Test Cutting

[Jeremiah Backhaus]

I just got my chance to do my first test cutting yesterday. IT WAS AMAZING!!! Aaron Pynenberg let me use his "Baron" from Albion (he knows I love this blade) and we cut against a broken "wavemaster" punching bag. The covering helped to learn about the effectiveness of a gambeson (or aketon, if you will). Feeling the power and responsibility of sharpened steel in your hand is something that I shall never forget, and yearn to feel again. Another thing I took from this experience was "With Intent" we speak about it in training, but when you are to cut something, it becomes much more real. In summary, a great experience with many lessons learned. Thanks so much to ARMA Appleton for a home for study and the chance to really cut the crap out of some stuff with swords.

-Jeremiah Backhaus

[Shane Smith]

Sounds like you learned a lot and had a great time doing it!

[Aaron Pynenberg]

Hello...Jeramiah's right we set up the old wavemaster and went to town on it....but as a testement to the effectiveness of gambeson's and cloth as cutting protection that sucker was really taking a ton of punishment!

I am well aware that the softness and flex in the target as well as the fact that we were cutting into padding caused us all the problems, but I was really not surprised by how difficult it was to cut into.

We at one point removed the padding and began to cut at the harder plastic support post and that target was cut much more effectively.

Kevin Peterson-(our best cutter by far) almost cut that hard plastic pipe in two-! He was very close to getting all the way through it. He is a very powerful man, but even he will tell you that at first he felt some resistance, but then the sword takes over and does all the work. Pretty cool stuff.

[Thomas Pancoast]

I just got my chance to do my first test cutting yesterday. IT WAS AMAZING!!! Aaron Pynenberg let me use his "Baron" from Albion (he knows I love this blade) and we cut against a broken "wavemaster" punching bag. The covering helped to learn about the effectiveness of a gambeson (or aketon, if you will). Feeling the power and responsibility of sharpened steel in your hand is something that I shall never forget, and yearn to feel again. Another thing I took from this experience was "With Intent" we speak about it in training, but when you are to cut something, it becomes much more real. In summary, a great experience with many lessons learned. Thanks so much to ARMA Appleton for a home for study and the chance to really cut the crap out of some stuff with swords.

-Jeremiah Backhaus

Glad you had such a great experience test cutting. Another ARMA South Florida member still has some tatami mats as well as a cutting stand that I made. Perhaps it is time to get cutting tatami mats again. I must admit is was quite an experience for me to test cut on tatami mats when I did a few years ago. One certainly needs to have martial intent and strike correctly when one cuts tatami mats with a long sword or one can end up with a half cut mat like I saw some people do.