People love to take up their shiny, sharp swords and hack through various objects ranging from pool noodles to water bottles to rolled tatami. Doing so makes them feel cool and fierce and warlike when, in fact, all it really does is to lead them astray. This essay will show that test cutting has no value, no historical provenance, leads to bad swordsmanship, and confuses people about how swords work.
The idea of test cutting comes to us from Kendo and Iaido practitioners. Vast hordes of them practice test cutting of various sorts because they believe it will help them to cut better; they wax rhapsodically about it, actually, telling us that you can tell how perfect a swordsman’s cut is by how cleanly it cuts through the target while at the same time telling us that their swords are perfect razors whose merest touch will slice off a hand, apparently not seeing the inherent contradiction: If the sword is actually that sharp even a clumsy cut will kill—why do more?
In actuality, test cutting is not part of Japanese sword practice (well, not exactly). I know, I know, that sounds heretical, but it’s true. Bushi (what are know as Samurai today) didn’t do test cutting. “What?!” you cry, leaping to the scent of blood, “Have you never heard of Tameshigiri? Do you think we made that up?!” No, you didn’t make it up, you’ve been lead astray as to what it is.
“Tameshigiri was used to test the sharpness and quality of a sword: often it was carried out on dead bodies, tied-up living criminals, or bamboo straw test objects that had been secured to something. Educated or high-ranking bushi did not practice Tameshigiri, as it was purely a test of the sword’s sharpness, and in no way a measure of the samurai’s skills.” (Fumon, T., Samurai Fighting Arts: The Spirit and Practice, Kodansha Int’l., 2003, P. 49)
Bushi *did* practice one kind of cutting practice called “suemonogiri”, but that had a specialized purpose. When a bushi was going to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide, he would be assisted by another bushi called the kaishaku; his job was to cut off the head of the bushi performing seppuku (or almost cut it off—there were different kinds of cutting, but that’s outside the scope of this essay). Seppuku was considered an important ritual, and the kaishaku’s role was critical. Bushi spent hours practicing a huge, cleaving, ritualized cut (some ryu-ha have a kata devoted to it) to be used for the decapitation, and suemonogiri was an important tool in this process. But it *wasn’t* combat swordsmanship, and wasn’t practiced as such!
So: Test cutting had no relationship to combat.
Flash over to medieval Europe: We have no records of medieval knights practicing test cutting of any sort. There is one apocryphal story of Richard I but it didn’t actually happen, and it didn’t have any real combat relevance anyway. When we read about training in Europe we actually read only of training on a Pell; this is an excerpt from the anonymous Poem of the Pell:
“Of fight the disciplyne and exercise,
Was this. To have a pale or pile [pell] upright
Of mannys light [of a man's height], thus writeth old and wise,
Therewith a bacheler, or a yong knyght,
Shal first be taught to stonde and lerne to fight
And fanne [shield] of double wight tak him his shelde,
Of double wight a mace of tre [wood] to welde."
So we’ve established that test cutting has no historical provenance and no relationship to sword training. Now let’s look at what it does to your technique: When people practice test cutting they strive heroically to make a cut that’s smoother than the last time and which slices effortlessly through the target. Read any review of a new sword on the internet written by someone who believes in test cutting and a significant portion of his review will discuss how well they were able to do test cutting with it. But in order to get these smooth, perfect cuts the practitioners invariably (look at any video on YouTube) make huge, overblown cuts reminiscent of suemonogiri. They learn to make cuts that start from a high guard and end up with the point near the ground because this kind of follow through yields the smoothest cut.
But Hanko Döbringer (or whomever wrote Hs. 3227a) tells us this about cutting:
“And this art is quite earnest and righteous, and it goes from the nearest in search of the closest and goes straight and right when you wish to strike or thrust. So that when you want to attack someone it is as if you had a cord tied to the point or edge of your sword and this leads the point or edge to an opening.” (fol. 13v). This means we’re supposed to cut in a straight line from guard to the target, not a big swing. He adds to this later when he says: “For you should strike or thrust in the shortest and nearest way possible. For in this righteous fencing do not make wide or ungainly parries or fence in large movements by which people restrict themselves…they try to look dangerous with wide and long strikes that are slow and with these they perform strikes that miss and create openings in themselves.” (ff. 14r-v)
In other words, real swordsmanship is about making cuts as small and controlled as possible; not to the ground, but to a position usually called Langenort (“long point”). In fact, the earliest Fechtbuch, I.33, specifically says: “Note that the entire heart of the art lies in this final guard, which is called Longpoint; and all actions of the guards or of the sword finish or have their conclusion in this one and not in the others.” (Forgeng, J., The Medieval Art of Swordsmanship, Chivalry Bookshelf, 2003, p. 23). You see, when you cut to Langenort you’re stopping in a position in which your point threatens your opponent if you’ve missed, and thus you maintain control over the fight. If you cut to the ground you’re not really threatening him at all. (NB: You can cut to the ground on purpose as a way to lure your opponent into acting as you want him to; this technique is called the Wechselhau and is seen, among other places, in Lignitzer’s third play of the buckler, but note that it’s a special case in which you’re deliberately acting to provoke a response.)
