Tamesigiri - Japanese trial cut

In the past, it was very important to test the performance of the blade in Japan. The newly created black tested the blade by cutting down various objects, and the most notorious of these objects was the human body. In the case of using a body, the performance of a newly produced knife was generally tested using the body of a criminal who had just been executed.  The bodies were hung, and workers even caught the bodies and cut them straight. The most common method was to lay the body on a platform stacked with soil to fix the limbs, and then cut down the middle part of the body with a sword. In the case of severe trial cut, several bodies were stacked and hit vertically. It is said that "five bodies were amputated" in a single blow.  The Yamada family also worked as a death row, receiving money, and testing the blade's performance instead. They tested the performance of the sword using the body of a decapitated death row and recorded it in detail.  Over time, Trial Cut using bamboo and straw has become a general method. During World War II, Takamura Taisaburo, a young man who later becomes Toyama Ryu's fugitive, has the opportunity to make a trial cut for his troops and live livestock to supply food to the people of the surrounding villages. Taisaburo's experience may have been valuable knowledge for him, but it is far from the standardized trial cut characteristics of today. Originally, Trial Cut focused on the effect of the knife's attack on the human tissue, but over time, the demonstration itself was more emphasized than the blade's ability to cut.         Today, a bunch of tatami mats are often used in Trial Cut. It doesn't matter if you use a bundle of horses to circle the straw. If you cut a bundle of tatami mats in the correct way, you will feel very similar to cutting the human body. The shaking and recoil of tatami mats are similar.