For advanced cutters, such as those who have been shodan for a while in our class, I think a standing target is becoming too easy. Yes, there are certainly still many possible cuts that you and I can't do yet on a target that is in a fixed location. But there is a whole domain of cutting that requires a different set of skills that we don't practice as often.
If you've been to our cutting sessions, you may notice at the end of class, we sometimes toss the last small cutable pieces at the studen…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on November 16, 2009 at 9:20am —
No Comments
It seemed like a long day (9am-1pm+) for cutting so I may not have all the details. Everyone certainly did better today. I think most people did quite good if not phenomenal today. I did record high speed videos but I never seem to find the time to edit and post them.
The best I saw today was Alex who is a yonkyu but was able to do a full (and nice) kihon-toho on a half goza. That's usually a nikkyu level cut. Charlie injured his palms and wasn't able to cut before they started bleeding so we h…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on November 8, 2009 at 1:50pm —
2 Comments
It might have just been an off-day for folks but from what I saw last weekend, all the candidates for the next black belt level, myself included, do not seem ready for their next test. As cutting criteria again, you need to be proficient in those cuts, which to me means you should be able to do it not just once or twice but pretty much on command 60-90% of the time.
You should not have to think through the cuts but you can certainly do it at a careful pace (slow in between cuts). The worst is w…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on October 28, 2009 at 8:58am —
No Comments
I purchased some sharpening stones from Nihonzashi to try out. They have a fairly large selection of stones from 100 to 8000 grit. This is based on the Japanese grit system, and all the stones are from Japan I believe. I only purchased a 1000/6000 combo stone, and a 3000 grit one, which are better for maintenance not hard core repair. The Japanese grit system is not the same as the US one (quite different actually). There is a conversion chart that I saw somewhere but you will need to be careful…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on October 14, 2009 at 9:20am —
No Comments
I'm considering another cutting day on Sat the 24th starting around 9am at Himmel park. It usually goes on till noon. I need responses from people on who can attend and how much goza you need.
We have goza again. As before goza is $6 for a full piece/ $3 for half piece. I plan to cut about 9 goza myself and may have students from the high school class too, so I simply can't soak it all and bring it all in my car. (one plastic tub only fits about 16 before it breaks). For Andrew C and Andrew D,…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on October 5, 2009 at 4:44pm —
6 Comments
I have the new Peg sharpener in and have been making some pegs. Basically, it's cheaper in the long run than buying pre-made pegs for our cutting stand. I went out to Home Depot, got four 1" dowels and had them cut down to size, so now we have 16 possible pegs.
It works like a big pencil sharpener essentially. B…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on October 4, 2009 at 9:04am —
No Comments
Another myth from many movies: Swords should make "Zing!" sound when you draw them from the sheath.
Perhaps for other swords, but this is generally a bad idea for Japanese swords.
First, most, perhaps all, sayas are made from wood (or wood on the inside). Some have metal or horn fittings at the
koiguchi (the opening entry point for the sword), but that is mostly or entirely on the outside. So there is not really any other metal on the inside to make that metallic ringing/zing noise. Wha…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on September 26, 2009 at 8:30am —
No Comments
I was asked about this the other day:
I do not have a definitive answer to this but I think it highly unlikely that people would
line the inside of their saya (sheath) to let them sharpen the sword every time they draw it. It's one of those movie ideas: cool in theory, terrible in practice.
Sharpening a sword is not a something you can just run once quickly across the
nagasa (length of the open blade) to get any significant benefit.
Here's what you'd need:
- Sayas are not…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on September 24, 2009 at 8:08am —
No Comments
As you can see from the recent videos, I've been testing out the new high-speed Casio EX-FH20 camera to record some of the activity. It takes high-speed video at 210 frames per second. This really is helpful for cutting to see what we've done.
One problem however is that the files are huge, and on this site each video can only be 100MB maximum, although we can have as many of them as we wish. Even a minute of highspeed film is 60MB. From Saturday's cutting session, I have an hour or so of video…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on September 14, 2009 at 10:32am —
No Comments
Posting for senseis Monica and Bianca for the U of Arizona club:
Hey Club Members and Potential Club Members (aka the most awesomemest people in
the world)!
The first Batto-do practice will be held next Friday, Sept. 4th from 6-7:30
pm. We will meet in the Rec Center at the corner of Highland and 6th at the top
of the stairs. Just look for a bunch of people carrying wooden swords - we're
hard to miss.