Not only that, but cutting to the ground is dangerous because it gives your opponent an extra “fencing time” in which to act. The masters tell us to react to someone who does this with a technique called the Nachreisen (“following after”): “When he strikes an Oberhau and brings the blade down with the strike, travel after him with a strike on the head before he can get his sword up again.” (Tobler, C., Secrets of German Medieval Swordsmanship, Chivalry Bookshelf, 2001, p. 93)
Why do we cut to Langenort instead of to the ground? Simple: Not only does cutting to the ground expose you to a Nachreisen, but it isn’t necessary. That’s right, there’s no reason to do so. Medieval swords were sharp; not as razor-like as people like them today (such edges are usually brittle), but sharp none the less. It takes very little strength or effort to cut into a skull or hack into an arm with a good sword. The cut may not be perfectly clean, and the head or arm may not be cut completely off, but then you don’t need to do that to win the fight, and avoiding giving your opponent the initiative of the fight more than outweighs the loss of a perfectly smooth cut.
Another ugly habit that test cutting fosters is pulling the hands back slightly to prepare for the cut. It should be obvious why this is incorrect, but I have recently read people arguing in favor of it on various Internet sites. If you pull your hands back to “wind up” for a cut, even the most miniscule amount, you’re telegraphing your intentions to your opponent. Fencers who did this in the middle ages were called Buffel (“buffalos”; slang for a fighter who relies on huge, powerful strokes). They could be defeated either with the Meisterhau known as the Schielhau (“squinter”) or by a different variation of the Nachreisen: “If he raises the sword to strike, travel after him with a strike or a thrust and hit him in the upper opening before he can complete the strike. (Tobler 2001, p. 92).
So, test cutting has no historical provenance, no relationship to sword training, and teaches sword habits that can, at best, be termed “dreadful”. All it does is pander to a misplaced romantic desire to “cut something” with your sharp new sword, and there’s simply no value in that. Is there ever *any* value to be had in test cutting? Perhaps; people have, as I’ve said, an exaggerated sense of the lethal sharpness of swords (and I see the contradiction; I wish they did). The German tradition recognizes three primary kinds of attacks with a sword: Cuts (or blows with the edge), thrusts and slices. Many people believe that the merest touch of a blade on the flesh will give a lethal cut, and this simply isn’t so. This misconception leads to mistakes in the practice of slicing cuts, called Schnitten in the German tradition, in which the swordsman merely lays his edge on the target and pushes or pulls it along his opponent’s flesh. As anyone who’s ever carved a roast at dinner should know, this won’t be enough: you have to Schnitt powerfully with a heavy pressure of your hands to make a deep enough cut to be effective. There may be some justification for learning such techniques by test cutting, provided a realistic material can be found.
In general, however, the simple version is this: Just say no to test cutting.
The idea of test cutting comes to us from Kendo and Iaido practitioners. Vast hordes of them practice test cutting of various sorts because they believe it will help them to cut better; they wax rhapsodically about it, actually, telling us that you can tell how perfect a swordsman’s cut is by how cleanly it cuts through the target while at the same time telling us that their swords are perfect razors whose merest touch will slice off a hand, apparently not seeing the inherent contradiction: If the sword is actually that sharp even a clumsy cut will kill—why do more?
In actuality, test cutting is not part of Japanese sword practice (well, not exactly). I know, I know, that sounds heretical, but it’s true. Bushi (what are know as Samurai today) didn’t do test cutting. “What?!” you cry, leaping to the scent of blood, “Have you never heard of Tameshigiri? Do you think we made that up?!” No, you didn’t make it up, you’ve been lead astray as to what it is.
“Tameshigiri was used to test the sharpness and quality of a sword: often it was carried out on dead bodies, tied-up living criminals, or bamboo straw test objects that had been secured to something. Educated or high-ranking bushi did not practice Tameshigiri, as it was purely a test of the sword’s sharpness, and in no way a measure of the samurai’s skills.” (Fumon, T., Samurai Fighting Arts: The Spirit and Practice, Kodansha Int’l., 2003, P. 49)
Bushi *did* practice one kind of cutting practice called “suemonogiri”, but that had a specialized purpose. When a bushi was going to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide, he would be assisted by another bushi called the kaishaku; his job was to cut off the head of the bushi performing seppuku (or almost cut it off—there were different kinds of cutting, but that’s outside the scope of this essay). Seppuku was considered an important ritual, and the kaishaku’s role was critical. Bushi spent hours practicing a huge, cleaving, ritualized cut (some ryu-ha have a kata devoted to it) to be used for the decapitation, and suemonogiri was an important tool in this process. But it *wasn’t* combat swordsmanship, and wasn’t practiced as such!
So: Test cutting had no relationship to combat.
