For anyone interested, Nakamura had one of his books re released. Its called "The Spirit of the Sword". Look it up its a great read.

I keep watching this vid...I love the power and precision of those wonderful slashes! Wish I could do that!

0:06 its always beutiful when u see it stay on for a second or later

Looked like perfect edge alignment to me! Very impressive!

budo is one of my favorite documentaries,great clip

Yes, sadly he passed away in 2003. For the last few years the International Batto-Do Federation has been holding a memorial taikai around the time of his birthday. So his legacy lives on through many of us who are still teaching his form of batto-do.

Beautiful downward stoke with the katana you can see the ki flowing as the cut follows through.

I think it is wonderful how he draws the sword, slicing as he cuts.

Lots of people don't understand the difference between what's real and not real ( about swords ). Most of all very little people are willing to learn and research in detail that which they think is truth , such as anime fans think of katanas as indestructible swords or that European swords are way less superior. I would also like to thank you since I probably would of never made so much research about European metallurgy to see the truth from the myths and get more respect towards the microstructures and other aspects of European swords. Thought Nakumura isn't "that" fast but he's pretty fast but most of all he's got great precision, cuts and skill, btw thx for showing the truth to lots of ignorants anime fans about the real capacity of the katana and to people who "think" they know all about swords. With all due respect.

@SteamShinobi

10 жыл бұрын

I realize this is 5 months old, but I'm a ninjutsu practitioner and katanas are the best..............for fandom based biasness and rage, they did a test where they slammed a katana into a European sword, guessed which one broke? Yup, katana, but the European sword did have a remarkable chip in V shape, but Damascus steel in my opinion is a great is the greatest amalgamation of two worlds. Just my 0.2.

@honoredamien1681

6 жыл бұрын

LOL it's the first time I learn that ninjutsu is something about " katana ... ! I was thinking ninja was discrete spy without weapons ... . LOL

Thanks for the info!

@urmomakiller In which scientific peer reviewed journals were these tests published? Or were they just on...TV?

do you still need a licence for a katana in the uk if your using it as decoration in your house?

How do you call this documentary? I had long ago recorded on vhs but I never knew what it was called. if you could tell me the name I would greatly appreciate

Man the music is AWESOME!

impressive, most impressive!

Excellent kirioroshi, you can see the bamboo fall after a fraction of a second. Awesome music

wow this early 70's vid is really cool with the music

@ShotokanBleach Would like to see his stance or you know Iaido? If you know Iaido what is your fastest attack time?

I understand there are other high quality swords, but the katana is still very remarkable, unique and in my mind a work of art.

@battodoo you mean it takes more than 1.5 seconds to pull a trigger?

nice

@TheMidgaardSerpent its that the cut was clean enough that it didnt move at first, and there was a healthy green bamboo at the cores which is hard to cut if you've never tried.

Damn, I like the music. What's the name of the movie and the music?

@battodoo Nothing but swords? Huh? Could you provide the source for this, I'd be interested to read about it. Seems rather improbable.

Wow..that is very cool.

lol I hadn't heard about Musashi until I read this comment. Looked into him and had a good little while reading about him. Thank you.

its not just folded steel that makes them unique, what about the differential tempering? Or the core of different steel?

is this from Bushido: way of the warrior?

Wow! You can really see the force in his cut at 0:05.

:08 I love when it stalls before falling

there is something extremely poetic about this video

Bone can be easy to cut through - or very hard to cut through. It depends on the circumstance. The archaeological record shows us that only on very rare occasions were bones neatly severed. What typically happened was that an edge would glance off the bone. The seppuku rituals are also testament to the fact that cutting through vertebrae of a perfectly compliant subject is a lot harder than you might think. The botched up beheadings in the records are numerous.

Throughout the entirety of the video I kept thinking, that used to be performed upon people D: ... :D Awesome!

@LaCosaNostra132 Perhaps a longsword like eg. the Albion Sempach would be closer to an equivalent of the katana.

