Shadley Cuts

Yeh, well I didn't expect this to happen, but a) a friend of mine bought me a load more bottles to cut which helps no end so thank you, Simon. and b) I tried a few cuts and found that I'd managed to build the sort of control required to be able to pull off the last part of the curriculum.
This realisation was a fairly hefty deal for me and it has really helped my confidence with the cuts so hell with it I thought. I'm doing this!

My favourite cut so far was also the one most people have problems with and the one I found the easiest.

Now I've done all the cuts required however I'm going to do new cuts in one session and put them into one big video at some point. For now you'll have to do with these two mini sessions :)

The first half of my attempts.. 


The second half once I'd realised I was able to actually succeed! 

So yeah.. I'm well happy. It's taken me over a year to confidently manage all of the curriculum but I've gotten there eventually. Time to clean up those cuts and do a rerun of this last bit.

Well bloody hell, I went and did it. It took a long while to be able to exhibit the sort of control over the blade that I needed in order to complete this but I managed it. The quick looping movements but with straight sanpping slices that you need for returning cuts are anything but instinctive but with practice, anything is possible.

This was all done with my newest sword, the review for which you can find here as well as the samurai workshop site. It's an amazingly responsive sword, far superior to my other blades and it seriously helped with this part of the curriculum. It's supposed to be a fairly heavy sword but I've found it a lot more manageable than even my hanwei practical katana and definitely on a par with my old lightning fast unokubi zukuri.

I've learned a lot with this particular section of training, such as the amount of force that you really need in order to cut a bottle isn't that much, it's the speed of the blade as it hits the target that matters. Once you've pierced the flesh of the bottle, the rest should slice easily enough as long as your edge alignment is spot on, but hey, enough natter, heres the video.

 

Please note that although I've posted this review to my blog, it was written by me originally, specifically for the newly opened Samurai University website. I'm writing for them regularly now so as much as I'd love to keep you on my page, pop along now and see what all the fuss is about. It's pretty awesome.
For anyone interested in buying a sword from The Samurai Workshop and indeed anyone who was curious at all, here is my review of their Batto range. This is their entry level series for martial artists and backyard tameshigiri/freestyle cutters alike.
I'm based in the UK and sometimes, customs can be a little tetchy and getting a sword into the country can be more problematic than any of us would like. Fortunately, Jeffrey works closely with the couriers and made absolutely sure it got from his hands and into mine not only in a short space of time but without so much as a squeak from customs.

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My new sword turned up a while back. I posted to youtube but forget to link it on my blog. Everything else aside, This is the unboxing, for what its worth. There is a review, but it's going to be published to the new SW site, the "Samurai University", so when that happens I'll link you in but for now.....

Like I said, review has been done but it'll be a while before it's up. I'm working on a cutting video atm too so expect that soon.