Flash over to medieval Europe: We have no records of medieval knights practicing test cutting of any sort. There is one apocryphal story of Richard I but it didn’t actually happen, and it didn’t have any real combat relevance anyway. When we read about training in Europe we actually read only of training on a Pell; this is an excerpt from the anonymous Poem of the Pell:
“Of fight the disciplyne and exercise,
Was this. To have a pale or pile [pell] upright
Of mannys light [of a man's height], thus writeth old and wise,
Therewith a bacheler, or a yong knyght,
Shal first be taught to stonde and lerne to fight
And fanne [shield] of double wight tak him his shelde,
Of double wight a mace of tre [wood] to welde."
So we’ve established that test cutting has no historical provenance and no relationship to sword training. Now let’s look at what it does to your technique: When people practice test cutting they strive heroically to make a cut that’s smoother than the last time and which slices effortlessly through the target. Read any review of a new sword on the internet written by someone who believes in test cutting and a significant portion of his review will discuss how well they were able to do test cutting with it. But in order to get these smooth, perfect cuts the practitioners invariably (look at any video on YouTube) make huge, overblown cuts reminiscent of suemonogiri. They learn to make cuts that start from a high guard and end up with the point near the ground because this kind of follow through yields the smoothest cut.
But Hanko Döbringer (or whomever wrote Hs. 3227a) tells us this about cutting:
“And this art is quite earnest and righteous, and it goes from the nearest in search of the closest and goes straight and right when you wish to strike or thrust. So that when you want to attack someone it is as if you had a cord tied to the point or edge of your sword and this leads the point or edge to an opening.” (fol. 13v). This means we’re supposed to cut in a straight line from guard to the target, not a big swing. He adds to this later when he says: “For you should strike or thrust in the shortest and nearest way possible. For in this righteous fencing do not make wide or ungainly parries or fence in large movements by which people restrict themselves…they try to look dangerous with wide and long strikes that are slow and with these they perform strikes that miss and create openings in themselves.” (ff. 14r-v)
In other words, real swordsmanship is about making cuts as small and controlled as possible; not to the ground, but to a position usually called Langenort (“long point”). In fact, the earliest Fechtbuch, I.33, specifically says: “Note that the entire heart of the art lies in this final guard, which is called Longpoint; and all actions of the guards or of the sword finish or have their conclusion in this one and not in the others.” (Forgeng, J., The Medieval Art of Swordsmanship, Chivalry Bookshelf, 2003, p. 23). You see, when you cut to Langenort you’re stopping in a position in which your point threatens your opponent if you’ve missed, and thus you maintain control over the fight. If you cut to the ground you’re not really threatening him at all. (NB: You can cut to the ground on purpose as a way to lure your opponent into acting as you want him to; this technique is called the Wechselhau and is seen, among other places, in Lignitzer’s third play of the buckler, but note that it’s a special case in which you’re deliberately acting to provoke a response.)
Not only that, but cutting to the ground is dangerous because it gives your opponent an extra “fencing time” in which to act. The masters tell us to react to someone who does this with a technique called the Nachreisen (“following after”): “When he strikes an Oberhau and brings the blade down with the strike, travel after him with a strike on the head before he can get his sword up again.” (Tobler, C., Secrets of German Medieval Swordsmanship, Chivalry Bookshelf, 2001, p. 93)
Why do we cut to Langenort instead of to the ground? Simple: Not only does cutting to the ground expose you to a Nachreisen, but it isn’t necessary. That’s right, there’s no reason to do so. Medieval swords were sharp; not as razor-like as people like them today (such edges are usually brittle), but sharp none the less. It takes very little strength or effort to cut into a skull or hack into an arm with a good sword. The cut may not be perfectly clean, and the head or arm may not be cut completely off, but then you don’t need to do that to win the fight, and avoiding giving your opponent the initiative of the fight more than outweighs the loss of a perfectly smooth cut.
Another ugly habit that test cutting fosters is pulling the hands back slightly to prepare for the cut. It should be obvious why this is incorrect, but I have recently read people arguing in favor of it on various Internet sites. If you pull your hands back to “wind up” for a cut, even the most miniscule amount, you’re telegraphing your intentions to your opponent. Fencers who did this in the middle ages were called Buffel (“buffalos”; slang for a fighter who relies on huge, powerful strokes). They could be defeated either with the Meisterhau known as the Schielhau (“squinter”) or by a different variation of the Nachreisen: “If he raises the sword to strike, travel after him with a strike or a thrust and hit him in the upper opening before he can complete the strike. (Tobler 2001, p. 92).
So, test cutting has no historical provenance, no relationship to sword training, and teaches sword habits that can, at best, be termed “dreadful”. All it does is pander to a misplaced romantic desire to “cut something” with your sharp new sword, and there’s simply no value in that. Is there ever *any* value to be had in test cutting? Perhaps; people have, as I’ve said, an exaggerated sense of the lethal sharpness of swords (and I see the contradiction; I wish they did). The German tradition recognizes three primary kinds of attacks with a sword: Cuts (or blows with the edge), thrusts and slices. Many people believe that the merest touch of a blade on the flesh will give a lethal cut, and this simply isn’t so. This misconception leads to mistakes in the practice of slicing cuts, called Schnitten in the German tradition, in which the swordsman merely lays his edge on the target and pushes or pulls it along his opponent’s flesh. As anyone who’s ever carved a roast at dinner should know, this won’t be enough: you have to Schnitt powerfully with a heavy pressure of your hands to make a deep enough cut to be effective. There may be some justification for learning such techniques by test cutting, provided a realistic material can be found.
