Miyagi : Not exactly tamishigiri... more like a rather ad-hoc demonstration of the skills, blades and techiniques used in BladeSports cutting competitions. I was using my own (own made) competition knife. It's a full flat ground 10" blade of 01 steel. The guys who were there can vouch for the fact that even after cutting cans vertically there wasn't the merest hint of edge damage
If you're interested in the idea of the sport of competitive cutting, search Youtube for 'BladeSports' to see the sort of thing we get up to, and take a look at
www.bladesports.org for further details, rules and regulations etc. I am the only BladeSports Certification Instructor in the UK, (was the first one outside of the USA) and run Certification courses whenever and wherever I find feasible.