Lancelot Supreme-Cutter™ Ultra Edition

 Supreme Cutters vs various swords

The combatants are: 

Zsey Hira Zukuri Bo Hi Katana 

LK Chen Military Dadao 

LK Chen Crossbowmen Dao 

LK Chen Wo Yao Dao 

John Lundemo Divider 

John Lundemo Little Cutie 

John Lundemo Giant Silvia 

Supreme Cutter Classic 

Supreme Cutter Compact 

Supreme Cutter Ultra  

Why cutting is so important?

According to medieval German longsword swordsmanship, there were three sword strikes: cut, thrust, and slice. When a cut missed, it could become a thrust. When a thrust missed, it could become a slice.
 

However, if we consider “stopping power”, both slicing and thrusting would not stop a frenzied opponent right away. There are many historical records depicting duels that ended with mutual kills, with both parties inflicting the opponent with plenty thrusting wounds and together bled to death.
 

George Silver, the 16th century British sword master, criticized Italian rapier swordsmanship for causing the death of many brave young Englishmen in duels. It was partly because thrusting wounds, while they would eventually kill, were unable to stop the opponent right away and protect oneself.
 

The slicing attack was also not enough to stop a drugged opponent. There is video footage of villagers defending their home against gangsters, while the latter wielded glaives. The villagers were wounded several times in the fight. Hamstring and thumb were cut, but the brave villagers fought on. Also, there is footage of a modern European swordsmanship group which practiced with sharp sword sparring, and one of the participants was cut at the elbow, forming a gaping bleeding wound, yet the fencer did not even acknowledge the hit. It was his partner who pointed it out so they could stop the practice and tend the bleeding wound.
 

As a result, the only reliable way to stop the opponent in their tracks, was a physical removal of the opponent’s appendage. This works on drugged, frenzied, zealous, or even undead opponents like zombies. Moreover, it was also the only way that one can threaten multiple opponents, cutting through the first target and still capable of threatening the next one.
 

So, it was very important to have a design that can facilitate supreme cutting power that would not have the blade getting stuck in the target and let the user become defenseless.
 

From my 23 years of test cutting, I have used swords from various cultures and taken notes on all the factors that would contribute to good cutting power. Yet, it was only recently, with the use of high FPS camera, that allowed me to pinpoint the problem of blades losing penetrating power during a cut, and later develop two solutions to mitigate it. One will produce a more agile and powerful sword, at the cost of requiring the users to have extremely high skill level. The other is more user-friendly that allows higher user error tolerance, but would perform less spectacular. I chose the former one to realize in this design.
 

In the end, “Supreme Cutter” is designed as the answer to maximize cutting power and minimize the probability of the blade getting stuck in the targets.

Lancelot with Supreme Cutters vs Anderson with naginata.

My student brought in both swords to practice today, originally only going to cut with Supreme Cutter Ultra. However, I asked him to cut with the LK Ming Imperial Guard Chang Dao as well, to see if he could cut well with it with the improved high speed zone technique. Also, there was an accuser who claimed that particular LK sword would just do as good as mine. So we put this debate to rest once and for all through action.   

Maxwell's review after the cuts:

" A sword that is quick itself, will teach you how to cut quickly. 

I found that using Supreme Cutter Classic to learn about high speed zone, is like driving a super car to practice acceleration. One just need to define the path and as long as one is daring enough to give it throttle, it will tells you how fast that cut can possibly be. Due to the fact that the sword is so quick and its automatic mode is extremely fast, the difference between a well executed high speed zone and a badly handled one is tremendous. When one's doing it right, one will feel that there's nothing one could not cut. It was the first time ever that I think I can try cutting two targets with one cut."