In general, however, the simple version is this: Just say no to test cutting.
32 comments:
Hugh,
A razor sharp edge isn't any more brittle than a merely sharp edge, however, it thinner and much more liable to dulling, chipping and nicking.
Regards,
Ian
You're quite right, Ian, I stand corrected.
Hugh,
I'll come to the point: whereabouts are you located? Anywhere near Utah, perchance? The reason I ask, is because I have read through some of your material, and am frankly disgusted. Therefore, I throw the proverbial gauntlet at your feet, and make my challenge. This is sincere. I will bout with you how you dare, where you dare, and under whatever conditions you dare. Yo make a mockery of these arts, and I am calling you out. My e-mail address is: returnofthefallen@hotmail.com. If you accept, contact me and we will discuss a time and place that will be convienant, and under what conditions \ rules you feel comfortable with (as I have no fear in this matter, I will leave these up to you). Be assured that I am most serious, and have determined to expose your falacies and lax approach to the Art for what it is. If I have offended with my language, I say only that I have been as courteous as I can to a charlatan.
-Brandon Heslop.
LOL! ARMAteers need not apply.
It's amazing how often people get riled up by what they can't dispute.
So, I take it that you decline. I thought as much. It never amazes me how often blowhards are afraid to put their money where their mouths are.
-B.
It amazes me that someone would think I'd get any advantage from beating up a poor, ignorant ARMAteer--and if there's nothing to be gained, why bother? Just to satisfy your curiosity? To stop your uninformed criticism? My boy, being criticized by an ARMAteer is the surest guarantee I'm on the right track.
I'm amazed that anyone who disagreed with what I wrote would publicly show that his arguments were too weak for serious debate by resorting to making playground challenges like a fifth grader. If I'm wrong about whatever has hurt your feelings then document my mistakes--develop reasoned arguments based on actual research.
And please, if you must make challenges, don't steal lines from Shakespeare--it just makes you look even more like a melodramatic child.
Do your research, break free of ARMAs dogma, start practicing historical combat, then come see me. I have lots to show you.
And if you want to talk to me, e-mail me. I can help you if you want, but I don't intend to do so here. I'll delete any more impolite posts from you, so there's no point in making them.
Bravo!
From us here in Holland, I compliment you in giving a clear and sound explanation in how ridiculous test cutting really is (although is does feel good to slice assorted stuff) It has, like you stated no use in learning the Medieval Martial Arts. And will above all, teach you an improper way of striking.
As for the people who, so elegantly try to counter your findings: We are all just students. Take of your eye flaps and take a look around. Master is always student, Student is always master.
With kind regards,
Cor Kronenburg
Zwaard & Steen (NL)
www.zwaard-steen.nl
Hi Cor,
Thanks! It's nice to see others who understand. And you're right, we are all of us students!
Now i agree and disagree!
I think a lot of what you say is sound, and i also agree that the ARMA challenge is the worst way of settling this debate.
It almost seems like you are argueing that a boxer should never hit pads, to train power, and only work on tactics and so forth. Power has a place and nees to be trained to be generated properly. How to achieve that whithout training?
I think it is not the test cutting that is the real mistake, but the way in which it is done. I mean, practising a movement to gain muscle memory is good; and cuts, however simple are important to do right.
I know that it is very easy to do cuts wrong (say a zwerchhau is easily not properly edge-aligned)
That's not to say that one should train themselves in doing all the abovementioned mistakes (winding up and overcommitting and all that) It is interesting to train oneself in doing a cut RIGHT, as opposed to doing as much damage as possible with a blade on whatever target.
So training methods may vary, And i think I will continue to practice 'test cutting' with my new sharp sword. I would like to think however that it has the opposite effect to my fighting, as I'm criticising myself on a different set of criteria to say an ARMA dude.
Also in trying to train onself in tactical thinking it is usefull to spar and it is vital to have an apreciation of probable damage. That can be helped by test cutting if one pays proper attention to the differences to the different media being cut and, say, the human body.
There is plenty of depictions and mentions of cuts severing limbs and really causing a lot of damage. This was to some extent the aim. I also think that one can make a conscious coice half way through the cut to commit to heavy damage, or to keep the point closer to the centre line, for example long point or ochs. Some cuts are more damaging than others, but as you say, does that make a huge difference?
I've noticed how big the difference is between the damage my cuts do, even if i use the same edge on the same target in what i think was the same way. Practice will make perfect IF ONE CRITISCISES ONESELF ON THE RIGHT POINTS. I'd like to get better.
just my thoughts,
Arne Koets
Hi Arne,
Very well put, but I think you misunderstand me a bit: I don't believe in test cutting because I believe it *always* leads to bad habits. I suppose that theoretically someone could force himself to use only the kinds of cuts he'd use in a real fight, but that's a slippery slope, and besides, why do that when there's a more historically accurate method and one that's less likely to lead to bad habits: Pell work.
