The
Iaido Journal Nov
2003
Comparison
Chopping:
A
non-scientific review of current offerings for the tameshigiri
crowd.
Continued...
Now a few numbers for us engineering geeks! I measured the circumference of each
of the soaked targets purely out of curiosity. Here are the results.
Double beach mat10.0”
Single Mugen Dachi10.25”
Single tatami omote10.5”
Single Bugei wara10.0”
Single Bugei goza13.0”
Four beach mat 14.0”
Double Mugen Dachi14.25”
Double tatami omote15.0”
Double Bugei wara15.5”
Double Bugei goza17.5”
Let
the hacking begin! We started out with the single Bugei wara.
I have to mention that the single Bugei wara had a serious tendency
to bend when we spiked it. It wasn’t a problem to straighten
it out once we got it on there though. Boy that thing looked
tall on the stand. My cutting stand is a bit tall to begin with,
so Doug seriously had to reach for that first cut!
The Bugei wara cut very easily. If your technique was good, you could zip right
through it. It did give enough resistance to tell when you were right on or
just a bit off. As a test, I purposely hacked with bad hasuji. (I swear it
was on purpose!) The sword tracked through the target and left a nice scoop
shape without any harm coming to the sword.
Next up was the double beach mat. It cut as easily as the Bugei
wara, but felt squishy. That was the only way to describe it.
The beach mat wasn’t very
firm so, when purposely hit poorly, it just bent over in the middle. I also
have to mention that it tended to leave a sticky residue on the blade. I’m
not sure why, I just wiped it off and went on.
The single Mugen Dachi mat was next. This one felt a bit more
solid when spiking it. It also felt much more solid than the
previous two when cutting, requiring a bit more tip speed to
cut decently. It produced that satisfying zip sound when the
cut was good. When I purposely hit this target poorly, the cut
stopped and torqued my blade. Not enough to bend it, but I was
being careful. I decided that was enough of that little experiment
and dropped that particular test. I’ve had to straighten my sword before, and I didn’t
want to have to do it on purpose!
The
single used tatami was heavier than the previous targets. It
required more speed than the Mugen Dachi mat. This is the first
one that Doug had a problem completing a cut. He missed the ichimonji
giri. On his redo (the good part about practice is that you get
to redo when you mess up!), he cut cleanly.
The final target in the single rolls was the Bugei goza. This was the heaviest,
and hardest to spike. My first kesa giri stuck for lack of tip speed. I had
to put a bit more power into it to complete all the cuts. Doug had a hard time
with it. He struggled to get enough tip speed for the kiriage and the ichimonji.
Those are pretty tough mats!
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