Transcript for:
Fundamentals of Using a Wakizashi

[Music] hi everyone I'm just about and welcome to my youtube channel today I've been talking about basics of using a box option all right so this is the wax action if they one-handed Japanese sword with a blade length between 30 and 60 centimeters but most of them usually sit between 50 and 55 this one here has a blade length of 55 centimeters now it's a one-handed sword usually but it does have enough space that if you really want you can fit two hands on it and you see me do that at some of my cutting videos now the difference between this and then a westerner sword that's one-handed is obviously blade length it's quite a bit shorter and also if you look here it's balanced slightly more forward because design to have the white for cutting so it doesn't quite have the maneuverability of a western sword but it does act a bit more punch plate for its size now people ask why would you use the walkers actually with a short of labeling when you've got a Western store that's one-handed that has a lot of lemonade and it's not really a fantastic answer for that it's Japanese people tended to prefer shorter blade lengths because if there's steel quality but another good reason to use it is because if you're in doors that are much longer sort and get stuck at walls and corridors whereas this one has a liveable maneuverability and you can you're not as restrictive you close with this another the reason for using a one-hand saw rather than two handed sword is that you can have a free hand to do something if you have a shield and out the sword you say that in your tenure or also in the Korean form some of them and it just gives you a little bit more freedom it doesn't have quite as much power and speed but you've got a shield for defence or another sort of rule anything else you want to do all right before you start cutting anything with your wok is actually always make sure that you're safe I can't stress this enough alcohol and emotions don't go well with swords not even one drink another thing a captain careful of is your surroundings and other people so what you should do is to get your box actually hold it by the bottom of the minute handle and stick it out in front to the side behind to the other side if there's anyone within that radius they're really going with because it's possibility than getting hurt another things you take note of is ceilings so if you can touch the ceiling with the tip of the blade when you're holding it and it still is a possibility of cutting your ceiling and that's not great for anyone so I recommend it if that's the case you can outside where you find a different place to practice cut all right so live device actually then I like to have on the hip and some people ask why is the black up because the movie is the opposite with the black down now this is the thingy because from when you're going from the hip then you go a little bit more control it's not moving as much and blade down is really anything when tank for the fly so she's got the movement just draw it from there and I'm going to have caused there to hold it and that means that it swings around who's around it's a little bit more annoying so I prefer on the hip now when I'm shading then heavy right hand on the play the left hand behind the mouth of the shape this is really important because if your hands behind them out then you can cut and keep the webbing on the top behind like on the wood the reason for that is because the over sound with a weapon of your hand now thumb goes to the right of the blade and it just pushes till it's unclipped off your thumb clicks then pull the sheet back and roll the blade up in a smooth motion so there's no back and forth and you can't hurt yourself [Music] cutting with it latest evenings you really need to be mindful all of that edge alignment and slicing so with the first one edge alignment then what that means is that I'm coming in the same direction as my edge so if I'm cutting downwards that means my edge has to be pointing downwards as well an obvious example of not doing this is if you slap with the side of your sword obviously not have a cup now that's a pretty extreme example but edge align especially when doing cuts like this then that can be slightly tweaked and if you're just 15 degrees then you change it cut an angle quite drastically so my wife's actually has a cutting angle of 30 degrees and if you are off by 15 degrees then the cutting head of something becomes 60 degrees now edge alignment then you can overcome this by having a sharper sword and that gives you a little bit more forgiveness when using improper edge alignment but a sharp sword isn't necessarily always a good thing you can't have a true sharp thought the reason why sword are razor sharp is because then you've got a thinner piece of metal and when you contact hard objects or other swords nut is no can fragment where I can roll or a ship and it's not great for your sword a lot of swords actually have a thing called mate or niku which is where the cutting blade of the sword has a little bit of a roundness to it and it's slightly widened the cutting angle but what that does is that's all a little bit more durable so the second thing is slicing now there's two ways to cut I call them slicing and happy so slicing it what we want to do and that's where with the blade when you cut through it you slightly pull it through your target and what that does is it means that instead of having from the edge to the end of the cutting edge instead of having what two centimetres and you extend that edge and you get maybe 20 centimetres across and that drastically includes the cutting angle so you go from being thirty degrees to a much smaller angle now in contrast to that then there's hacking which is where from here rather than making a nice slice I just whack and whack it through and if you've got a sharp knife sword heavy enough sort or just enough power in your arm then it is possible to cut through and I'll admit that you see me do that in some of my videos I get a little bit frustrated because I can't cut to a target but it's not bad form it doesn't make it easier you generally leave clean cuts so make sure you pull through the target so that you extend that cutting edge and you can make a nice clean cut through your target is essential keep that in mind getting good form and this happens for all your cuts so does this one come here as off and from here and it's all got a pull from the body so that you extended that cutting edge so initiating the blanked and there's a few different ways to do it this is just my personal method now some people would like to make them mouth with their hand past the shirt with the whole hand posture not the shape and slap on that way I don't really like that because the thought of the webbing of my hand game cost the would dose in what I like to keep it out where the blend so I keep it in the same position as where I started to draw the soil from and I grip the sword between the pad of my thumb and the first knuckle of my index finger and I'll go to that and I just slide right down until the tip of the blade is past the opening of the shape and that way not just walked up like backwards and I feel its strength and then just slide the bag into its shape now withdrawing and reshaping always keep traction on the bottom of the blade the spine of it the reason for that being you've got a sharp edge on this side a sharp sword can cut through the shape can't damage it in a lot of ways and make it loose to give length and slide albums that want to tune that's not really safe that's watching my video now if you're interested in this and you haven't tried it I recommend that you get a pocket that's a wooden sword I pick this one off eBay for about 20 bucks and it's a nice hardwood blade it's got some local portions to my actual blade and training this until you feel comfortable before using an actual live blade there also unsharp and metal blades which are a pretty good alternative because it gives you the white and also the distribution of white on the sword whereas this wooden one doesn't quite do that but they're a little bit more expensive but it is cutting option so it's quite a good training option and you can't really hope yourself with it this one also I've been notoriously bad for trying yeah new boobs and hurting myself by heating myself in the leg or on the back of the head and it's really good to try it out of this one and not this one because this one would leave me with more just a bruise somehow I recommend that you go out try something new if you're interested I mean it doesn't cost much and you have a lot of fun thanks for watching [Music]