Thank
you to Paul Smith for his time and efforts and to both Paul
and the
Iaido Journal for their permission to use the article on
our website. Paul Smith is the Dojo Cho of the Kobu Shin Ryu dojo
in Plano, Texas. We have included only the text portion of the
review. To see the entire review
with all of the original pictures included check
here. Please
be sure to
visit the Iaido
Journal website.
The
Iaido Journal Nov
2003
Comparison
Chopping:
A
non-scientific review of current offerings for the tameshigiri
crowd.
The
Japanese Sword Arts have been experiencing an explosion
in popularity over the last several years. It wasn’t very
long ago when the only choice for a relatively inexpensive sword
was a
refurbished gunto, and the only choices for practicing tameshigiri
were beach mats or bamboo. Luckily for those of us crazies that
practice this outdated martial art, this has all changed. There
are now several
makers in China that are exporting inexpensive swords of decent
quality. There are also several places to get decent quality
materials for
tameshigiri. If your dojo is one that practices tameshigiri,
or you’ve
just wanted to give it a try, you may not know what is available
today. Even if you do, you may be wondering what the difference
is between the various materials available. This article attempts
to
give a little insight into that question.
Beach mats were once the wara of choice, because there wasn’t
one! Beach mats are thin reed or grass mats available most places
where there is a beach. Good for keeping the sand off, they were
as close as most people outside of Japan could get to tatami
omote, which had become the (more or less) standard target for tameshigiri
in Japan. For those unfamiliar, most houses in Japan still have
a tatami room. This is a thick rice straw mat with a woven reed
covering
(tatami) on the outside (omote) for the floor. This covering
is generally replaced yearly. The Toyama Ryu came to embrace tatami
omote, rolled
and soaked in water, as the standard cutting target at their
competitions. This spread to the few other schools in Japan that practice tameshigiri
until virtually all of the schools in Japan were cutting the
same
medium. Used tatami omote, cheap and easily available, made a
fairly consistent target of the appropriate size. Outside of Japan though,
they were neither cheap nor easily available. Thus the widespread
use of beach mats.
The growing popularity of the sword arts, and tameshigiri, outside
of Japan has created a demand for better cutting materials. This
in turn has resulted in the availability of several alternatives
to the venerable beach mat. Since I wondered just what the differences
were between the different materials available, I decided that
it was time to find out. I ordered mats from various places and
ran
them through a side-by-side comparison. No, it wasn’t a
strictly controlled scientific experiment. It was just Doug Stryker,
a dojo
mate, and myself whacking at the different targets and discussing
our impressions. For a little consistency in our testing, we
were performing the Toyama Ryu cutting pattern called Rokudan
Giri.
This pattern consists of six cuts, left to right kesa giri, right
to left
kesa, another right to left kesa followed by a left to right
kiriage, one more right to left kesa followed by a left to right
ichimonji
or suihei, whatever your school calls a flat horizontal cut.
The mats I purchased for our little test were: used tatami omote, the Toyama
Ryu standard, as well as beach mats from Bob Elder at www.ecmas.com. New
tatami omote manufactured specifically for tameshigiri from Mugen Dachi Co.
at www.tameshigiri.com. New Bugei wara and Bugei goza from Bugei Trading
Co. at www.bugei.com. These are all readily available and sold specifically
for use in tameshigiri.
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