*NOW IM MOTIVATED*

AFAIK, there's ways of combining both anyway. There's a term for it. Holding your blade, flicking it sort of upwards to let their attack slide off, and continuing the momentum to their neck. All in one perfect motion. Very cool to watch if you get it right.

You seem to have covered the ground pretty well, Cal, but I would correct you on one thing: you said that its thickness made it less suited for penetrating armour. I would contend the opposite. For this task you want a rigid blade with an acute point, and with some thickness to it for support. The yoroi-doshi, for example, was an extra thick tanto designed to pierce armour. There's the added mass, but also you are less likely to damage the blade.

From what I understand, the speed of the Katana strike comes from the way the blade is held. Hands apart instead of hands together.

Nice music

cool i love katanas they are so quick, of course nothing against a pistol or so but katanas still have style

anyone know what those samurai robes are called?? ive been trying to find them to buy one :P

That shirasaya at the end is so pretty :)

Kabuto-wari is "helmet splitting", and is a method of testing the blade. No helmet has ever been split by katana, though (it is made of the same material as the sword, after all). The world record is a five inch gash. No katana was specifically designed to penetrate hard armour in battle. There IS the yoroi-doshi, an extra thick tanto designed to pierce armour, but this is the sole exception in the knife/sword department.

I would be very interested to see what sources there are of duels between samurai and Westerners. As far as I am aware, there weren't any. There were a few skirmishes (which did little to bolster samurai reputation), but I have heard of no official duel fought cross-culturally.

@Haku330 Guns are "point and shoot?" LOL, maybe if you don't plan on hitting anything. Guns require trigger control, breath control, having correct posture, sight alignment, sight picture, etc.

What most people forget is that the katana developed as a specialization sword and was adapted to general use. Like the cutlass, it was a cavalry sword, and since metal was scarce in Japan, the Samurai made the best use of their resources by training extensively to make use of katanas in as many situations as imaginable. Even though some western style swords reached Japan, the samurai had sadly become sword snobs, and they saw little reason to adopt a new sword with only slightly different usage

I can find no trace of this Henri Depaul, nor of this particular Ikei Shimada character. And no reference of these "paper warriors", either (that one is particularly odd, because all Japanese-Portugese encounters I'm aware of were won, rather decisively, by the Portugese). What are your sources?

Where did he get the katana?

VERY GOOD ;-)

@wookiedestroyer101 In the USA...no...but in some states, the laws are different and very draconian. Where I live...there are no restrictions on the ownership of katana/shinken. I think in Japan...you have to have it registered and they are very tightly controlled.

Bearing swords were not produced in vast numbers; they were custom made for town corporations, guilds or to hang over the tombs of notable people. Many have survived because they were kept in town or guild halls or in churches. Unlike battlefield swords they weren't worn out, lost, broken in combat or simply discarded for newer designs. The Japanese did indeed make giant cerenonial swords along with giant war clubs IIRC some were up to 15 feet long. They were kept in shrines and temples

this is from an old documentary called "BUDO-THE ART OF KILLING" that documentary is amazing and is a must have for any martial artist. if you find it on DVD-BUY IT!

Old man, epic skills. o.o

thats the first time the phrase "like a hot knife through butter" actually seems right

Ringen was a system, recorded in historical manuals. It could be a system, that every master could've taught somewhat differently, but that's the case for every martial art. I was talking about European knightly plate armor, it doesn't have gaps on the outer parts to allow limbs to bend out, nor shoulders, hands or fingers.

The Romans preferred thrusts precisely because they were more deadly, and as late as the Napoleonic wars it was noted that while the British curved cavalry sabres caused very hideous wounds (cut wounds tend to look a lot worse than they are), the straighter French cavalry sabres, specialized for thrusting, caused fatal wounds a lot more frequently. Also, I believe it was Silver who emphasized the potential of the thrust, as the cut "rarely kills".