You make the point about boxers hitting pads, etc.--quite correct, but you err when you liken that to test cutting. We *know* what medieval knights did to practice swordsmanship: They hit the pell, and, as my essay says, *that's* the right way to train, not with test cutting.
As for free play, or "sparring", I disagree very strongly; all you have to do is to watch the hundreds of videos on YouTube showing folks doing free play to see that they change the art to match their rules and euqipment. I call this the Kendo Syndrome (because this is *exactly* what happened to Japanese swordsmanship) and you can read more about it in another of my essays:
http://talhoffer.blogspot.com/2008/02/bouting-in-armor-with-any-martial-art.html
Thank you for your well-reasoned comments. I believe this is an important issue to address.
Bravo Hugh, Bravo. I really think that you understand this side of martial arts and the way of effecting striking.
Greetings from Holland,
Bart
Zwaard&Steen
Thanks, Bart, I really appreciate that! I have a lot to learn and a lot of things that I have doubts about, but not this.
While pell work is a good way to train muscle memory to swing a sword, using a sharp sword on a good test target can help with proper edge alignment and form because you will get more feedback doing this with a sharp sword then using a blunt on a pell. Yes the knight and samuari didn't do this as far as we know...but they had real world feedback. We don't. You can swing at a pell all day long and do it with horrible edge alignment and not even realize it. I know several people who's edge alignment was REALLY bad until I handed then a sharp sword to work with. And it improved their swordwork overall.
As for the freeplay issue...yes most people play instead of train and they play to win. Guess what...the fighter of old might not be playing...but you bet your last penny they were out to win too. Yes we have the words of masters...but how do we know if we are doing it right(they aren't here to tell us after all)? For all we know, we could be taking a mistep that we just don't see when we move in slow motion and you need that adrenaline going and you getting hit every time before you stop and go...humm wait a minute, maybe something is wrong. I know a few times where we had to stop sparring and went "oh, you need to take THAT step."
Oh yeah I got your sword and buckler book. Decent enough primer book, but I'm not so sure about the buckler being used to cover the hand per say. The hand in motion makes for a very hard target. At least once going full speed, full contact, full force and follow through. Unless you expose the hand badly, it's just not gonna get hit very often. However the ARM is another matter entirely and I think the buckler placement as a block in a line if held edge out or a cone is help boss out should be taken a closer look at. Yes stopping a 1 in a 1000 shot to the hand is a nice benefit...but blocking the shot to the arm that will happen 1 in 4 might be a bit more prudent. I made those odd up BTW...but the arm does make for a much more viable target then the hand if you remove the buckler. In fact, in a lot of cases, it makes for a more viable target then the body. So I think the buckler is more for arm protection then hand per say.
Hello,
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and to send your comments. If you aren’t able to teach proper edge alignment with pell work you need to work harder on it—it works perfectly well. Or are you telling me you’ve been having trouble killing people in real-life encounters? ::::grin::: The simple fact is that almost anyone can swing a sword well enough to kill on the first try, almost; perfect edge alignment simply isn’t that essential, and the pell is more than adequate to give people what they need if it is used correctly.
Your argument about medieval knights and samurai having “real world feedback” doesn’t’ hold up for two reasons: First, because such feedback would necessarily come only after the warrior had been in several fights; if teaching edge alignment required real cutting it would come too late. Are they to lose their first few fights to get the experience they need to use a sword adequately? Of course not. Moreover, most knights and samurai (after the warring states period) had little real world experience. Research this and you’ll find most people had few or no deadly encounters, just as most modern police rarely fire their weapons in anger. A knight might only fight in 2 or 3 battles in his entire life and most never engaged in a single judicial combat, so they had to have a way to train for those encounters before they happened—and we know they didn’t do test cutting for that!
As for your comment about free play, you’re quite correct that we need to do something to ensure we’re using our techniques correctly. But since free play is so damaging to our art we need to find other ways to test our performance—anything you think you learn from free play is a lie because it just changes the art you’re practicing, as I’ve repeatedly pointed out. Instead, by using full-speed, full-power but *controlled* drills you can test your ability to use the material for real in realistic situations without changing the art. See my newest blog entry here: http://talhoffer.blogspot.com/2008/12/replacing-free-play.html
Finally, regarding the buckler: Certainly the arm is a viable target, and a likely one, too. But if you study the plays I’ve included in the book you’ll see that the arm is largely protected by your position and/or by your sword; the buckler is far too small to adequately block for your arm consistently; the same could be said of the legs, for that matter, yet we know from Paulus Kal that both leg and arm cuts are displaced with the sword, not the buckler. Moreover, the Fechtbücher themselves are pretty clear about what the buckler does. As you can see in this picture, the buckler is clearly being used to guard the hand, not the arm:
http://mdz10.bib-bvb.de/~db/0002/bsb00020451/images/index.html?seite=236
And when you read Lignitzer, he says: “If you strike an Oberhau, then set the pommel of your sword inside at your buckler to your thumbs...” which is an obvious instruction to guard your sword hand with your buckler. You’re right, of course, that the hand is a difficult target when in motion (but certainly not impossible—I’ve done it!), but it’s far easier to hit when it’s at rest, as it must be when your blow is lying spent—hence the instructions to cut *into* the guard of your buckler so that the hand is protected when the blow is lying spent.
