Greetings All...
Ebbtide asked me to present my thoughts on how to develop good cutting skills with a bowie in another forum. But, I thought that this is such a critical topic that I would post a new thread here as well, so that we might get as much input from knowledgable folks as possible.
First off, let me say that I am only going to look at this from a tactical perspective. Cutting through clothing, flesh, and bone is different from, say, cutting down a tree. What works for one does not necessarily work well for the other.
There are a great variety of cuts that one can utilize in a knifefight, for instance slashes, thrusts, snapcuts, backcuts, clips, picks, rips, rakes, and so on. All of these need to be practiced against a variety of dense targets- up to and including denim-wrapped hanging meat on the bone, IMO- in order to fully understand what each will(and won't) accomplish, and to develop skill with each. Of all of these various cuts, however, the one that I've found gives students the most trouble when cutting with a long blade such as a bowie is the slash.
The most common mistake that I see beginning students make is that they swing every long blade as if it were a machete- ie., with a hard, fast, wrist-snapping, chopping motion that impacts the target somewhere along the distal third of the blade. This is fine if you are in fact wielding a machete and attempting to amputate a limb, but is not optimal if you are attempting to slash effectively with a long fighter such as a bowie or bolo.
Proper slashing technique involves impacting the target as far back along the primary edge of your blade as possible and then slicing or pulling the entire edge into and through the target and out the other side.
I typically use either of two progressions to teach students and training partners to slash well. Which one I use really depends on whether the particular person is worried about possibly scratching their blade or not.
If my student or training partner is not worried about scratches, I start by having them slash into the edge of a large sheet of 1/4" thick cardboard(cardboard contains tiny bits of grit that can scratch a highly polished blade as it moves through it). Cardboard is cheap and easy to come by, and one can discover many things by examining the cuts:
1. Examine the points at which the blade entered the edge of the cardboard. If the points of impact are compressed or crumpled, then too much of a wrist-snapping, chopping action was used.
2. Examine the length of the slashes. They should be at least as long as the entire length of the primary edge. So, a slash executed with a bowie having a twelve inch blade should be at least 12" long, indicating that the whole edge cut through the target.
3. Examine the length of the cut for curving. You want a nice straight cut through the cardboard sheet. If it curves one way or the other, then the person cutting is either gripping too hard with the thumb and forefinger(which torques the blade) or their wrist is turning as the blade moves through the target.
Once the student is slashing well into a single cardboard sheet at any angle, I tape several sheets together to create a thicker, denser target and have them practice slashing into it at various angles until they can make clean, straight, long cuts.
Next, we progress to various hanging and stationary targets- including training dummies- that all have in common a wooden core wrapped in 4" thick '10 year' mattress foam that is, in turn, wrapped in several layers of duct tape to create a dense 'skin, flesh, and bone' target. These targets can be further wrapped in denim, if one wishes.
One really useful and fun target of this type is to wrap one end of a 4' to 6' long wooden pole in this way to simulate an opponent's blade arm. I hold onto the other end of the pole and attack my liveblade wielding student or training partner with the wrapped end- first in a predictable line-of-attack series, and then at random. They practice slashing(and thrusting, backcutting, picking, ripping, etc.) at the 'arm'. Sometimes I'll even tape a training blade onto the end of the pole before wrapping it to add more realism. Afterwards, we assess the depth and quality of the cuts.
Finally, we progress to slashing(and thrusting, etc.) hanging meat on the bone. A leg of lamb is a good choice to start with, since the femur bone is not nearly as hard as that of a pork or beef shank. The leg of lamb should be as long, wide, and thick as you can get it, thereby offering as much target area as possible for multiple cuts. Again, the key here is to swing the blade fast to generate momentum through the shank of meat, but at the same time to impact the meat at the proximal end of the blade(near the guard) and to slice the edge into and through the outer gristle, the muscle, cleanly through the bone, and out the other side. By examining the leg of lamb after each cut, the student learns 1. just how devastating a knife cut can be to flesh, and 2. to distinguish a good slash(or backcut, or whatever) from a bad one and to groove the 'feel' of a good cut into kinesthetic memory until he can do it consistently. Once the leg of lamb cutting is mastered, we progress to beef or pork shanks which are signifantly more difficult.
