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Post by LG Martial Arts on May 16, 2014 22:57:41 GMT
Saw this a short while ago and thought I'd share
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Post by Adrian Jordan on May 16, 2014 23:44:52 GMT
I love to watch James Williams cut. He's really smooth.
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Post by Onimusha on May 17, 2014 3:08:58 GMT
I've attended a short seminar he gave at a blade show. He's impressive and a standup guy.
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Post by Steel in on May 19, 2014 19:18:37 GMT
man in video is not very good in this video.
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Post by Onimusha on May 19, 2014 21:20:47 GMT
You have a better eye than me. What is he doing wrong?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2014 22:42:14 GMT
Holding breath, for one. The tsuka crossing in front of his forearm arm after the draw cut shows very little control of the blade's inertia after passing through the target and is flirting with being a thrown sword. A lot of tension, especially shoulders, strained facial expression.
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Post by Steel in on May 19, 2014 23:23:14 GMT
This the man in video may not be wanting to show good technique on video for internet, and i am not critical to him. i cannot think why he would choose to do it then do badly. It could be tv camera picked worse cuts because they do not know better and the cutting man is seething. Unless we know we cannot be critical of the embu, only to say technique shown are not good for unknown reason, it is not easy to do them well.
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Post by Onimusha on May 19, 2014 23:26:39 GMT
The tsuka crossing the forearm is visible, but how can you tel he's holding his breath and has tension? Also, facial expression? Is facial expression that important? All I'm seeing is that bugei dragonfly katana sailing through those thick mat rolls like they're made of whipped cream.
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2014 1:30:47 GMT
Cheeks are puffed, lips are pursed, no nostril movement, nothing moving in the chest: respiration is not happening.
If you crank up the resolution it might be more apparent, look at the musculature of the arm at about :28, when the top piece begins tumbling down. That combined with the face (cheeks, eyebrows, lips), raised shoulders, taught neck, the man is tense. It makes sense, it's a high pressure environment and he's doing this in front of a high end piece of equipment recording every little thing, I'm sure he really wants to make sure the sword gets through the target at that time and place. I have no doubt I'd be jacked up too if I was the subject of a large budget production.
The sword does cut through the mats very cleanly.
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2014 1:37:46 GMT
There is probably a lot to this. Remember, this was part of a Discovery Channel (I believe) show, from the sound of things he did not have editorial control of what made it through. I recall there was a day of filming, so there's a lot more than what was presented in this or other clips that ended up never seeing the light of day.
You've got people that aren't martial artists trying to make decisions on what looks good, for all we know every other take was technically superior and showed excellent form on all counts but they went with that because of an arbitrary whim. Think about, your job is editing footage for a TV show - what is "better", the take with a serene expression or the one that jumps out as being 'intense' or 'raw'. They probably saw the second and thought "Yeah, that is what a swordsman looks like!"
Only commenting on what I see presented. I'm not making any judgment of him as a person or a martial artist or instructor, just looking at the clip we've got here.
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Post by Kurimuzon on May 20, 2014 15:13:40 GMT
That was enjoyable for what it was, I think I'll leave no comments to the things that have already been said Makes me wonder if I can trade pizza to any of my friends that have cameras that can do such excellent slo-mo the next time I do tameshigiri.
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Post by Bluntsword on May 21, 2014 13:41:49 GMT
Man of his skill/experience/history, he's making simple mistakes. The main one is cutting using the center of the sword (and yes I do notice these are double/triple mats), standing to close to target or leaning forward to much. Take what I say with a grain of salt as I'm a noob as well.
But the video does serves its purpose, making katanas look cool.
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2014 23:07:44 GMT
Forgot to add - that is not the dragonfly katana. That is a very limited edition sword they only make available to "committed" individuals in the system he developed / oversees. The habaki and tsuba are cut out in the image of the stylized wave they use as an emblem. It is a stout, very deeply curved blade with tan leather ito in katate maki, you can probably make out when the handle is visible there are only partial diamonds at either end of the tsuka.
It may raise your esteem of the cutting itself, as it is a rather hefty blade and considerably thicker than the dragonfly.
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