Judicial Caning

My newest skills acquisition project...

I don't have this completely figured out yet. If I take a step while swinging a 4ft judicial style cane with a 360 degree arc, that is a really, really hard stroke. I once hit my martial arts target with one of those--Dana heard it outside halfway to the mailboxes (a towel is a great sound muffler, I learned that day). I think it may be too hard to be realistic (unless the person in question is an uber-fit male ex-marine with a prison punishment fetish).

So I think it will go like this. I will practice the full stroke in the same spirit that my old martial arts instructor told us to practice both hard and easy stuff. Doing something at the high end of your ability makes the other stuff easy. I love it when a previously difficult skill turns into "effortless effort." Doing something challenging and mastering that really does the trick for the less difficult stuff. This is sort of the spanking equivalent of learning to break 5 boards (you have to be in really deep dog doo to have to use that much force in an actual fight but it is good to learn anyway).

But, in rl I think I am going to have to modify the stroke (no step, reduced arc, smaller cane, less force, etc). I already have a willing crash test dummy lined up for when I can go live. So my first session will definitely be an experiment erring on the side of caution. I am not far away from having this down--but a couple months of practice are still in order.