A few years ago I started messing around with an instrumented sword to see if i could capture the shape of some senior aikidoka sword cuts and identify markers for skill with the long term aim to get a bit better, a bit quicker. Happily it was accepted for presentation at a Japanese sports technology conference in 2005 (and later in 2008) and at last my personal and professional intrests were beginning align.

Last year when our research centre was approached to do some short stories, the idea came up again and it subsequently appeared a few weeks back on ABC Catalyst along with some more conventional sports technology research in swimming and tennis. If it sounds mildly interesting you can see it http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/vodcast/default.htm  midway through episode 2

A bit more of the article is here 10 Biofeedback Sword - a new tool for learning