Hachiwara By Nankai Taro Tomotaka

[Ray Singer]

Most in the group have probably viewed this piece by now, but I thought it was still worth sharing.

 

http://www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/others2.html

[eternal_newbie]

4kg?! That's gonna leave a mark... for reference, I have a 60cm heavy duty crowbar that weighs just over half of this (2.2kg, or around 5 pounds).

 

More like a helmet crusher, if you ask me...

[Brian]

Wow. That thing is a beast.
Maybe symbolic or for display. Or smuggling tamahagane

[Baka Gaijin]

Hi Brian.,

 

My guess is that it was for wearing, 4kg over the length is not unwieldy as a baton type weapon, if you are relaxed and do not try to fight its weight during its arc of movement.

 

Some Koryu (Pre modern martial disiplines)  contain defensive techniques involving the use of either the tsukagashira or kojiri to make a strike to vulnerable areas of the body.

 

Handled correctly, these techniques can subdue without recourse to severe bloodshed.

 

Sakakibara Kenkichi 1830 - 1894 14th headmaster of the Jikishinkage Ryu was known for training with heavy weapons, and is famed as the man who of demonstrated Kabutowari (Helmet cutting) in a display attended by the Emperor Meiji.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakakibara_Kenkichi

 

Many of you will remember the recreation of this feat by Terutaka Kuwabata using a blade forged by Yoshindo Yoshihara.

 

 

However, the shining newness of Meiji Japan was not the best environment for the maverick likes of such as Sakakibara Kenkichi and after a few failed business endeavours, he drifted through a series of ever decreasing employments including a short stint as a prison guard and finally the paid name in a book on Kenbu - Sword dancing in the year of his death. 

 

The modern Meiji world had no place for the heroic warrior in the classic sense, it seems..............................................

[TETSUGENDO]

Very impressive.  I would like to have seen the condition of the blade post strike, is there any documentation of the blades state?

 

-S-

[Baka Gaijin]

Hi Steve,

 

In the video, after the successful strike (there were others not so successful it seems) there is a scene showing Yoshindo Yoshihara examining the blade, which has an umbra mark on it of powdered urushi which he wipes off and declares no hakobori, as far as I recall.

 

The videotape was briefly available through To-Ken G.B., so maybe someone in UK still has a copy

 

Here's some excerpts from the original intercut into another film.

 

 

I'm trying to find the complete Kabutowari video online, but it eludes me at the moment.