For those who will be attending for the first time, just come wearing
comfortable clothing, p…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on August 28, 2009 at 1:48pm —
No Comments
I got both a new pair of light combat gloves and new targets on the same day. The gloves are from Revival.us, a chivalry sports store with lots of equipment for Ren-Fair types. The gloves are light, kevlar reinforced with a hard shell over the knuckles, and padding for every finger. However, even the large size for me seems to be a little small for my hand. It fits mostly well and protects the wrist and forearms as well, but covers about 95% of my palm, making it a little annoying when it chafes…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on August 14, 2009 at 2:14pm —
No Comments
I've put in an order for one box of goza from Nihonzashi in Florida which should arrive next week. I think it's time for some cutting again soon, perhaps on the Sat 15th or Sun 16th. I wanted to test the quality of their goza first before ordering too much. The cost has also gone up a buck per target since it's more expensive to have it shipped from FL to here.
Let me know who can come.
-rawn
Continue
Added by rawnshah on August 6, 2009 at 3:34pm —
No Comments
The folks at Nihonzashi have a fairly detailed set of information about the material and dimensions of the swords they carry. It's much more information than may be helpful to the beginner but still helpful.
http://www.nihonzashi.com/shinken_selection_guide.aspx
-rawn
Continue
Added by rawnshah on August 5, 2009 at 9:13am —
No Comments
The promotion ceremonies on Sunday went well. Reed was the only shodan candidate but there were a number of higher rank promotions as well. I'll try to post photos once I get them off my phone.
Congratulations to:
Reed Wittman - as our newest Shodan
Dusty Alexander - promoted to Nidan and awarded the title of sensei
There were a number of other dan promotions in the other martial arts styles (Kodenkan teaches a wide range of martial arts).
This will bring our yudansha (black belt ranks) in b…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on July 21, 2009 at 8:36am —
No Comments
I haven't posted in a while, being busy with my day job, but just a few notes.
We have one candidate testing for his Battodo shodan under the Kodenkan and Ryuseikan this month: Reed Wittman. We usually split the test across two days because of venue. The first part is the cutting and individual kata tests with a shinken which we normally conduct outdoors. We videotape this portion to send to our Soke in Japan. The second part is testing of all katas individual and with a partner, wazas and all…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on June 9, 2009 at 4:19pm —
1 Comment
We tested three students for the sankyu ranks yesterday and they all passed. This is the first of the brown "belt" ranks--three ranks even though we don't use actual belts. There was a little added pressure being out in the 98 degree weather in the field, with the sun in their eyes. It adds to the difficulty of the test by distracting them with discomforts and stress.
Their kesa-giri on half goza was generally good, although some had to take their 1 do-over to get it right from both directions.…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on April 22, 2009 at 9:26am —
No Comments
It was an interesting cutting day for the junior high school students. Many missed class so we had extra goza left and I let some of the lower ranked students attempt it -- only those who have demonstrated some degree of control.
It's not a surprise to me but the first time cutting is either a positive or negative surprise to people. The three new first timers have been in the class for different periods of time. Two have been there for almost two years now and one is in their second semester.…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on April 8, 2009 at 3:02pm —
No Comments
I ran into Seth Pepper yesterday at a cafe. Seth's the videographer working with Shihan John, but also happens to be a former swimming champ. He was ranked fourth in the world in the early/mid-1990s, and missed making the Olympics by 4/100 of a second in the trials.
As a sport, swimming is far further evolved than what we have in most martial arts, not simply in being an Olympic event and having collegiate & national teams everywhere. It's in the level of teaching and coaching that occurs i…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on April 1, 2009 at 9:51am —
2 Comments
I noticed a little too late that Dave and the guys from Tameshigiri.com will no longer be selling goza targets directly. This is normally where we get our stock that our students then purchase and use in their cutting.
Shihan and I are trying to consider other options: buying a container full of them directly from Japan, either new or more likely used goza. The goal is to try to find a cost-effective way but that much goza is hard to manage. There is another option from a Florida retailer but t…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on March 25, 2009 at 1:58pm —
3 Comments
We went to the Rennaisance fair last week and I stopped by the Shady Armory where they had realistic looking foam weapons of many different types at hand. They didn't have any katanas but I was more interested in how it felt and functioned.
I added a link to the
Knighthawk Armory that builds similar equipment except with a wide line of katanas. From what I could determine from a ten minute test, these foam weapons:
- do not hurt severe…
Continue
Added by rawnshah on March 24, 2009 at 4:41pm —
1 Comment
