Japanese swords master Isao Machii has cut a BB pellet fired in mid-air with his katana:
Here, he sets the world record for the most martial arts sword cuts in one minute, of rush straw, 87:
After seeing this, I tried making full-powered air cuts with my katana, and got 85, no warm up or practice, just a one-off cold try. This was making strikes as hard as I could make them, with quick recovery. This article, up to here was written a couple of weeks ago, and after training, I can do 110 hard katana strikes, in the air.
Then I tried using a Cold Steel Chinese machete war sword, and got nowhere, as the new handles are fucked in my opinion. Overall good machete though. Using a 24-inch two-handed machete (one I knocked up) yielded 102 cuts. With Wing Chun butterfly swords, I got 202 cuts without too much effort, but using two swords would probably violate the spirit of the contest.
Now I did not cut straw, because I don’t have the rush straw mats to do so (yet exerted maximum strike force), but just from my experiments, I wonder if Isao Machii, master of the katana as he is, can be beaten?
For a start, he walks in a circle doing the cuts, and this may slow him down maybe a second or two. Secondly, if the traditional horizontal cut was replaced by a vertical cut, that would speed things up too. Would the rules allow this?
Finally, although katanas are iconic rush straw cutting swords, are these weapons the fastest at this? Would a bastard sword like this:
www.coldsteel.com/hand-and-a-half-sword.html
perform better, lacking the katana’s wedge shaped profile? I may not be able to match Machii, but maybe one of the Cold Steel crew, using an ultra-sharp hand and a half sword, could take him on?
Any thoughts from blade fanatics out there?
James’ Ideas on Test Cutting
To me, the tatami mat stunts are not useful as conducted, as the test has been arranged by non-combatants.
The swordsman should attack a course of staggered mats, be given a point for a check cut, 2 for a pass cut, 3 for a shift cut and a bonus point for every backhand stroke and every level change from one stroke to the next. I would not count any stroke delivered against the same target from the same position or on the same vector, which all of his were.
Stabs should be awarded points and a bonus should be awarded for any single mat cut thrice from three positions along 3 vectors and doubled again if able to score a high-low-high combination keeping in mind that the second stroke unseats the target
The cutting of the air soft bee bee was an impressive demonstration of ritual used to achieve extra-normal perception or an alternate state of perception, whichever it was.
I think expanding your use of the butterfly swords as double and single weapons, would be beneficial for survival prep more so than the long swords. I also like the idea of using machetes as these might be retained in circulation as agricultural and forestry tools even when swords are outlawed.
Turd America
Trumpapocalypse Now: The Advent of an American Usurper at the fall of Western Civilization
Own the collected works of John Saxon, Professor X, Eirik Blood Axe, William Rapier and other counter culture critics, on Kindle, via the link below. Amazon:
The Great Train Wreck of the West