Hi!
I thought the purpose of test cutting was to prove that the sword doesn't fall apart in the process.
Regards,
Higgins
Hi Higgins,
Not that I know of. In ancient Japan Tameshigiri was practiced by professional test cutters (*not* by Bushi, as the test-cutting crowd like to pretend), and they would usually attach special hilts designed to take the strain of test cutting to the sword before testing.
And since Europeans didn't practice test cutting as far as we know (certainly there's no evidence for it), we can't assume that to be a valid reason.
As for today, I think swords are too expensive (any worth having, anyway) to test them to destruction, so I would argue that's not a good reason now. Besides, most of the test materials people cut on don't adequately mimic flesh and bone so you wouldn't be able to find out anyway.
Aha! I of course meant the types of cutting Cold Steel makes. a'la "See? No loose handle and no significant blade denting when driven through this car hood a bunch of times."
Regards,
Higgins
Hi Higgins,
Well, since I am only rarely attacked by opponents wielding car hoods, and since this never happened in period, I think we can safely ignore this as mere modern entreprenurialism. :::grin:::
Seriously, how tough does a sword need to be? If it loosens up, peen over the tang a little more.
"There is one apocryphal story of Richard III hacking through and iron bar to prove to Saladin how mighty his arm was and how tough his sword, but it didn’t actually happen, and it didn’t have any real combat relevance anyway."
True, it never happened because Richard III was born almost 300 years after Saladin died...
Hi Allen,
You're right--not original, but right. As someone else has already pointed out I made a typographical error. It was Richard I, not Richard III. Wow. That ruins my whole argument, huh?
But it wasn't Richard I either.
The typographical error didn't ruin your argument, the deep horrendous flaws in your theory ruined your argument. Practicing cutting couldn't possibly help someone improve their technique... Imagining themselves doing it correctly should suffice if they ever actually plan on putting their skill to practice.
Hello Allen,
Sorry, but in the book I read it was Richard I, also called the Lion Hearted, who had the little altercation with Saladin. Since it's an apocryphal story I suppose anyone could be posted in the role in a different book, but that hardly does any damage to my argument--it's the principle that's being discussed that really matters.
As for the "horrendous flaws" in my theory, may I suggest you actually *read* the theory before commenting? You wrote:
"Practicing cutting couldn't possibly help someone improve their technique... Imagining themselves doing it correctly should suffice if they ever actually plan on putting their skill to practice."
So you *agree* with me that test cutting is unnecessary! After all, that's what my whole post is about--how test cutting is unnecessary. How you can say my theory is filled with "horrendous flaws" then agree with it?
Or perhaps you meant your statement as sarcasm? Please tell me you're not one of those foolish people who think they're every going to have to actually cut someone for real? This is a historical martial art with no relevance to modern fights (except perhaps Ringen); none of us carries a longsword or pollaxe on the subway, I think.
So if you really *do* believe test cutting to be necessary why not post arguments for it rather than picking on my typing? You could start with listing all the fights you've heard about where one combatant lost because they couldn't hit well enough to kill without practicing test cutting.
Then you could move on to discuss how we have to practice test cutting today even though real warriors in period didn't. Sure, that would be a *great* approach! (See? Now *that's* a much better way to use scornful sarcasm!)
I never cease to be amazed at how many people have posted derisive, insulting comments on here without over making a single cogent argument. That's clear proof that the argument I make is perfectly sound, they just don't *like* what I have to say, and to them, that must be enough to prove me wrong.
Oh, and Allen, while you're studying up on how to make an actual substantive argument, you might try looking for where I wrote that "imagining" the edge alignment was good enough. I very clearly discuss how to learn edge alignment (that is, the same way it was learned in period), and it's more than mere imagination.
Hello Hugh,
I just wander - have you ever tried test cutting yourself?
Not to imply that you are in any way wrong in your observations or that I am an expert in the field (far from it), but have You actually tried cutting a real target with a sharp sword?
I don't know what is a "Pell" (I am not a native english speaker and the excerpt from the "Poem of the Pell" You gave was a bit too cryptic for my english skills to be comprehensible).
I only know from my own experience that even with a fairly sharp sword, when trying to cut an easy soft target like a plastic water filled bottle, when the sword edge is even slightly misaligned, the result is not much different than if I'd hit the bottle with a baseball bat.
Performing test cutting (and for the record, I practice Chinese, not European swordsmanship) is therefore for me useful as a practical means to test if my edge control and alignment are okay and also allows me to validate that I am actually cutting through- and not merely to the target (which is a common problem with many of the people who have never cut actual targets before).
As a side note - when we do our test cutting we do try to pay attention to ending our cuts while the sword is still on the target.