Now, in those situations where a particular student or training partner has an expensive custom blade that they just don't want to risk scratching, I put them through the entire progression using new tatami omote mats that are rolled into long cylindrical targets of varying thicknesses called goza and then soaked in water overnight. Tatami omote is completely clean and will not scratch a blade. The goza are of uniform density throughout, give the same resistence as flesh, and make terrific targets because they show every bit of poor technique- from the blade bouncing off, to it only cutting glancingly through the outermost layers, to the goza bending under an overhard impact, to the cut curving drastically through the goza.
I start people off slashing at a 1/2 tatami goza that is about 2" in diameter and approximately four feet long. It is not nearly as easy to slash cleanly through one of these 1/2 goza as one would imagine. The roll will bend around the blade rather than be cut if slashed at with poor technique.
Once the student can execute a multiple cut series cleanly through a 1/2 goza, they progress to cutting a full 4" tatami roll goza, double roll goza, and so on. Slicing through the target and putting one's body weight properly into the cut become critical to success as the goza get thicker, and, in my experience, anything above a double goza is strictly sword territory.
By wrapping the tatami omote around a 1" diameter bamboo pole before soaking it, one can reproduce the feel of cutting through flesh and bone. In my experience, cutting through a double goza with a bamboo core gives the identical resistence as cutting through a large shank of beef on the bone. Believe me, making a clean cut all the way through a double goza with bamboo core using a bowie is no easy feat. In fact, in traditional Japanese Sword Arts it is said that cutting through a double goza with a bamboo core gives the same resistence as cutting through a man's neck.
Naturally, one can also practice executing all the various other tactical cuts against goza as well.
Tatami omote are available through Mugen Dachi Co. at www.tameshigiri.com and Bugei Trading Co.. Both websites have instructions on how to roll and soak your mats and how to make tameshigiri(cutting practice) stands. They cost less than $3 a roll. You typically buy them in cases of twenty or more.
I hope that this is useful, and I look forward to hearing what others do to develop their cutting skills.
Mario
------------------
Gaucho
Tuvo muy mala suerte...se callo en mi cuchillo.
Ebbtide asked me to present my thoughts on how to develop good cutting skills with a bowie in another forum. But, I thought that this is such a critical topic that I would post a new thread here as well, so that we might get as much input from knowledgable folks as possible.
First off, let me say that I am only going to look at this from a tactical perspective. Cutting through clothing, flesh, and bone is different from, say, cutting down a tree. What works for one does not necessarily work well for the other.
There are a great variety of cuts that one can utilize in a knifefight, for instance slashes, thrusts, snapcuts, backcuts, clips, picks, rips, rakes, and so on. All of these need to be practiced against a variety of dense targets- up to and including denim-wrapped hanging meat on the bone, IMO- in order to fully understand what each will(and won't) accomplish, and to develop skill with each. Of all of these various cuts, however, the one that I've found gives students the most trouble when cutting with a long blade such as a bowie is the slash.
The most common mistake that I see beginning students make is that they swing every long blade as if it were a machete- ie., with a hard, fast, wrist-snapping, chopping motion that impacts the target somewhere along the distal third of the blade. This is fine if you are in fact wielding a machete and attempting to amputate a limb, but is not optimal if you are attempting to slash effectively with a long fighter such as a bowie or bolo.
Proper slashing technique involves impacting the target as far back along the primary edge of your blade as possible and then slicing or pulling the entire edge into and through the target and out the other side.
I typically use either of two progressions to teach students and training partners to slash well. Which one I use really depends on whether the particular person is worried about possibly scratching their blade or not.
If my student or training partner is not worried about scratches, I start by having them slash into the edge of a large sheet of 1/4" thick cardboard(cardboard contains tiny bits of grit that can scratch a highly polished blade as it moves through it). Cardboard is cheap and easy to come by, and one can discover many things by examining the cuts:
1. Examine the points at which the blade entered the edge of the cardboard. If the points of impact are compressed or crumpled, then too much of a wrist-snapping, chopping action was used.
2. Examine the length of the slashes. They should be at least as long as the entire length of the primary edge. So, a slash executed with a bowie having a twelve inch blade should be at least 12" long, indicating that the whole edge cut through the target.
