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Originally Posted by Norman McCormick
Hi,
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Sally prefers warming her tootsies against the Aga these days...
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it's amazing that this breed of very special dog can sleep more than 23.5 hrs. a day. the other half hour being apportioned to eating, relieving themselves, and running at 45mph (which they sometime do while sleeping as well
). if you are lucky, they may actually play with toys (and with you) for part of their rest periods. they are not known as 45 mph couch potatoes without good reason.
most people are surprised that they do NOT require vast amounts of exercise. they're sprinters after all, a few hundred yards at top speed and they're knackered for two days...
blue and millie at this present moment are on the bed behind me, and look much like they do in the picture in my earlier post which was taken 4 years ago. i did not take another picture as there is very little noticeable difference. one must occasionally check them to make sure they are still alive. sometimes i take blue's pulse just to be sure. (they do sometimes sleep with their eyes open)
back on track, the katana as an art object is great, but we must consider that most of the high class blades we think of were made for the nobility and upper class samurai, the common ashigara made do with a more mundane and lesser quality weapon, maybe even just a spear. these lesser quality cannon fodder level blades did not survive.
the samurai coming up against the armoured chinese/mongols did not fare to well against an army trained to fight as a unit, and were forced to rethink their traditional methods of warfare. they did better in the melee of hand to hand fighting when boarding mongol vessels at sea tho.
i have heard people mention that a samurai about to go into a large organized battle in armour would purposely dull all but the last few inches of his sword, the dull edge being less likely to chip or fracture, and most work is done on any sword with the first few inches anyway. armour bashing was not the samurai style. going for weak points in the armour was the way. armpits, necks are always good targets as are inside the legs, wrists, forearms, etc.
a more modern cross cultural conflict was a story i was told of a gurkha nco who found himself in a hand to hand with a japanese officer and his katana. the gurkha of course had his khukuri, which is much the same as a greek kopis. the gurkha lost part of two fingers. he brought the japaese officers head and sword back to show his commanding officer.
the sword is just a tool. the real weapon is the mind using it.