Chinese swordsmanship?

In my never-ending quest to look at what practitioners from other fencing schools are doing - be they in the European tradition or not - I stumbled across some interesting videos on Chinese swordsmanship, or more specifically jianshu, the use of the straight blade. I know very little about Chinese martial arts, but I've always wondered why Chinese fencing never really took root: the Japanese have been doing kendo since the end of the 19th century, the Europeans have been doing modern fencing since the beginning of the 19th century, and this is not to mention the numerous styles to be found in Southeast Asia, but I have never heard of fencing with Chinese weapons.

The World Jianshu League, which is comprised of only a few schools in North America (from what I've learned on the website, is busy reconstructing traditional Chinese swordsmanship as a modern sport, and what I've seen is pretty interesting. Interesting in that the techniques they've gleaned from a number of sword sets look almost identical to what Europeans were doing with an arming or sidesword in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.

This actions shown in this video, for example, bear a striking resemblance to the Dall'Agocchie's (1572) solo form, which will - I swear! - be posted up here in the coming weeks. Take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/user/WJLadmin#p/u/8/cpLeh2_xyF4

I'll put some more commentary up here in the next couple of days; my first impression leads me to say that they should forget the sporting aspect and focus on the controlled application of the techniques they've gleaned from the various forms. It's too beautiful to be turned into a gunslinging match, like, say, the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-s6tshiz_k