3. Examine the length of the cut for curving. You want a nice straight cut through the cardboard sheet. If it curves one way or the other, then the person cutting is either gripping too hard with the thumb and forefinger(which torques the blade) or their wrist is turning as the blade moves through the target.
Once the student is slashing well into a single cardboard sheet at any angle, I tape several sheets together to create a thicker, denser target and have them practice slashing into it at various angles until they can make clean, straight, long cuts.
Next, we progress to various hanging and stationary targets- including training dummies- that all have in common a wooden core wrapped in 4" thick '10 year' mattress foam that is, in turn, wrapped in several layers of duct tape to create a dense 'skin, flesh, and bone' target. These targets can be further wrapped in denim, if one wishes.
One really useful and fun target of this type is to wrap one end of a 4' to 6' long wooden pole in this way to simulate an opponent's blade arm. I hold onto the other end of the pole and attack my liveblade wielding student or training partner with the wrapped end- first in a predictable line-of-attack series, and then at random. They practice slashing(and thrusting, backcutting, picking, ripping, etc.) at the 'arm'. Sometimes I'll even tape a training blade onto the end of the pole before wrapping it to add more realism. Afterwards, we assess the depth and quality of the cuts.
Finally, we progress to slashing(and thrusting, etc.) hanging meat on the bone. A leg of lamb is a good choice to start with, since the femur bone is not nearly as hard as that of a pork or beef shank. The leg of lamb should be as long, wide, and thick as you can get it, thereby offering as much target area as possible for multiple cuts. Again, the key here is to swing the blade fast to generate momentum through the shank of meat, but at the same time to impact the meat at the proximal end of the blade(near the guard) and to slice the edge into and through the outer gristle, the muscle, cleanly through the bone, and out the other side. By examining the leg of lamb after each cut, the student learns 1. just how devastating a knife cut can be to flesh, and 2. to distinguish a good slash(or backcut, or whatever) from a bad one and to groove the 'feel' of a good cut into kinesthetic memory until he can do it consistently. Once the leg of lamb cutting is mastered, we progress to beef or pork shanks which are signifantly more difficult.
Now, in those situations where a particular student or training partner has an expensive custom blade that they just don't want to risk scratching, I put them through the entire progression using new tatami omote mats that are rolled into long cylindrical targets of varying thicknesses called goza and then soaked in water overnight. Tatami omote is completely clean and will not scratch a blade. The goza are of uniform density throughout, give the same resistence as flesh, and make terrific targets because they show every bit of poor technique- from the blade bouncing off, to it only cutting glancingly through the outermost layers, to the goza bending under an overhard impact, to the cut curving drastically through the goza.
I start people off slashing at a 1/2 tatami goza that is about 2" in diameter and approximately four feet long. It is not nearly as easy to slash cleanly through one of these 1/2 goza as one would imagine. The roll will bend around the blade rather than be cut if slashed at with poor technique.
Once the student can execute a multiple cut series cleanly through a 1/2 goza, they progress to cutting a full 4" tatami roll goza, double roll goza, and so on. Slicing through the target and putting one's body weight properly into the cut become critical to success as the goza get thicker, and, in my experience, anything above a double goza is strictly sword territory.
By wrapping the tatami omote around a 1" diameter bamboo pole before soaking it, one can reproduce the feel of cutting through flesh and bone. In my experience, cutting through a double goza with a bamboo core gives the identical resistence as cutting through a large shank of beef on the bone. Believe me, making a clean cut all the way through a double goza with bamboo core using a bowie is no easy feat. In fact, in traditional Japanese Sword Arts it is said that cutting through a double goza with a bamboo core gives the same resistence as cutting through a man's neck.
Naturally, one can also practice executing all the various other tactical cuts against goza as well.
Tatami omote are available through Mugen Dachi Co. at www.tameshigiri.com and Bugei Trading Co.. Both websites have instructions on how to roll and soak your mats and how to make tameshigiri(cutting practice) stands. They cost less than $3 a roll. You typically buy them in cases of twenty or more.
I hope that this is useful, and I look forward to hearing what others do to develop their cutting skills.
Mario
------------------
Gaucho
Tuvo muy mala suerte...se callo en mi cuchillo.
