Taijijian

The straight sword, sometimes with a tassel and sometimes not, is used for upper body conditioning and martial training in traditional tai chi schools.

The Yang and Wu families were involved in Qing dynasty military officer training, and taught jian technique to their students.

The wushu sword is a narrow, double-edged Chinese jian with a thin blade designed to make noise when it is shaken by the competitor during competition and a tassel is always attached to the pommel.

The jian variants used for taijijian wushu display or as training tools in modern-day martial arts schools often have properties that render them unsuitable for historically accurate combat.

These properties, such as extreme blade thinness or a high degree of flexibility compared to historical battlefield-quality jian, are intended to add auditory and visual appeal to a wushu performance.