The MISSING THING in this debate

Shadiversity Greetings, I'm Shad and you may have thought that I have covered the topic of cross guard versus Tsuba before. The Tsuba is the standard type of disc guard on the katana and the cross guard I've said multiple times is superior yet there is one thing I think is absolutely worth exploring in this video which we will be going over some of the stuff I've mentioned other videos this is a more condensed focused one as well as a caveat that I think is very important to consider and it's that it's this many katana historical katana okay had a bigger cross guard than what this standard modern style katana is when I say modern it's really the Meiji era style katana because the katana actually wasn't the primary battlefield sword of the samurai it was a sword called the Tashi and there are some longer types of katana indeed much more similar to the type of katana I'm holding here this is actually a Dai katana or Oh katana it's a katana that is bigger in fact it is as big as look at that a long sword it is a vastly superior battlefield level sword than your standard katana that was mostly you know worn as a sidearm you know backup weapon it's almost more like a civilian self-defense weapon whereas this a Tashi or Oh katana this is a much more serious battlefield level sword and then if we have one that's a bit more accurate to what the battlefield level swords that the samurai use were one thing is missing the size of the suba well I've prepared something pretty simple to address that a simple cardboard suba which is much much bigger okay and this is going to then give us a good opportunity to compare how much a larger suba will protect your hand versus a cross guard we've already done videos showing that a cross guard is vastly superior to a standard size suba we'll show you again just to drive that point home but then we're going to also compare it to a larger suba where this might have a little bit more chances to being equivalently protective as a European cross guard let's find out I'm holding a more standard katana here this is actually the tyrant slayer from romance of men I discerned it myself and some people didn't like it but I like it okay it's available in romance of men there's all other great swords okay uh holding it here and we'll have a blade coming in all right and so a suba can protect somewhat but one of the issues is actually kind of the angle and the level because it doesn't take too much off point and that is coming right in then if we were to bring it on the other side again when it hits a tiny movement and it is already off and hitting my hand and then there's the fact oftentimes that it bounces like we have tested this in sparring multiple times when when a sword comes in it often bounce up and the bounce up usually knocks it over the suba off the cross guard hitting their hand and this is a common thing now comparing this to a cross guard the first thing that many people misunderstand about cross guards that they think they don't have any side protection that a strike coming in will will not hit like the cross guard won't touch it and it'll hit their hand but what they fail to realize is that what you do and this you do this so often sword fighting is offset it by a tiny amount even this much okay and the same amount of bounce or deflection that you move away from when we had the suba compared to here it's still catching on the cross guard we're only moving a tiny amount that same amount is getting caught on the cross guard on both sides this movement would pass the suba completely where the cross guard still gets it the cross guard also has these up sweepings not every cross guard has this but many do and that helps trap the sword pushing it back in and all it takes is a tiny offset and suddenly you have not only full sideways protection on either side forward and back but much broader long protection that protects more of the hand and enables for more dynamic uses by having nothing on either side you can actually do things like bring your thumb up on the side like this which enables different and more dynamic grips when you're using the sword so when it comes to the standard suba versus the standard cross guard there's no competition cross guard is vastly superior as a hand protection guard on a sword but what about bigger subas the battlefield style subas that the japanese swords had on the battlefield i guess so i want to compare movement i'm going to try and keep as still as possible so we have a blade coming down and so here's here the movement the distance is one and a half inches two inches we're talking about maybe six centimeters before it misses and no matter what i angle that's the deflection point that we have from from here to here in remember steel is slippery and it bounces especially with hard contact and so it doesn't take much of a bounce hit bounce on the hand whereas a cross guard this would not only block and protect it it would usually trap it sliding it back in to into place because cross guards often have those angled upsides holding the cross guard and offset it owning a tiny mountain by the way this is a standard you know rarely rarely ever does a sword ever hit flat and not hit a sword where it's off centered like this and coming in off centered right moving a good this is the same amount it's hitting the cross guard still you need to move at least a good i'm seeing 10 to 12 centimeters which is like three inches before it can move past the cross guard and hit my hand and so this is the same when here to here going here to here now the tighter we get the small that is but all you need to do is offset it and then of course when it's coming on the side much bigger distance already and that's simply because the width of the cross guard is longer than the diameter of the suba you see i like this and and so because cross guards have just got a longer field of cover they will always be able to protect more than a your disc guard that has a smaller circumference than the total width or length of the cross guard now it's clear though that the larger suba did protect more than the smaller more standard type but it still actually wasn't better than the range of protection that you get from a cross guard and then you have those other added benefits so from the test we just conducted we found with the slightest offset and by the way i'm going to reiterate it because a lot of people miss that they think cross guards strikes always going to come flat no oftentimes not only do you angle a sword to maximize that cross guard protection sometimes you fully maximize it like so to get the cross guard to catch as much as possible it's vastly more likely for a sword to hit off center off on the on the side angle than it is to hit flat and slide past tiny chance rarely ever happens from my own practice and experience and what we found from this test with that slight offset like that the sword needed to move twice the distance to get around the cross guard than it needed to even on this battlefield larger diameter suba replica slash approximation cardboard it was it was valid enough for the test but genuinely needed to move twice the distance even with an offset just like that and then you have all those other added advantages i have to reiterate even testing it with a larger suba a cross guard is a vastly superior hand protection for a sword that's why i prefer them more than supers and like this one actually comes from sword is and we have a dedicated review testing this out i'm not sure if it's going to be up before or after this video there's some things to really love about this sword there's some things that were disappointing but i really like it it's almost like a long sword style katana it solves a lot of the issues i have with katanas and the only the last thing is actually the cross guard if it had a cross guard this would almost be like the perfect katana but guess what we have done that we have put a cross guard on a katana to see how it works it's a bit of an abomination but check it out the video is there do go watch it i hope you enjoy and do remember to subscribe so you don't miss out on future videos here on chatterversity so check out the video i hope to see you there until then