Btw - thanks for pointing out the possible mistake of "winding up" move - I'll definitely try to pay attention to that in the future...
Hello Roland,
Thank you for your reasoned and polite comments and questions--they're quite a refreshing change!
Yes, I have engaged in the pernicious practice of test cutting. I started my martial arts carreer in Japanese swordsmanship, and while we were part of a very strict, traditional ryu that (naturally!) didn't practice test cutting (not even suemonogiri, which is authentic, as I point out here, but not universal), young men will be young men, and we had to know how our swords really cut. So we snuck off and did some test cutting on our own time.
A pell is like a punching bag for swords. In the middle ages they were simply a post of wood buried in the ground, but I find such pells to be hard on both my wasters and on my joints, so I prefer a pell made of rubber car tires because they more accurately simulate the width of the human body and because they have give to prevent sword and joint damage.
Edge alignment is moderately important: No one can deny that. But it's nowhere near as important as people make it out to be. A sloppy, ragged cut to the head will still kill as long as you actually hit with the edge more-or-less perpendicular to the target--hence the pell work to ensure that you are doing so.
Iaido-ka work on test cutting because theirs is a spiritual art, and they strive for spiritual perfection by perfecting their physical movements. That's fine, one can understand that motivation. But let's not mistake a desire for spiritual perfection for a necessity of combat.
The bottom line is this: When we look at two of the major historical types of swordsmanship, Japanese and European, we find that *neither* of them practiced test cutting (always excepting suemonogiri, which isn't a combat skill). That should close the book on this discussion: The real warriors didn't see it as necessary!
Thanks for explaining in plain english what pell is. Now that you explained it to me, I know that I've seen one (also made of rubber car tires) in a local European sworsmanship practice hall my friend goes to.
Having seen one and tried few cuts on it for a good measure, I can see how a pell can also work nicely for fixing your edge alignment and targeting and whatnot (the way one's wrist twists if the alignment is off really tends to encourage properly aligned sword).
However I still have one final claim that I believe a pell alone can not help with. That is targeting - more precisely, targeting the end of a cut.
With a pell (as well as in paired work/freeplay with wooden/blunt swords), the tendency becomes to hit right up to the target and not cutting through it.
Now I am not claiming that test cutting was some major part of a warrior's training, but I believe (and admittedly having no sources to back up my belief other than my empirical experience on the value of this for a beginner swordsman) that at some point in time and training they've must have done at least some measure of target cutting. The fact that it has not been mentioned might just as well mean that - as with riding a bicycle - once learned, there is no real point in honing this part of one's skill.
Hello Roland,
You're quite right about the danger of cutting to the surface of a target; this is a very real danger, and one that my students face all the time. Fortunately, I have a solution: We use blunt steel practice swords that are specifically designed for WMA practice and which can be used to strike with correct force provided you wear correct safety gear. So what I do is periodically have the students actually hit me with their techniques. From this I can judge the force and the follow through (which I can tell you know are not the same thing) they’re using.
As a student develops in his training these kinds of full-speed, full force (not that we hit tremendously hard—it just isn’t necessary to kill) drills become more and more of a student’s training, until that’s all he does. That way, the drills become a way of teaching students to cut through their targets because the victim can always tell him if the cut didn’t feel right.
As for your claim about the historical use of test cutting, I’m sorry, but with respect, I believe you’re wrong. First, that argument can be used to prove *anything*, and often has been used to “prove” things that are completely wrong. You can’t theorize from a lack of evidence. Second, we might say that the Europeans who were notoriously sloppy about recording their training methods just left out test cutting practice, but if that’s the case, why were they so clear about pell work?
And I know from Kenjutsu practice that the Japanese made a very careful study of test cutting, but it was done by professional test cutters and was done to test the sword, not the man doing the cutting; this was called tameshigiri. Likewise, kenjutsuka practiced the art of cutting as part of the seppuku ritual, and gave this practice the special name of suemonogiri. Moreover, the very formal, traditional ryu of Kenjutsu have been very careful about tracking their training methods, and most of them haven’t changed in hundreds of years (as Otake-shihan of Katori Shinto Ryu says, “All training is kata.”). Surely, if they had practiced test cutting as a way to train their kenjutsuka they would have recorded this since they carefully recorded the other kinds of cutting practice they did (or had done for them). That they did not (if someone tells you his Kenjutsu dojo practices test cutting then you can be *sure* his is a modern style, if not a made-up American one as many are) makes this pretty clear to me.
The bottom line is that people simply have an exaggerated sense of the importance of test cutting. They get this from Iai-do practitioners who make an almost mystical process out of it (which, for them, it is, in a way) and from sword wannabes who like to spout off about things they don’t really understand. Then these spouted “facts” become accepted by a credulous public because they sound reasonable and very deep and “martial” to them.
And even if test cutting *did* have some small benefit, the terrible things it does to people’s cutting would far outweigh the possible benefits. Go look at people doing free play with longsword on the Internet and you’ll see them all cutting all the way to the ground in direct contradiction to what our books teach us (e.g., MS 3227a telling us to end all cuts with our point threatening our opponent).
