Kabuto Cutting

While I'm not entirely sure about the quality of the blade or kabuto used in this video, I do find the display interesting. Watch and enjoy. For those of you interested in learning more about this practice, I believe it's called Kabutowari.

Cutting with Wakizashi

My last post made me start thinking about Wakizashi, and here's an interesting video showing wakizashi Tameshigiri! Enjoy

Japanese Sword Cutting Videos

Here's an interesting tameshigiri video showing cutting practice. The cut in the video does look a little awkward but the iaidoka pulls it off fairly well. Nice video with classical technique. The dojo that offers instruction on the Japanese sword has a whole line of these videos on youtube.

Reverse Grip Sword Cut

On one of the forums I regularly visit there is a bit of controversy about the practicality of a reverse grip sword cut (not that swords are very practical in this day & age anyhow). Quite a few of the forumites claim that reversing your grip on a sword is only appropriate for knives or Zatoichi :)

And along comes Renfield Kuroda, a JSA practitioner from Japan to prove that if you think a reverse grip sword cut doesn't work you're totally wrong. Check out that set and feel free to share your thoughts.

The difference between tameshigiri and back yard cutting

Here's a great example of proper tameshigiri, the man in the video has a good stance and his focus is on the target. You can also tell that he is thinking about distance in relation to his target; ie. he doesn't want to get cut in order to make a cut.



This second video, while impressive, is not proper tameshigiri. There's not a whole lot of thought going into body position in relation to the cut, and everyone is using a wide stance instead of a proper hamni. It could be because they are attempting to cut with a temple size sword (one that is made for a shrine, not too be used), but I don't know. Regardless, you can really tell the difference between the two examples.

Traditional Tameshigiri

The last video was definitely of the back yard variety, but this video shows much more tradition and skill.

Katana Cutting Eight Mats -

This video is very impressive, his cuts look fairly clean and he actually made it through eight mats.

Test Cutting - I thought you aikidoka might like this one

Though the English guy on the video over dramatizes the video a bit, the gentleman cutting does have very nice technique.