Tree felling vids

Buckin Billy Ray with an interesting vid. FF'g will be useful, but basically he seems to be doing a reversed tapered hinge to get alot of side weight to swing with little wedging; hinge is thicker on compression side and thinner on tension side.

I'm curious to see what you think of it. I don't fully understand it but a major factor seems to be that D fir is very strong and hinges well

 
Not quite, I'm a bit lost in all this wording. His speech has to be trimmed for me to get the precise point.
I understand to leave some meat in the underside as a fulcrum, but thinning so much the upper side feels like a very risky move. I must be missing something in the narrative.
 
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Ok except for the spurs thing, that last vid was boring. This vid I'm sure I posted before but for those who haven't seen it, it is probably one of top 2 tree vids of all time, IMO. And beyond that, tell me @pantheraba and @biggun and @stig et al, how is it even possible to smash open a coconut with your elbow?

 
I prefer using the knife edge of my hand.........shuto.
Pretty easy if you have trained your hand.
I did a LOT of makiwara work when I was younger.

I doubt I could do it today after my hand got demolished in the staircase fall.
It still doesn't work 100%.
And doubt makes it impossible. Hesitate in Tameshiwari and you fail.

'Bout 20 years ago we had finished taking a leaning birch down at a vacation cottage.
The owners served coffee and cake for us before we rode home.
As we were sitting around the garden table, their little daughter came out and asked " dad, when can we have the coconut"
Dad said,: " I told you we don't have a hammer, you'll have to wait till we get home"
I was sitting next to some concrete steps, so I asked if I could see the nut.
Turned around, put it on a step and broke it.
My partner told me later, that since he knew what I was going to do, he looked at the people, not me.
Said their expressions were wonderful to see, when I handed 2 half nuts to the daughter.

Only time I have ever used Tameshiwari for something useful BTW.
 
Ok except for the spurs thing, that last vid was boring. This vid I'm sure I posted before but for those who haven't seen it, it is probably one of top 2 tree vids of all time, IMO. And beyond that, tell me @pantheraba and @biggun and @stig et al, how is it even possible to smash open a coconut with your elbow?



It must be pretty dumb using your hand to break a coconut.

I mean, think, be smart, use your head 😜

 
About 10-12 years ago I was doing a lot of hand conditioning under the direction of my teacher, Dr. U Maung Gyi. After about 11 months of conditioning I was able to break coconuts with a palm heel strike...I broke 3 of them. Not always first try but they broke. We have had some of our bando guys that are very good at it and could break with hand or elbow. One bando guy, Dr. Bob Hill, could drop a coconut with his right hand and immediately use his right elbow to break the nut as it fell in front of him. He was remarkable in a lot of ways with breaking things with his body parts (he could drive his big toe through a gas can) but he paid the price...ended up on pain killers and ultimately died of OD of some sort.

I think my hands felt BETTER when I was doing hand conditioning...good dit da jow (Chinese liniment), hand/finger strength and stretching exercises, etc. promoted good circulation.
 
Does that work beat up your hand in 'old age' or are you none the worse for it, and perhaps better

I don't feel any ill effects from it.
I still use the makiwara twice a week. I like to keep my knuckles in such shape, that if I hit a head, it will be the head that breaks, not my hand.
This is me, breaking bricks.
First picture is maybe 1980, second maybe 2005.
I hold the unofficial Danish record for that, 4 bricks at once.
Unofficial since it wasn't done at a competition, but plenty of witnesses.
20230509_220210.jpg
 
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Exactly.
All tameshiwari is good for is breaking stuff, doesn't make you a better fighter.
Good mental exercise, though. If you stack 3 bricks on top of each other and try to hit them hard enough to break them, you'd better be totally focused.
If they don't break, the force will break your hand instead.

I've taught seminars on breaking.
I'd say any grown person who is proficient in Karate can break a brick.
The trick is to get them to belive they can, I was pretty good at brainwashing them into trying.

They sure walk tall after succeding, especially the women.
 
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