Keith Larman

I've seen aikidoka do cuts where they are so focused on maintaining balance and keeping things intact that they'd be lucky to hit a dwarf in the head. Even though they're saying the cut is aimed at forehead level. It's easy to cut a target without using much extension -- you just stand really close. However, standing really close isn't such a great idea if the target happens to have a sword too... Hence some styles have a more pronounced "casting" movement. Most in Aikido aren't all that worried about the bokken as a stand in for a specific edged weapon. It is more about improving their aikido. Most styles of swordsmanship, however, are concerned about the weapon as a functional thing. That is sharp and is used in context of some other fella wishing to do you harm with the same weapon.

Keep in mind that the amount of "draw" in the cut as created by the outer form varies from style to style. The weapon is a "slicer" in general, not an axe. But from style to style the way the cut is performed will vary a bit as to how much the sword is "pulled" (a description I hate because it gives the wrong impression of an overt pulling -- the way the sword traverses a target generally is that it isn't going forward, but back a bit). With a big "casting" cut the sword is way out there and the completion pulls it back. But, like I said, it varies.

The guy is legit within the Nakamura groups. I don't know if that means his personal style nowadays is representative -- that's not always the case regardless where you look at these things.