I started my first bit of two-handed practice in the back-yard today with my Baron's Sword. (http://www.museumreplicas.com/p-191-barons-sword.aspx)
Now, it being a Windlass of good length, it was rather whippy. (I'm looking into returning it, but I was foolish enough to ask for a sharpened one and the packing slip says they don't allow the return of sharpened swords...) However, this brought up something I found somewhat interesting. The whippiness, as you might suspect, was most apparent when moving the sword from side to side. Now, although I have had training in Tae Kwon Do, I am pretty new to swords, thus I often fail to properly angle the blade (Might be amusing to anyone watching, as the TKD training allows me to easily follow the footwork while simultaneously mangling a swing :D ). The whippiness made this readily apparent whenever I did something wrong though. Because of this, I was wondering if some of the wasters and practice swords out there are made whippy in order to help train newbies?


(And yes, I realize training with a sharpened sword is... unwise, thus my practice session is rather slow and careful.)

As far as my WMA goes, you want to stay away from a whippy training blade; nor am I familiar with another medieval swordsmanship study group that actually desires this as a quality.

Depending upon how hard you are hitting, the mass of the training device represents a hazard even though it is blunt. Being hit with just about anything weighing 3 lbs or more in the knuckles (at CoP) tends to be painful. Some suggest just shrugging this off. Broken knuckles do interrupt training schedule, however. I would discourage trainers weighing 3 lbs or more, for unarmored sparring, whippy or not.

Perhaps the wippiest blades used in martial arts are those for wushu students...I don't know what advantages they believe they get with these blades, but it seems to be done on purpose.