Ryuseiken Battodo

Japanese swordfighting

November 2007 Blog Posts (6)

New goza stand is here



I received the new goza stand this evening and had to take some photos and post. You can see the photos on the site. I have to hand it to Bill Woodall; this thing is beautiful. It's also pretty heavy being made of Brazillian Cherry. I'd say much heavier than our current stand.



The weight isn't a bad thing necessarily, meaning it would probably last us a much longer time. I'm not sure if people remember the stand I built before in 2003. It was meant to be portable, meaning we had… Continue

Added by rawnshah on November 29, 2007 at 6:59pm — 2 Comments

Kanji of Ryuseiken Battodo





I figured out how to get the Kanji for Ryuseiken Battodo written out in Microsoft Word. It was a pain for one. If you want any foreign language installed for Microsoft Word and Office, you need to go to Start > Control Panels > Regional and Language Options > Languages > Details button. You can then click on Add and pick additional languages (on top of English) to install on the machine. This works for some other tools on Windows XP too, but not… Continue

Added by rawnshah on November 14, 2007 at 9:00am — No Comments

More goza and more cutting

Tameshigiri in November has been a bit of a lull. We're short on goza now, and have just enough for demos during the November 18th picnic. I just put in another order for 6 boxes, which runs me around $500 that hopefully people will pay back over time. It's still a big hit for me; on top of the new cutting stand (around $450).



It's much easier to store and soak in two or three places than everyone soaking their own. The boxes take up a bit of room, and unless you have a storage shed… Continue

Added by rawnshah on November 14, 2007 at 7:24am — No Comments

The "floating" target - tsubamegaeshi

Tsubamegaeshi brings to mind one of the classic ideas of "fictional swordmanship" that you see depicted in movies, anime, stories and other types of entertainment: the "floating target", as I call it.



This is where you cut a target so well that either the cut piece seems to be just floating in the air, for a brief moment, simply "hops" up and lands back exactly where it was cut from, or in the most amazing fashion (usually more fantasy than reality) simply sits there as if your sword… Continue

Added by rawnshah on November 7, 2007 at 4:33pm — No Comments

Swords are getting so affordable now



I just looked over the recent CAS/Hanwei catalog, the US distributor for Paul Chen/Hanwei swords. CAS is the top distributor of these swords in the US and they typically sell only to retailers who then sell to people. Many of the same swords that you see listed by other martial arts stores typically resell the stuff from CAS. In any case, the product comes through CAS.



The interesting thing about these Paul Chen swords and many other sword manufacturers in general is how much more… Continue

Added by rawnshah on November 7, 2007 at 2:31pm — No Comments

(Older) Videos from Sep 8th, 2007

I've started uploading some of the videos recorded on Sep 8th this year. The camera was handheld here so it's a little shaky but not too much. I had to brighten the video in software since the shade really made things look dark. So far tonight I've only uploaded 6 videos but there are more to come.



Shihan does a nice kihon-toho on three goza. In fact the goza even stay for a half-second on the kesa. There's one of mine with the complete tsubamegaesh which has the nikutsuke-kesagiri at… Continue

Added by rawnshah on November 4, 2007 at 1:23am — No Comments

Web sites & Resources

Matsuri: A Festival of Japan (2008) - Phoenix, AZ, Feb 23-28, Heritage Square

Battodo Ryuseiken in Japan. Also a partial site in english.



The Kodenkan of Tucson



The UofA Ryuseiken Battodo on the ASUA site



Tameshigiri.com - where we get goza. The ordering and shipping process are given.



Hanwei/Paul Chen swords



The Knighthawk Armoury builds some interesting realistic looking goshinken. They're expensive but they claim to be pretty durable (not yet tested by us).



Folding a Hakama the proper way



Woodall's Custom Workshop makes nice cutting stands for tameshigiri.


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