dull

Tanaka-sensei opend his own aikido dojo in Shiomi, so he asked me to demo some cutting for the opening ceremony. Sekido-san and Ohtsuka-san brought the stand and targets and everything for me. The dojo was on the 4th floor of a plain office-type building. Nice new tatami mats on the floor and very clean and bright.
I didn't realize how squishy new mats are, and I badly blew the first cut because I just sort of sank into the mat and lost all my hip power. Demo wasn't great but afterwards folks gathered around fairly impressed, asking to see my sword and where I learned, etc. It was then that I realized just how dull my cutter has become. The hamon is completely worn off and it's so not sharp I can run my finger up and down the blade easily. That didn't exactly help with my cuts, either. Time to polish it up! We've got one last cutting practice next Saturday, and then I'll probably take the sword down to Hataya in Machida to have it repolished.