The World’s First Edge Alignment Trainer
Check on Indiegogo
The Tameshigiri Trainer is a unique training aid by martial arts tech-group, Martial Machina.
Founded in 2021 by Asante Lawla–a corrective exercise specialist, sword enthusiast, and practitioner of historical combat arts–Martial Machina is committed to developing inventive technical solutions for practising martial artists.
Typically, practicing cutting technique requires the use of mats, water bottles, or clay targets. All of which can be expensive, time consuming to set up and extremely messy. In addition to this, the speed of practice makes it difficult to determine the position of the sword’s edge during a strike. Meaning students often have to rely on discontinuous, retrospective analysis of cuts for performance feedback.
Frustrated by these expensive and impractical methods, and driven by a need for effective and convenient test cutting practice, The Tameshigiri Trainer was born.
Using short wavelength lasers we project light onto a photo-luminescent target, allowing you to track your sword’s movement in real-time. This provides you immediate visual feedback and all the information you need help perfect your technique in a fraction of the time at a fraction of the cost !
As the world’s first edge alignment tool, the Tameshigiri Trainer revolutionises the sword training experience to finally meet the needs of modern practitioners.
Check out our initial concept video, demonstrating how the tameshigiri trainer works!
Why We Need Your Pledge
So far, the team at Martial Machina have relied heavily on small batch manufacturing solutions at our home studio, taking The Tameshigiri Trainer from conception, through design revisions to public testing.
It’s been a remarkable journey, and by applying our experiences and user feedback, we’re well and truly ready to take The Tameshigiri Trainer to the next step.. Having driven this project as far as our resources would allow, we now need your support as we enter the production phase of development.
Update: We met our funding goal!!
A heartfelt thank you to all of our early supporters and new backers that helped make this possible. We can’t wait to make good on your investment and get the Tameshigiri Trainer in your hands! As practitioners of swordsmanship ourselves, we’re intimately familiar with the frustrations and huge expenses surrounding cutting practice, so we’re ecstatic that we’ve been given the opportunity to make a positive impact within the sword community.
Stretch Goal: £50,000
Our next goal is to tackle the software side of the training system. Though your current support will help us get the hardware to market, to really flesh out the experience we want to develop our app past the prototype stage.
Your contributions will help us with:
– App design and development
– Hardware for testing purposes.
– On-going app support and updates
Our goal is to raise £10,000 to help fund production and manufacturing cost.
Your contributions will help us to:
– Refine our industrial design
– Source sustainable production materials
– Pay for manufacturing tooling and overheads
– Design and produce packaging
– Market the device
Ultimately, your support will help us deliver the world’s first edge alignment trainer, to give sword enthusiasts across the globe a chance to perfect their cutting technique at their convenience.
Our Vision
The team at Martial Machina are committed to developing practical and innovative solutions for martial arts practitioners.
Sadly, martial arts can be a difficult and expensive hobby, often reserving its practice to those with the financial means and spare time. Our vision is to make martial arts more accessible to everyone with an interest. We want to help support the combat community in protecting and preserving the rich history, knowledge and culture of the warriors that came before us.
We are truly overwhelmed by the interest, support, and feedback we have received so far. You have all been instrumental in making this dream come true, and we are so very grateful.
We look forward to training with you soon!
*1 For those unfamiliar with using tatami mats this price may seem ludicrous, but based on using just 2 tatami mats per minute, that brings us to $40 a minute x 60 which is $2400 per hour!
*2 This very much depends on your individual situation. Whether you are refilling bottles or cutting new ones, the time taken to set up varies greatly from user to user.
Lightweight foldable design allows you to practice anywhere life takes you and provides convenient storage options
Quickly and easily swap out clamp tips to fit any blade you own.
Feel better about your impact on the environment.
We’re exploring ways to further enhance the training experience
with technologies such as mobile tracking for performance stats.
Each unit comes with an array of accessories to support your training, store the product and protect your eyes from injury during use.