@billvw1974 Actually, there was a BRIEF period in which duels between pistols and swords (cutlass, rapier, and katana alike) were not unheard of nor as imbalanced as most people would assume. The early pistols had a nasty habit of misfiring and gave the swordsman an adequate chance to approach and wound/kill the gunman(depending if the duel was to the death or to first blood).

is this japan? wheres all the smog?

In formation, they would use spears, not swords. When swords were used in battle, they were primarily aimed for unarmoured parts and/or the laces of the armour. Against O-yoroi you would see a certain degree of half-swording to thrust the kissaki in-between armoured sections.

Is that Fumio Demura?

@iHateAnime4LIfe Sorry, but claymores and longswords are different. Longswords vary from 1-2kg's and are up to 140cm long, and no, there's no chance for 'hurting yourself'. There's plenty of demonstrations showing how quick and agile they are as a weapon.

"Earlier European armors could actually be /lighter/ than what the Samurai would weigh" This is very true. The yoroi prior to the more snugly fitting do-maru armour was very boxy and restrictive, and could be extremely cumbersome. Especially the earliest O-yoroi which were meant for mounted warriors, but were rather awkward to move in on foot.

is that from a movie cuz it looks like it

@LaCosaNostra132 The katana is designed as a cut-and-thrust weapon, and thrusts (tsuki) are frequent in Kenjutsu and even in modern Kendo, even if here there is only one legal thrust, and that's to the throat. However, in Kenjutsu and Iai, techniques are not limited by point-scoring rules. You even have half-swording techniques (soete-tsuki), which are somewhat different (and less diverse) from most European half-swording techniques, but serve more or less the same purposes.

Swartzkopf said in his book he didn't like the term "low intensity war". He once had to dig up and disarm a single mine, and if felt pretty intense to him. Battle is a great rush of adrenalin, but if you get exposed to it as a young man you run the risk of liking it, and seeking to get that same rush the rest of your life.

Proper technique uses any part of the blade that is useful in a given situation. There's a reason why the whole edge is sharpened. The monouchi is the "business part", though, which is used in the vast majority of cuts. This is the tip-most third of the blade, not just the first few inches. The centre of percussion is located roughly one third of the blade from the tip in almost all swords - this is where the impact is strongest.

Jujutsu was used to attack joint of the human body, armor prevents joints from over-extension, can't choke a man because of the gorget too. Ritters had their own hand-to-hand technique, called ringen, which is similar to jujutsu and judo, based on throws.

what's the name of this? please :)

what skills do you mean exactly?

DAMN -- now this man can CUT. Nice!

This guy is a Shogun Assassin for sure

Depends on the armour. But at any rate, we were talking about the resilience of armour, so unarmoured places aren't really relevant here.

Shields were used back in Japan's antiquity, but they seem to have disappeared by the 9th century. They did use great, big pavises for protection against arrows, but not hand-held shields for some reason. War fans were sometimes used as warders by high ranking samurai, but why they did not use hand-held shields is a bit of a conundrum.

Yes, they did act as the main execution force as well. Also, another thing I know is that any peasants not protected by Samurai were deathly afraid of them.

that guy pretty famous.i read about him in fighting arts mag.he took a few heads off in the second world war i believe.(according to the interview)

Japanese weaponry adjusted to the times every bit as much as in Europe. The katana may LOOK like it didn't change an awful lot at first glance, but fact is that the katana's design has been constantly changing. "Single edged curved sword" is really a broad description. As different as cavalry sabres and longswords of various periods, that's how different katana are.

i need to get this guy to my house, the brush is really getting overgrown.

Don't forget that one of the dominant fighting philosophies of the Japanese was to put absolutely everything into the attack. Many of their fighting techniques incorporated rapid attacks following a block. They didn't really bother with the cut and thrust of European swordplay. Their technique didn't really allow for effective parrying. Speed, and offensive power were key.

They make it look so easy ,Dont they? But i know its not i have a Katana and have to practice all the time.True Masters.I truly respect their skills.