> As for your claim about the historical use of test cutting, I’m sorry, but with respect, I believe you’re wrong. First, that argument can be used to prove *anything*, and often has been used to “prove” things that are completely wrong. You can’t theorize from a lack of evidence. Second, we might say that the Europeans who were notoriously sloppy about recording their training methods just left out test cutting practice, but if that’s the case, why were they so clear about pell work?You are quite right about my claim not being able to prove anything and in fact I was not trying to :)
I was simply expressing my personal belief and not trying in any way to disprove anything...
And as I mentioned before, I am not practicing neither European not Japanese swordsmanship, so I really have nothing to say about either of those.
Btw - just to show the type of test cutting we do, you might want to take a look at a spontaneous cutting session shot at the back of a sword factory in China few years ago: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3019556857367004918
Hello Roland,
I apologize if I took your comment the wrong way about how logical it seemed to you that Europeans *must* have done test cutting; it did seem to me as if you were arguing that was the case, and I've heard others posit that as a serious argument.
I watched your test cutting video with great interest. It's clear that in the beginning you *did* make huge, overblown cuts with both weapons, then pulled back and focused on stopping your cuts with your point on line (just as European books teach); this was especially true with forehand cuts, which often ended up above your left shoulder. Was that because you were getting to know unfamiliar swords?
Regardless, it's nice to see someone who pays attention to such an important thing. Still, as we've established in this conversation, there's nothing we *need* test cutting for, and the fact that it is so often done incorrectly and so often leads to bad habits--almost always, in my experience--makes it clear to me that it should be avoided at all costs.
Unfortunately, it's fun. That's the real problem here: People argue about this with me all the time, making up spurious arguments and ignoring facts and reason because they *want* to do test cutting because it's fun, but don't want to admit that's the only argument they really have. And most people are going to do what's fun regardless of how bad it is.
One last thing: I do think there might be one place test cutting could be useful: Slicing cuts. That's where you place the edge on a target (e.g., a wrist) and push or pull it along the target to slice it. Some of my students don't really see how much force that takes (I think because they have an exaggerated sense of how sharp swords were), and it might be worthwhile to show them on a realistic target if such could be found. I have been thinking about this to make absolutely sure there's no bad habit that would come out of it as with most other test cutting.
A slight correction - it's not me cutting - it's my teacher. And yes - he was testing "unfamiliar swords"...
To be sure - Chinese swordsmanship is a different art than European or Japanese swordsmanship. The only common ground between these arts is that they all deal with handling bladed weapons.
You might also be interested in a thread in out GRTC forum that brought me to this discussion: http://forum.grtc.org/viewtopic.php?p=4942p4942#p4942
Hello Roland,
I read the discussion at the link you supplied. You might explain to J. Hapworth Young that edge alignment can be taught by striking at a pell or other training target. How do we know this? We know this because two of the great sword cultures of the world, at least, didn’t perform test cutting as part of the training for their warriors. If it was essential to learn edge alignment (and it is, it just doesn’t need to be as fussy as people pretend), and if the only way to learn edge alignment was through test cutting, then it would be a safe bet that all the great sword cultures would have practiced it. And please don’t tell me they picked it up on the battlefield in actual fights as some have tried to say: If that was the case then they’d have had a lot of men killed young just because they didn’t know how to kill at first. Obviously that’s nonsensical. Again, I think people have a grossly exaggerated sense of how good edge alignment needs to be in order to kill someone.
I can’t speak to Chinese practices, but I’ve certainly never heard or seen any references to test cutting being practiced in ancient China. Your teacher claims they did so, but how does he know? Could he be like those who practice Japanese swordsmanship and completely misunderstand notes about Tameshigiri (test cutting) in Japan? In Japan test cutting was done not by warriors but by professional test cutters who would attach a special handle to the sword then test to see how well the *sword* would cut; it was not a test of the wielder’s *ability* to cut. But modern students of the Japanese sword learn about tameshigiri and think it was a part of normal practice for the Bushi because some modern, non-combat-oriented (because they’re -do rather than –jutsu forms) schools of iai-do practice test cutting today as a means of spiritual development. And if they do it now, they must always have done so, right? Wrong.
It’s surprising to me how many modern students of the sword don’t understand this about their art. Many who practice very modern arts don’t realize their art has been completely shorn of all real combat relevance in favor of spiritual development (which is not a criticism!), and they often attempt to explain certain things in their art in terms of real combat relevance when, in fact, that’s not the point at all. Just as one example, consider the fact that they practice seated iai-do kata in sieza: In medieval Japan this was considered a dead or null position and one that was only used indoors. When you were in sieza you’d have your sword either in the keeping of a retainer or loose on the floor or in a rack—not in your obi. Thus, there were no situations in which you would practice iai from sieza in a real combat situation, and older iai-jutsu (note the suffix) schools only practice their art in iai-goshi or a standing posture. For more on this, read Draeger, Don, "Classical Budo: The Martial Arts and Ways of Japan", Weatherhill, 2007, pp. 87-90.
Regards,
Hugh
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