Скачать или смотреть 1.5 million folds in Katanas? Hmm, one of the myths teenage me misunderstood.

Teenage me was very much into Japanese culture, in particular Budo, Samurai and Katana. I loved martial arts and reading about the exploits of the likes of Miyamoto Musashi.

I marvelled at the peerless skill of the Japanese Swordsmith, folding swords a million times or more, by inference our European medieval equivalents just lacked that level of craftsmanship. I couldn't understand how a swordsmith would make a katana then fold the blade in two along it's length then, repeat the process for a million times. All I knew was they were likely impossibly sharp, anime had taught me that!

Obviously, I learnt this wasn't quite the case and swordsmiths practiced different skills for their required theatres of war, ceremony and tradition.

In this video I take a look at how the original material is worked, using plasticine, while chatting my way through various reasons for it and using plasticine as a training aid for blacksmiths.

Hope it's fun, unearthing my ahem interesting teenage thoughts on Japanese Katana.