The Cane: Part 4 – Two Hand Cuts

A cut with a stick is a special kind of strike; the way it’s delivered looks and feels like a cut with a saber, broadsword, or katana. It’s called a cut because of this similarity. Since the stick or cane has no sharp edge it doesn’t cut the opponent. But a well delivered cut with a cane damages bone, cartilage, or tendons.

Two-hand cuts are delivered using katana techniques. With the katana, the Japanese two-handed saber, the objective is to rapidly pull the edge of the blade through the opponent letting the sharp blade slice through. It's not a power cut.

The katana cut is a coordinated finesse technique in which the hand near the kashira (pommel or butt of the handle) pulls while the hand near the tsuba (guard) pushes so that the katana rotates forward around a point in the middle of the two-hand grip.

At the same time the arms swing the katana in an arc centered on the swordsman’s torso. The result is two distinct forward motions. The two motions combine speeds resulting in a much faster cut than can be achieve by swinging the katana with the arms alone.

Lacking the sharp blade of the katana, the cutting strike of the cane delivers kinetic energy to the target. You might think that putting more arm and shoulder muscle into the swing increases the power of the strike. But kinetic energy is ½MV² where M is Mass and V is velocity. In the cane cut, the mass is roughly ⅓ of the mass or weight of the cane. This corresponds to the portion of the cane actually delivering the blow. Velocity is the speed of the cane at the moment of impact on the target.

But the formula is KE = ½MV²; the speed is squared. The formula could also be written as Kinetic Energy = ½*⅓*Weight of the Cane*Speed of the Cane*Speed of the Cane. I won’t spend any more time on the formula except to point out that doubling the speed of the cane multiples the kinetic energy delivered to the target four times.

The katana technique, rotating the cane with the hands while swinging the cane from the shoulders, increases the speed of the cane at impact. And, as discussed, increasing the speed of the cane squares the delivered kinetic energy.

The two-hand cut can be delivered vertically downward, horizontally, or diagonally.

A well delivered two-hand cut delivers damaging kinetic energy to the target.

Link to Special Report Topics: The Neko Ryu Cane