# Hanwei Practical Katana Review



## Phil Elmore (Aug 6, 2004)

*Review Link*


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## Scout_379 (Aug 7, 2004)

Excellent article, and nice sword!


> I don't believe sword work need be any more complicated than getting the pointy end in the other man, provided your body mechanics are sound and you understand how to move the weapon to employ its cutting edge and to block with its flat.


 blocks are with the leading edge i think.  A good katana can take a bullet on the leading edge.

consider taking up Iaido, I have found it to be a _very_ good compliment to karate.  And it teaches you a renewed respect for the distance between you and your opponent.


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## Blindside (Aug 7, 2004)

> blocks are with the leading edge i think. A good katana can take a bullet on the leading edge.



Sir, please step away from the edge vs. flat debate.   :boing1: 

Lamont


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## Scout_379 (Aug 7, 2004)

whoa! there's a debate?
 sorry,  im relatively new to forums so please excuse the my naivety


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## Phil Elmore (Aug 7, 2004)

> blocks are with the leading edge i think. A good katana can take a bullet on the leading edge.



Uh, no.


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## dearnis.com (Aug 7, 2004)

Nice review Phil.  Nice reply as well.


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## satans.barber (Aug 7, 2004)

I'm a fan of Paul Chen swords too, I've got the Practical Plus Katana which is the next model up from the Practical (about £220 compared to ~£120 from UK suppliers).

I think it looks great, and I've been trying a bit of cutting with it recently.  Goes through 2l water bottles with no trouble at all:

http://www.satansbarber.co.uk/files/tami2.divx.avi

As you can see I'm not trained in JSA! It's good fun though to slice a few bottles in half as long as you're careful, great way of relieving stress after a crappy day at work!

Ian.


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## Phil Elmore (Aug 8, 2004)

I got a lot of flak for posting this review at e-budo.com, where there are many traditional exponents of the sword.  While I prefaced this review up and down with caveat after caveat stating that I'm not primarily a practitioner of the Japanese Sword Arts and my impressions must be measured accordingly, it's the consensus over there that I have no business even _handling_ a katana (and this one's not suitable for those engaged in JSA).  A few of them seemed very troubled that my only interest in the sword was in whether it could be used to deliver force to another human being, forgetting the context in which _The Martialist_ is written -- it's intended for the pragmatist, for the generalist -- for someone interested only in the commonalities in weaponry and their techniques across cultures and across platforms.

To be honest with you, I _knew_ it would irk them a little simply because I'm not "in the club," but I really did think I'd placed enough warnings and cautions about my lack of said membership in the text of the article.

Recently I made my much older review of the *Cold Steel Katana* available at _The Martialist_.

Remember, I'm no JSA guy.  I certainly don't fault traditional practitioners for getting offended or for disapproving -- that is their privilege, having spent the time and the effort to master the art.


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## satans.barber (Aug 8, 2004)

Well I enjoy reading your reviews Phil and I'm sure everyone else on Martial Talk does as well! They're informative, colourful and to the point (small pun intended  ) which is what you really want out of a review.

The JSA crowd can be a little stuffy sometimes, if you don't know your hamon from your habaki then you shouldn't even be touching Japanese swords in their eyes a lot of the time, as you pointed out! Not everyone has the time, or the money, or the opportunity to train in JSA though - I don't think that should preclude people with an interest in it from pursuing that interest under their own steam.

A lot of this has stemmed from people hurting themselves I think, untrained people who've seen the Matrix, Equilibrium, Last Samurai, Kill Bill etc.,  gone and bought a katana and then accidetally hacked their own leg off (well...). I can understand the JSA community wanting to dissuade people from these sorts of actions, after all SFI and places are full of people posting about "wot sword shud i get wot can chop a tree down?? k thx ta!" and so on. I'm against this myself, but I hope that people know whether or not they have the experience needed (a little physics, body posture and some good old common sense) to try a few cuts or whatever. 

As for simply owning a sword and never cutting with it, which many people will want to do anyway, I don't see why anyone should be excluded from this unless they're not old enough by law. You shouldn't need to be a kenjutsu master in order ot be allowed to own a thing of beauty...

Ian.


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