Books
JapaneseSwordSchool
From steelto legend.
Luca has written down what he teaches with a katana in his hands: how a blade is born, who carried it this far, and the stories that stuck to it.
Four extracts from the book, in English. They open in a new tab.
The chaptersThe chapters
- Chapter 3. How a katana is bornKatana Construction ProcessFrom iron sand to tamahagane steel, the folds that drive out the impurities, the clay that draws the hamon in the 750-degree quench, the polish of the togishi. Months of work, and more than one craftsman for a single blade.
- Chapter 4. Styles and familiesSamurai Styles and FamiliesThe schools of kenjutsu, from the fifteenth-century Katori Shinto Ryu to the two swords of Miyamoto Musashi, and the families that decided the history of Japan: Minamoto, Taira, Takeda, Oda, Tokugawa.
- Chapter 11. The stories that stuck to the bladeHistorical AnecdotesMuramasa’s “cursed” blades, the duel Musashi won with a wooden oar, the katana found intact after Nagasaki and the one given back to a family twenty-five years after the war.
From the book
to the mat.
What you read in the chapters is trained with a wooden sword in your hands, one movement at a time.
The katana Booka trial