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Old 03-09-2010, 10:40 AM   #44
Erick Mead
 
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Dojo: Big Green Drum (W. Florida Aikikai)
Location: West Florida
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 2,619
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Re: Sword tip movement

Quote:
Szczepan Janczuk wrote: View Post
I don't assume what the author wants to develop with cutting, what he wants to cut etc.
Don't be upset by my posts. I decided to post to help him to get rid of illusions that by learning aikiken he learn how to use a sword.

Many people touch a bokken and imagine they become instantly a samurai. I believe, to practice correctly aikiken you must first master the use of a real sword. Many shihans(i.e. Nishio sensei, Chiba sensei, Kanai sensei) that developed extensive use of weapons in aikido, had excellent background(high ranks) in sword practice.
There is nothing superior in my remarks, I'm simply referring to the facts.
There is little factual in those remarks. I don't fault the recommendation of swordwork and sword cutting, and it is much fun -- but to say it is sine qua non is simply silly. I never cut a makiwara until two years ago, and never did a darn thing but bokken work until then; my cuts are as clean as you please. I practice to cut through the partner and his attack in every kumitachi and in every tai-jutsu technique by the same exact principle.

The instrument is irrelevant, the nature of the action is critical. A man can bash someone over the head with three foot piece of steel as a well as of wood but he would not be cutting with his piece of steel in that instance. Chopping, mebbe ... and not even very well, at that.

A cut is not a collision -- it is a shear. Cutting is an action all its own. It matters not whether you do it with the sword, stick, hand or hip. If it is a cut it works as a cut to deeply sever structural connections, be it wood, steel or flesh doing the shearing or cutting action -- and if not, it does not work any better than the kinetic collision of mass on mass -- of whatever substance.

The difference is huge, and obvious once you see it. I cannot lay a blade against his neck and whack him with it, but I can surely cut him. Atemi, throws, pins, locks, are no different, once you see the operation of that same principle in them.


Last edited by Erick Mead : 03-09-2010 at 10:44 AM.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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