When Watching the Cold Steel Videos...
by Grayson C.
(Florida, USA)
...Do not be so impressed.
At first glance, a sword cleaving through a hunk of meat or several tatami mats may seem impressive. I for one admit being pretty enthralled when I first saw them. But at closer glance, we find that these videos really don't tell much about the sword listed.
A sword is not a club. It is a weapon of finesse that requires a reasonable amout of skill to use PROPERLY. It was not designed for clumsy hacks reminiscent of Hank Aaron. When using a sword as such, you are doing many things wrong.
For one, strength plays some role in swordplay, but not as much as one would think. Brute force is easy enough to counter and relying heavily upon it can and likely will through you off balance and generally give your exceptionally poor form (which will be addressed later).
Cold steel's video users tend to rely heavily on size and muscle to literally batter through an object. When done correctly, it should not take near as much effort to cut through the same object.
Similar to the strength issue, skill level also plays an important role. A perfect example of this is how bad form leads to botched cuts on tatami, although we all know well that often even poor cuts with a decent sword can often produce cuts of moderate quality. Still, (and this has been at least somewhat rectified in more recent videos) the form and skill of the user has been sketchy at best.
A katana is not meant to be used as a crowbar (although it's widely knows that CS's katanas seems to handle like them!). What is more spectacular? A big man who clobbers his way though a tatami mat or a skilled master (both western and eastern) who can literally dice a mat with just the slightest modicum of effort. The sword should do the work itself - you are just it's supervisor ;)
Ah, I seem to have gone off on a tangent there. My point is, cold steels videos show us very little. WE can see that their form is off and they muscle their way into objects. Anyone who has seen John Clement's Arma videos will know that even a blunt sword can get through a handful of tatami mats. Cutting meat isn't too spectacular either.
The videos don't tell us too much about the durability of the sword other than what we can gleam from the handling in that they are either very overbuilt and the users have a hard time using them correctly or that the users themselves are poor - I tend to think it's very much a combination of both.
So what we have is a video that is just fun to watch. It has no substance to it at all.
Remember, these videos are meant to sell a product. Fancy words and hucksters will not change the facts behind the sword. Whether or not cold steel makes good swords, I'll leave that up for others to judge. My goal behind this is to point out that somethings one may see can be misleading.
