recently(3 days ago) i bought a katana and i did some reasearch and found out it was sharpend wrong but thats besides the point i also reasearched they could cut through almost anything they even shot a bullet at it and it split the bullet so just post here if u have any info on it

" Anyway that is just my two cents. I'm not even sure if any of that answers your question, but I have a pet peeve about people touting the katana as the apex of blade making. "


man i cant agree more with you there! I also dont agree with the asian martial arts being better then any other. I have never been in any martial arts, so i dont have any say in this
but european is much easer to learn then the asian stuff. I have seen people use both styles and tryed to replicate them, (i was safe about it ) and the european grabs and what not where much easer to do and seemed much more Straight foreword. But i cant say much on martial arts. 

I think that only Quentin Tarantino obsessed teens believe that the swords of Samurai are the best ever created.  If you know even the slightest bit about swords, at all, then you will know that even Anglo-Saxon and Viking craftsmen in the so-called dark ages had, in many ways, better sword producing technology.
  However, Douglas_the_black, I disagree with you about Asian martial arts.  Let's take Tae-Kwon-Do.  It's based on several scientific principles to increase power and efficiency, and it has developed to an art form.  Western martial arts typicalled revolve around the principle of "if I hit him here, it hurts a lot", and there is very little dedication.  In Asia, martial arts are taken very seriously, where children in Martial arts schools train about eight hours every morning, that kind of thing - just look at the displays of Shao-Lin monks for the concentration and skill they show.  In a fight between an Asian martial artist and a person schooled in Western martial arts, I'd put money on the Asian-schooled man (or woman, of course.)

I find tae-kwon-do so ungainly that in a fight it would be ineffective. Maybe if you were a master and had spend 10 years perfecting it. Otherwise, good luck. Just look at the ultimate fighting championship. People who train in asian martial arts are no better off than those who train in boxing and wrestling. Even brazillian jui-jitsu which is a very well designed art is by no means unbeatable. For years I did all kinds of dangerous work (bail recovery mainly) and have been in quite a few confrontations. From this I slowly learned that arts like jui-jitsu with it methods of putting a person on the ground and controlling them without having to beat them into submission, and arts like muay-tai with it fast strikes and focus on close attacks with elbows and knees are in my opinion the best bet for self defence.

lol well i have a video of a katana splitting a bullet and i think japaneese steel was stronger then thier iron but yeah shao-lin monks are amazing i took tae-kwan-do and hated it with a passion only because it was almost all kicking i wanted to do stuff with a stick or a bokken sword so im thinking of going into kendo(i like thier uniforms) lol

English is so right on...To be good with many martial arts you have to practice many different techniques not just flashy kicks and getting belts. The idea of getting different colored belts has been adopted in the west mostly to give people what they pay for. They get to say I am a so and so belt and can do all these wonderful katas...but in actual fighting, katas are almost worthless without "alot" of sparring practice.  When I practiced Aikido there was two types of people. The white belts, and the black belts. The student and the master. If you got to black belt it meant you were one awsome martial artist. Something like 7 years of training to even be ready for taking the test, let alone actually passing it. What bugs me the most is the lack of emphasis western martial artists put on Chi/Ki.  Oh yea..Katanas=good. 

Jui-jitsu is very useable. Although brazilian jui-jitsu trains in a lot of tactics for fighting on the ground it very useable as well. From my experiences I have come to group physical conflicts into one of two types. Situations where you want to subdue and control a person without hurting them too badly. For this jui-jitsu is good, I teaches a lot of simple to learn throws and joint holds. If you can isolate a person on the ground and control them with a wrist, finger, arm hold, or similar you can usually do so without causing any lasting harm. The other type is situations where to defend yourself you must neutralize as many attackers as fast as possible. In this situation people may be armed and are probably dangerous. In that case I do not worry about their health. Holds, throws, and locks learned in jui-jitsu can if applied with a little more force break a persons arms, wrists, fingers, etc. This in my opinion makes it an effective art. I think any martial art can be effective if a person trains in such a fashion as to learn it's application outside of the dojo. I also like muay-tai because it taught me lots of fast, hard hitting strikes, easy to practice blocks, and close in fighting techniques. I find that most people who consider themselves good fighters, or bad asses, or whatever need plenty of room to throw haymaker punches, and football kicks with cowboy boots on. If you can get inside of their prefered range you have the advantage. Also I find that strikes with the elbow and knee save a lot of wear and tear on yourself. It seems like every time I punch someone in the mouth I get infected knuckes from their teeth. So I don't do it anymore. Ditto with your feet. You might need them for running away if all else fails.

I don't mean to be a know it all but I just want to share what I have learned the hard way. After 15 years of martial arts I have started to see that I am only ever using less than a dozen techniques. I have also learned that there really is no reason to venerate one art over another. I am glad that so many arts have lasted up till now, and I hope that they continue being taught well into the future, their value in teaching people aboput discipline, the connection between mind, and body, their important spiritual lessons shouldn't be lost. But, when it comes to teaching self-defense I have started to think that a teacher should look at other arts, examine their own arts, and rationally decide what to teach. I don't think I would ever go back to teaching a traditional martial art to people for self defence.

Tint, yes I did, but for not as long as I should have, and I wish I was still in it. Their are two schools of thought in Aikido now, one to not cause undue damage to the attacker (which is the dojo I learned at) and one where they vary the defensive/offensive move to cause more damage.  I dont nessacarily agree with the second school but understand why some would want to learn. Harmony and understanding where true power comes from is more important to me. 

Mike_R , as you mentioned their are a great many things which are taught in martial arts schools that rarely if ever get used. And some where you could use them but really a more basic move would be faster and more effective. This reminded me of a story I heard about Bruce Lee. He was fighting in a free-style martial artists tournament and was up against a black belt of some art or another. He took the guy out in about 2 mins, and felt kind of bad because to him this seemed like way to much time. He went back and basically stripped out all the showy/flashy and relativley useless moves from his repetoire and thats how he came up with his own brand of martial arts.  Not sure if this is true, but cool story none the less.