Flawless Deception: the truth behind the samurai schools by Trent Phil

Author:Trent, Phil [Trent, Phil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-08-29T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 1.

And though more easily performed on the left side of the body, this action can also be done on either side (Fig. 2).

Figure 2.

The lower versions are decidedly faster and relatively safer to perform since not only is less time taken lifting the hands, but as a result the undersides of the arms stayed unexposed, also the eyes are not momentarily covered by the hands during the raise and descent.

However, despite the glaring failings of the fold-back as a default battlefield combat technique it is often mistaken as one: its presence most commonly being seen as a consequence of the samurai’s helmet. The theory is that its neck protection, or the eye-level protrusions and/or the front crest, prevented the swordsman from raising his hands above his head, so the samurai needed to find some other way to generate the speed and power of a descending cut.

Unfortunately while sounding reasonable in principle, after training in several styles of helmet I have found no significant impediment to raising a sword to a high guard—a stance that (as with the fold-back technique) is used very frequently in Karato Ryu and other surviving koryu.

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