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1. Lightly align the palm root depression with the tiger's mouth above the handle ridge.         2. Grasp it gently with the radian of handle. Do not hold tightly. The front hand does not touch fuchi, and back hand does not touch kashira, an..

1. Buy or find a piece of steel about 2 inches (5.1 cm) wide and 5 inches (1.27 m) thick, slightly over 3 feet (0.9 m) long. 2. Heat steel in a furnace or open hearth. You must heat the material to a temperature close to 1600 degrees Fahrenheit (8..

The following basic etiquette are what you have to pay attention to.   1. How to draw out a katana sword?   When drawing out the sword, hold scabbard (saya) close to the scabbard mouth with your left hand from below, and grab the handle from abov..

The shape of the tang is known as "Nakago-Jiri". Most tangs which are "suriage" (cut off or shortened) will have "kiri" nakago-jiri. Followings are shapes of tang tips of katana swords.     * The Kurijiri is a rounded tang tip. Composed primari..

There are two and nearly equal parts to a Japanese sword, the polished blade and the nakago. The tang or the part of the blade that goes into the handle (tsuka) or pole is called a nakago. The shape of the nakago and the style of filing has distinct ..

"Double-edged sword", as a metaphor, has always been linked with "cuts both ways", meaning it can (figuratively) hurt both the person attacked and the attacker.   In European tradition, swords are made with double edged. In Japanese tradition, howe..

Mace The mace is very heavy, and people who is not strong can't use it freely. Its lethality is very considerable, even if you can kill people through the armor.       Steel whip This is not a soft whip like a rope. The whip we are talking ab..

Huan Shou Dao is named after the round ring at the end of handle. Huan Shou Dao was born in the Western Han Dynasty. It was the most advanced and most lethal close-in cold weapon in the world. After the demise of the Qin Dynasty, the Western Han Dyna..

Saya (鞘) is a scabbard of a blade. Sayas are made the way not to scratch the blade and preserve his coating layers. The saya also has a horn knob (栗形 kurigata) on one side for attaching a braided cord (sageo), and may have a shitodome to accent the k..

Test cutting became widespread from the Edo period in Japan for testing the quality of swords. There were a variety of cuts that could be done, bamboo and tatami mats are the two main cutting targets, the below are several traditonal cutting targets ..

Common misunderstanding 1: The bronze sword has no sheath. Our common bronze sword is like this:         In fact, the bronze sword has matching sheath. Because sheathes are mostly made of wood, silk, leather, it is difficult to preserve. Whi..

Cutting suspended sheets of paper requires perfect edge alignment, speed and an especially sharp sword. Firstly, holding the Katana the right way and correctly goes a long way to ensuring correct edge alignment. And slow cuts almost always fail. You ..