Muramasa(ムラマサ)
Overview
Along with Thundersnake and Amaterasu, Muramasa is considered a fundamental sabi waza. Recently, Muramasa has surged in popularity in use in Wotagei videos and wazarens. The movements learned and used in Muramasa are applicable both to self-choreographies and many other more complex wazas. An example of Muramasa can be seen below.
Starting Stance
You want to start your Muramasa turned slightly to your left side with your right arm straight up in the air and slightly behind you. This stance will give you more power in your slashes that is very important for Muramasa.
Slash, Slash, Slash, Slash
From your starting stance, you want to start Muramasa with a big diagonal slash across your body. You want to make sure that your arm is straight through the whole slash to make the light streak look nice. You then want to slash back up to the position your arm started at. Once again, slash diagonally across your body. Now, from this position, you want to bring your right arm straight up and diagonally down from that position towards your bottom right. Each slash should take one beat. We are now at beat four.
Open and Close
From the position you ended off from, you now want to bring your left arm and swing it straight out towards your top left. Just like the previous slashes, make a slash motion with your left arm diagonally towards your bottom right again. Again, these slashes should take one beat each. We are now at beat six.
Pull in and Snake Out
Now, from your previous position, you want to bring both of your arms in a counterclockwise motion from the bottom right of your body to the left side of your stomach. After, you want to bring you right arm in a clockwise circular motion to the right side of your stomach. Each of these motions should take one beat. We are now at beat eight.
Punch Left, Punch Right
In this position, you want to now bend your body to your left as much as you can without losing your balance. At the same time, you want to take your right arm across your body and make a punching motion to your side. You want to punch two times. You want to do this again, this time to your right. Each punch should take one beat, so each side should take two beats. We are now at beat 12.
Cross and Spin
Just like Amaterasu, you want to make the same rising motion with your arms with your right arm in front and make the counterclockwise spin motion.
Snake Thunder
Again, with the rest of these fundamental waza, you want to then go into a Snake Thunder and Romance Keihou. The guide for Snake Thunder can be found at Snake Thunder guide.
One Point Advice
- Remember to keep your arms straight throughout all of your slashes. This not only makes the light streak look sharper and cleaner, it makes the motion faster and gives a nicer and longer streak.
- When doing your punches, make sure to fully extend your arm for the punch and put a decent amount of force into it.
- In general, you want most of your motions in Muramasa to be especially fast. Muramasa looks the best when the slashes look straight, clean and fast.
When all put together, Muramasa shoud look something as follows.
Next
Finally, we will be looking at Romance.