Full plate armor weights 60-70 lbs and is distributed towards the whole body. It doesn't hinder the movements that much. Not only that, but to knock down an armored opponent takes more strength than to knock down an unarmored one, if the iron clad combatant actually resists. And if the armored fighter actually tries to fight back... he is actually invulnerable to joint locks, punches and kicks and is porting a pair of knuckles.

your right only on speical occasions on the battlefield you would get that chance(they have armor and will be moving around)

Cuts can be mere lacerating flesh wounds and thrusts can go without damaging vital organs. But a deadly thrust is easier to deliver than a deadly cut.

A thrust is going to be deadlier anyway. The rib cage is essentially a suit of armour for the vital organs, and the skull is armour for the brain. With a cutting weapon you target tendons and veins, as well as harrassing minor cuts. You also do big cuts to the head, neck, shoulders and torso, but these are still going to be much less frequently fatal than thrusts. You may cleave a skull, and you may sever a collar bone, but most cuts are not going to penetrate very far.

the katana is indeed the best sword ever made but the main thing its the sword master even more than the sword itself

@Caliburnis no the dai katana is the heavy one we tend to forget that

doesnt anyone else want to see him surrounded by like twenty bamboo poles and see how fast he can take them all down. like rurouni kenshin stuff

In the Cold Steel videos, the slabs of meat are unclothed and boneless, and are situated in such a way as to make it easy to take a good whack at them. If you look at history, dismemberment of any kind is rather rare. One reason for this is that in combat, you do not get the luxury of power cuts at targets in perfect alignment for test cutting. Another is that even simple clothing will greatly impede cutting ability.

@EternalQuestion There are still many special forces that train in stealth knife kills, and some even still use crossbows. The idea is that a knife is the most silent weapon you can find, while still being extremely deadly and efficient. Killing with a knife without being seen, much less caught, was the speciality of many assassins throughout history. Japan's historical killers are the most famous: the ninja. The aim to killing with a knife is pure stealth, nothing less

@iHateAnime4LIfe What the curve does is elongate the cutting edge so it can be used in a slicing motion more effectively; it's effectiveness in slashing attacks was increased slightly at the expense of some piercing power in relation to more finely pointed straight blades. I've never come across a source for axe fighting but the pollaxe and halberd ect. used a fast and deadly fighting style similar to what quarterstaves used. Also blunt swords can cut bamboo & tatami, it's not that hard.

wait so did u go there as a soldier or did u go there to visit your hometown and stuff?

@diehard17 the top is called a haori and the bottom is called hakama

@Protherium Well this is just a single strike. But I still agree. Granted I would love to see what the guy's stance is I for one use Iaido.

? I wonder if that is a Tamahagane blade?

The Katana is the best sword on earth, because it can cut through almost everything which another sword can cut. That's not all special. But its very elastic and hard. One of the things that differs the katana from other blades is, that it is made from many layers of steel folded, many times, but also important is the weight. If the weight would'nt be that low, the katana would be a normal sword. Of course, the katana is also one of the most beautiful sword's on earth. Sorry for my bad english.

@iHateAnime4LIfe Also what light materials are you talking about? Both cultures used blades of steel, which weighs 0.284lb per cubic inch. As far as sparring and actual techniques: /watch?v=ln94E9AGYTc /watch?v=mjT4JepA-Vc /watch?v=nmoSedeqrHo /watch?v=8h3V_bM6nSs /watch?v=nKEdcCSz_8c /watch?v=-TzdtyMC7ek /watch?v=Kj4Ng6DBfrg /watch?v=HC5FIyfI8TA Just a sample of some good ones. Many are deliberating executed rather slowly, after all they Are trying Not to kill eachother.

oh, wow did u sneak the ak out of the airport

damn thats a fast swing

@bud389 but fencing i would state would be more appropriate with a saber or a rapier iwould see a big ass mel gibson bre sword from miles away especially a european style you can see those handles

the suspense is traumatizing xD

i remember watching this on tv