From what I can tell, not much, but let’s talk about it anyway!
A rope dart, unsurprisingly, features a dart or dagger like head on the end of a cord. A meteor hammer is a round or bulbous shaped head on the end of a cord. A round or bulbous shaped metal head likely emerged from the familiar stone shape, which many agree was the first head style to be attached to a cord for similar weapons for hunting and defense.
Both dart and hammer can weigh the same, which range from as little as 4.5 ounces to over a pound. Both utilize a flag for greater control and have rings. Both have different head shapes and use differing styles of cord.
Technique names tend to be different, but in the world of rope dart and meteor hammer that means almost nothing. To that end, the techniques themselves are the same, which stands to reason.
The meteor hammer predates the rope dart, perhaps for hundreds of years. I say this because the oldest written source and non-source material mention a meteor hammer in their literature. Was it a bias for the hammer, or, was a rope dart not written about because it didn’t exist yet? The book Soft Weapons, by Li Keqin and Li Xingdong, dates the rope dart to the Western Han Dynasty (206 BCE-9 CE), but other than that the next bit of information available specifically about rope dart emerged sometime in the late 1970s, early 1980s at the the Physical Culture Institute of Beijing, China. I’m not saying that rope dart literature doesn’t exist between these periods-some old journal or published book perhaps- I just haven’t seen anything. The point is that rope dart wasn’t mentioned at all throughout Chinese history. Soft Weapons was published in 1996, we don’t have actual evidence of a rope dart from the Western Han Dynasty, just the short text from the book, which even then hints more at folklore than historical fact.
If you have followed my work, I mention Principles and Values as part of what makes rope dart, rope dart. I feel it is the same when it comes to rope darts and meteor hammers. Principally, they are the same thing. Their value lay in the dartist preferences; head style/shape, weight, cord style, and size.
Of course, there is the question of stabbing with a rope dart vs. bludgeoning with a meteor hammer, but, is this really that big of a difference when it comes to self defense? Truly, effectiveness is the only thing that matters, and both methods are effective. Further, getting hit in the side of the head with a rope dart does damage. In other words, it doesn’t have to stab to be effective. A person can use a rope dart in a bludgeoning way. Likewise, getting straight punched with a meteor hammer shot does damage. In other words, it doesn’t have to repeatedly hit.
All things considered, I feel the rope dart was a natural, and logical next step from a meteor hammer. To simply attach a dart or dagger-something someone might have access to-on a cord might have been the easier option than a bronze hammer-something someone probably didn’t have access to.
Both rope dart and meteor hammer can have varying heads, so therein, funny enough, is the most obvious reason why they are the same thing. If different rope dart heads don’t change the effectiveness of the weapon and different meteor hammer heads don’t change the effectiveness of the weapon, and everything else is equal then what are we really talking about here? A difference in stylistic look? That’s like car enthusiasts debating which is better between a Ferrari and a Lamborghini.
From a wushu kung fu taolu perspective, both “rope dart” routines and “meteor hammer” routines could be performed verbatim with each other. Personally speaking, I have competed with both styles of head with the same exact routine.
So, what did I miss? Can we agree that these two weapons are in fact the same weapon and get on with it? Here is a video I made covering this topic!