pgandy
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Post by pgandy on Dec 8, 2018 23:10:35 GMT
With the talk of apples I decided to give that a go today as I had one with broken skin and was surprised at how easily it cut. I could not split it although it was easily sliced. I could cut into the apple and sometimes a piece was removed by sticking to the blade on withdrawal. It was so easy that I broke out my new sabre still with Universal’s unsharpened edge and could see little difference.
Regarding the OP question, I think the sword used plays a part in this. Closer the PoB is the easier the control. More importantly a good fitting grip to hand. If you stop your swing and there is play between the grip and the hand, which can be increased with more blade heavy swords, control becomes more difficult. Heavier the sword the more inertia and is more difficult to put on the brakes.
My preference is to use the inertia in the strike to bring the sword back to guard position. However in combat the blade may very well stop, hopefully not stick, in the target. If it should glance off the target then my muscle memory will keep the blade moving.
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Post by LastGodslayer on Dec 10, 2018 0:36:20 GMT
So, taking into account that user strength and blade weight/balance are obvious factors, the solution revolves around compensating the inertia of the blade through proper body motion. I guess this can be improved upon somewhat. I also imagine this improves indirectly through practice and is not necessarily the target of direct training in most martial traditions.
I wonder if I can improve this by training with progressively heavier/longer blades. Same excercise, diferent blades... I will update with results!
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Post by elbrittania39 on Dec 10, 2018 1:30:59 GMT
Also, depending on your sword you can try draw cutting, which is much slower and easier to stop at will.
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Post by MOK on Dec 10, 2018 9:25:39 GMT
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Post by LastGodslayer on Dec 10, 2018 20:10:42 GMT
Thanks MOK. I get the feeling that move is just a wrist "flick"... That motion is designed to stop at the the wrist lock. Its not the kind of full motion cut, to sever limbs and such, that I was talking about.
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Post by markus313 on Dec 10, 2018 20:53:10 GMT
It is the same principle. You can make the movement wider (more lat involvement), but you’d still need to straighten the arm to "stop" the cut. From the outside, the first part of this cut can be made to look just like a full cut (with full follow-through). Stopping a cut (or better said: transforming) can gain a tactical advantage (provoking a reaction / changing to another technique.
A full power cut that can be stopped dead on spot isn’t a full power cut – that would be contradictory, simply impossible due to laws of physics, since you’d be working against the momentum you’ve worked to create in the first place (a large muscle chain and whole body movement plus gravity plus weapon weight to create momentum vs. a large muscle chain and static body “movement” minus gravity minus weapon weight plus the problem of working and absorbing all the force into a small spot, namely the wrist and fingers, to subtract the momentum.
The power has to go somewhere. Or as Cosmoline put it: Cut for the stop. There is no way around it. It just doesn’t have to look like it from the start. (Talking about one-handed weapons used in chopping motions only – I'd agree to the argument that slicing/drawing motions, especially with two-handed weapons, are a bit different of a story. And not to say you can't cut powerful into Langort or other point forward guards - you can, but not as powerful as into the upper/lower guards with the point backwards.)
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Post by Cosmoline on Dec 11, 2018 17:11:11 GMT
It depends what you mean by "full power." A cut intended to sweep through the target that hits mid-way through the body's motion is very difficult to stop. But consider a zorn-ort where your arms and body are moving to lock the cut down in a thrust position. That's a very powerful strike and will displace an oberhau from the center easily. But it's designed to stop suddenly and immediately thrust. So it's all a question of how you're moving your body in relation to your sword.
It's also really hard to control the blade in general if the cutter is untrained and simply swinging with the arm muscles.
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Post by LastGodslayer on Dec 12, 2018 21:00:09 GMT
I am loving everyone's input!
I think a "full power/motion" cut is probably, like markus said, impossible to "stop on a dime" 'cause ya know... physics. But cosmoline does raise the point (that I think most made) that if you move accordingly to the strike, in a way to balance it, and if that strike is such that it would naturally end with the point pointing towards the target, it IS possible to suddenly stop.
I still think physics wins this one, when thinking about the cut one handed, because there is a limit to the lever within one's hand that can be applied to "defeat" the inertia of motion of the blade. No matter how much one shifts body mass around, it still has to go through the hand, and the hand is what fails ultimately.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2018 3:21:10 GMT
If you're in control of the cut, you can slam on the brakes at any time and learn what muscle groups to activate or deactivate as the case may be to get there. It's part of what makes the stuff that looks boring interesting, but if you don't dig in to it you'll never be able to grasp it. If you just throw it out there, you're liable to either get it knocked out of your hand or stumble over when you hit a solid obstacle - like walking straight into a stone wall when you aren't paying attention.
I don't know how else to word it - you strike to the end of your strike. That can be all the way to the ground, or it can be pointed at longpoint, whatever it's kind of arbitrary. You work out where you're cutting to and you cut to that point. If you've got your part down, then you shear through his defense or you find out what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object. If you hit a hard stop you aren't prepared for, it'll be an enlightening experience.
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