Badness on the Web #2

Quick admission, I am a fanboy of the 'cult of Japanese swords.' I find them pleasing to look at, marvel that the lousy natural materials available could be turned into a tool of this kind, and quite enjoy watching chanbara and jidai geki swordplay*. They weren't the 'ultimate weapon', but they are attractive, and some ingenious methods of use sprung-up from the 15th to 19th centuries.

So of course, watching the refined kenjutsu (sword tactics) of Tenshinsho-den Katori Shinto Ryu, the sublime Kuroda Bugei, or the surprisingly subtle (if odd at first blush) Jigen Ryu on youtube is an awesome gift. But that is not what brings us here today, is it? You can find good stuff on your own- you come to me to find the awful, and I don't want to disappoint.

So here are three nuggets to whet the appetite:

1) This young man was taught wrong and now wants to share it in this 'instructional video' from Expert village. Here is a dirty little secret- just because you train in 'karate' does not mean that you know the first thing about how to use weapons, so what in the world makes people feel competent to teach 'em?!?!- Swords, spears, etc. (ya know, not 'repurposed farming implements...) have their own internal logic and what is shown here does not reflect safe practice at all. In particular, this notion of 'blocking' is, well, dumb. Why would you 'block' a cut, rather than countering? That and the piss-poor uchitachi (with the wrong hand on top), and his unforgivable lower body work... ah well, we're all young once, ne?

2) Some lads enjoying themselves 'sparring'... dangerous, stupid and not a good idea to do w/bokuto... oh, and it's bad too. Enjoy these two (one of whom never received the memo about which hand goes on top... a critical bit of information). Music is rockin' (in 1984) and the name of the school mixes kunyomi and onyomi (yawara and do don't mix- yawara [no] michi, or judo, sorry, try again).

3) Lest it look like I'm only beating-up on only males, here is a girl doing... something with a naginata... yes folks with 20 - 60 # of armor, you too would do chest-height kicks, yeah? Kime? Not important. Loads of 'kiai' at inappropriate times? Check.

Before anyone wonders why I'd go and get my knickers in a twist over use of weapons that have been out of vogue for a long, long time- outmoded by much more efficient tools for destroying each other- let me say this: outside of preserving extant arts, why do swordwork at all? Yeah, they are cool, but what is the point? Co-opt something else, but when you extrapolate modern rationales for combat that we can't test, the whole thing is an exercise in redonkulous....

I have deliberately not put the worst here to start... we gotta save something for later... why buy the cow and all that.

Peace unto all.

*Yeah, I know, the sword was never a 'first' weapon on the battlefield, yes, I know, kyu ba no michi... uh-huh, spears, and naginata, bow and horse before the introduction of the harquebus by the Dutch in the 1500's... M'kay, the role of the sword didn't take primacy until after massed warfare had ended, then became a 'gentleman's dueling weapon', just like everywhere else in the world... dang, killjoy.