SPRINGFIELD'S SAMURAI SWORDSMAN.

Byline: Mike Stahlberg The Register-Guard

The Samurai swordsmith of Springfield is a double-edged artist.

Not only does Christian Griesi forge chunks of steel cable into beautiful blades, he's skilled in the martial arts of Japanese swordsmanship.

Both sides of his art will be on display Saturday at the Oregon Knife Collectors Association's 32nd annual Knife Show & Sale in Eugene (for show details, see story at left).

The latest example of Griesi's sword making will be on display at table L-13 throughout the show. His demonstration of ancient and modern swordsmanship techniques, as well as the awesome cutting power of Samurai swords, is scheduled for noon Saturday.

Griesi, 37, has been involved in martial arts since age 11, and his main occupation is martial arts instructor. He teaches on a private basis, but plans to open a school called Musa Shugyo Ryu, which he says is Japanese for "Warrior Journey School."

Seeing a demonstration of Kendo, "the art of the sword," as a teenager triggered Griesi's interest in sword-based martial arts -including Kenjutsu and Iado - and led eventually to his involvement in sword making.

"I started learning Kendo and thought I'd sure like to have a sword because they use real swords in that art," Griesi said while polishing the blade of his latest sword in the garage workshop behind his home in Springfield.

"I'd already been making knives for a number of years, so I called a bunch of sword makers and got some pointers."

That was about 16 years ago, and Griesi says he started making Japanese-style swords in earnest in 1997.

Some people would say that if any item should come stamped with the words "Made in Japan," it would be the Samurai sword, popularized by the feudal warriors of ancient Japan.

But there are 30 to 40 skilled American swordsmiths making Samurai swords exclusively, Griesi says.

He doesn't claim to be the best swordsmith in this country - or even in Oregon, for that matter.

One of his mentors, Michael Bell of Coquille, "in my opinion is the best Japanese swordmaker in America today. Period," Griesi said. "He just does phenomenal work."

Bell (at table M-12) will be among the other sword vendors at the Eugene show, which will also have an authentic Japanese bladesmith on hand.

Shinichi Watanabe - whose family has specialized in kitchen and sushi knives in Japan for at least six generations - has been assigned table P-O1.

Even in ancient Japan, however, the making and using of swords were usually separate arts.

But Griesi, whose forearms have been thickened by tens of thousands of sledgehammer swings against hot steel, says "making a sword will actually improve your swordsmanship."

"One of the things I tell my students is, 'Every muscle that you use to use a sword, you use making a sword.' '

Griesi said he has made somewhere between 100 and 200 swords, "but I've never owned one of my own" for any length of time. Someone is always making him an offer he can't refuse for any sword he has.

"The last sword I sold was for $3,000," he said.

Griesi has promised himself that he will keep the sword he put finishing touches on last week.

"But if somebody offers me money for this, I'll probably sell it, which is what happens every time I say I'm going to make a sword for myself," he said. "I seem to do my best work if I swear to God that I'm going to keep it."

It takes him 120 to 160 hours to construct swords from scratch, including making the wooden "saya" or snug-fitting scabbard and braided handle with "manuki" (ornaments) woven into it.

"The finish work takes the most time because everything has to look just so," Griesi said. "The blade in and of itself can be made in a couple of days. However, to polish a sword in the Japanese tradition requires six to 10 different stones (each with a different "grit"), and it can take up to a week per stone to do it properly. And if you mess up and get a deep scratch in there from a grain of sand or small piece of metal, you have to start over."

Swords today are used mainly for display purposes, or in the occasional martial arts demonstration.

"One of the things I try to remember when I make these swords is they weren't made for display - they were made for war. And war is killing. ... These swords had a specific purpose ... they were made to cut through things - heads, arms, those type of things."

In modern demonstrations, however, the swords are used to cut through inanimate objects, like a water-soaked grass mat rolled tightly around bamboo (said by Samurai to simulate flesh and bone).

Martial arts training utilizing Samurai swords requires intense concentration.

"You concentrate, you know, when you have a sharp, three-foot razorblade in your hand," Griesi said, "and that concentration translates to all that stuff they teach in sports - focus, visualize, see what you do before you do it."

Griesi says he teaches the sword arts "almost as a Zen ritual, almost like Tai Chi with a sword. It's slow and it develops poise and balance, and it's good for the body. It's good centering technique. Almost a moving meditation."

And even though "we don't fight with swords anymore," he said, the martial arts skills he teaches can be utilized in unarmed self-defense against a person utilizing a baseball bat, a pool cue or similar weapon.

In training students (and in the full-contact demonstrations that will be conducted Saturday), Griesi uses wooden swords, called bokken.

"We get pretty nuts with those," he said, as evidenced by the fact "my knuckles and fingers are all busted and broken up" from getting struck by wooden "blades."

Occasionally, however, Griesi said, "we will do a very choreographed, but well-timed, very well-practiced demonstration using live steel on steel. That's quite fun because the steel sparks when you hit it against another sword."

But that steel-on-steel clash "will destroy the sword if you don't do it right," he said.

In fact, "in the fighting aspect of (Japanese swordsmanship) the swords never touched, and if they did, they used the side of the blade or the back of the blade."

A Samurai warrior knew to save the cutting edge for cutting.