What Do Katana Sword-Smithing and Engineering Have in Common?
It’s not the ability to make katana swords.
There are only 300 or so katana sword-smith left in the world, and only 30 of them make their living forging katana. Making katanas is a highly specialized skill. One that we can't learn from reading books. It has to be taught and passed down from master to pupil over a decade of training before the pupils can become master swords-smith.
Among many skills passed on from the master to the pupil, IMO, there are two skills that translate well from learning to make katanas to engineering.
The ability to find impurities and work patiently to remove them.
It's what makes the katana a precision instrument that is durable, strong, and deadly.
To me, this sounds similar to engineering.
While both skills are essential, the order matters in which they have been acquired matters. Many spend decades of their time fixing impurities, but that alone won't make you a master. The ability to find impurities independently is what separates a master from an amateur.
The same is valid for engineering. Finding problems and solving them is what excellent engineering is all about.
So while everyone cannot be a master katana sword-smith (literally), we can all be katana sword-smith (i.e., engineers) figuratively. Happy katana forging ⚔️
