I understood that. However, the job is simple, (like the tailors)defeat the opponent. The tools are not the exact same but very similar.

Except that if the tailor is having a slightly off day, nobody dies.

The margin of error is ridiculously small. You can receive a single cut from a knife in a fight and unless it hits you in a vital area you can survive and continue to fight. There is nowhere on your body you can take a cut from a sword and have a reasonable chance of continuing the fight which means that you will certainly die. That principle fundamentally changes the nature of of the conflict. Keep in mind that the general assumption is that your opponent is in the prime of life and has probably been training for at least 30 years. He is VERY VERY VERY good.

May I ask you what you do for a living? It's relevant I promise.

Would we not have to assume the same about the knife weilding opponent then as well? A well versed knife fighter doesnt necessarily have to take the vital areas. He can just as easily cause nerve damage or tendon damage. Granted, you arent going to take off an arm with a knife, you can still disable it and isnt that roughly the same thing? Minus loss of blood? The limb is still incapacitated, and most certainly lead to the death of the opponent due to his inability to defend or attack.

Also, a good knife fighter has already cut or stabbed you before you see the weapon. Due to its size, concielabilty is optimum.

As for what i do for a living, i have two occupations. By day, I lay tile and hardwood and when i can i compete in MMA events, trying to take the first steps into what hopefully becomes a prosperous career, or at least one I can be proud of.

I'll give you that a very good knife fighter can mess you up pretty bad with a minimum of cuts possibly leading quickly to death.

However, a barely trained swordsman can kill you with one cut if you screw up even slightly. A glancing blow from a knife landing in a less than ideal spot will wound but not badly. The same cannot be said for swords. A cut with less than ideal hasuji can still open up a wound which is several inches long and an inch or so deep. While perhaps not immediately fatal, it is a debilitating cut most anywhere on the torso.

I agree. The sword is definately more lethal.

I am wondering if our friend Chen Zen has ever heard of that legendary test of holding a shinken in front of a thread that is floating down a stream. It is said the thread will float by the blade without pause, but be cut in two.

That is sharper than any ground or honed knife or sword. Is it truth or myth?

Never tried it, but I've heard the myth. I wouldn't be suprised if there was a kernel of truth in there somewhere. You really can polish a good shinken to quite literally a razor's edge. More importantly it will hold that edge better than most blades. There is no real reason to keep them quite that sharp, and to some degree it is a little self defeating as the very extreme bit of the edge could roll over a tad on contact with a hard surface thus negating the sharpness. Take it down a notch and you will have an absurdly sharp blade that can hold it's edge very well. That's what makes the design remarkable.