Sticks in the Street (1)

Not even two weeks have passed since returning to Tokyo and too much is getting lost in the blur...two sessions a day with Liu Laoshi is more than enough to fill my plate, and there is so much left over from Beijing. Thinking back to the sticks in the street group, how easily and warmly they welcomed me. My time with them was too short to build a strong enough foundation for subsequent solo practice, but the door is open for the future. Pictures today of fei cha (飞叉), an apparatus said to be unique to Beijing. Apparatus? Weapon? At least in the practice I saw, it was not used as a weapon but more as part of a performance. Swung, rolled, and swirled about in every direction and all around the user's body - I never saw it used to strike or thrust. Yet I felt that at any moment it could be used to block or to attack.
This goes back to one of the first conversations I had with Zhao Laoshi, one of the more senior members of the group. They were encouraging me to join in for practice. I said I wanted to but that I was studying with Liu Laoshi and it might not be appropriate to study with another group simultaneously (especially given that time was so short). He laughed - "that's wushu (武术) - we practice yishu (艺术). I dismissed it initially as a joke, mere wordplay. But later I discovered this stick-based group is directly tied to jingju (京剧) performance and saw his logic - there would be no problem whatsoever. There is much overlap, but the two disciplines are quite distinct.
The fei cha is about four or four and a half feet long, a stick with a metal tri-pronged...thing...attached to the end. It is not bladed, but I certainly would not want to be hit with it. In terms of yishu performance, it is beautiful to watch. The stick is kept in constant rolling motion, so the blade-like thing seems to be round or spherical rather than flat. One night they attached a pair of cymbals, facing into each other, near the end. The entire area was filled with a wonderful whirring sound as the edges of the pair of discs whirled about each other. The noise seemed to be taken for granted by passersby and those living in nearby apartments - perhaps a break from the late-night clacking of sticks? Throw in Mr. Liu's occasional bursts with the kuai bar clacking instruments, and it got to be quite lively.
Fei cha seemed to be the specialty of a group of two or three who pulled up in a taxi most nights about 1030PM or so after the day's driving shift was finished. i wonder what other implements of potential destruction the driver kept stashed away in his taxi. The driver himself had quite a large girth but moved quickly and supply. The one who seemed most adept was younger, athletic in build (he warmed up by doing a walking handstand all around the park).
Much more research is needed, but here are a couple pictures - anyone with more knowledge about fei cha, please comment!