.

The rope dart is a long rope (usually 3 - 5 metres) with a metal dart attached to one end. This was a weapon from ancient times, which allows the user to throw the dart out at a long range target and use the rope to pull it back. The rope dart can be used for twining, binding, circling, hitting, piercing, tightening, and other techniques.

Rope dart play consists of twining, shooting, and retrieval. Twining and shooting can be done from any joint such as foot, knee, elbow, and neck. The rope is anchored on the left hand and played primarily with the right hand.

Skillful use of the rope dart can easily trick an opponent because the dart can shoot out very suddenly.

Just like the chain whip, excellent hand-eye coordination is a must for the practitioner to use this weapon well. In some Wushu training regimens, the chain whip and Changquan are prerequisites for learning the rope dart.

A variation of this weapon is the meteor hammer, which has a blunt weight on the end of the rope. It was used in a similar fashion to the rope dart, and many of the techniques are the same. The blunt shape of the meteor ball will deal concussive damage rather than piercing.