A, for me, fairly new way of training cutting is to cut clay. But I have done it a couple of times this summer and I like it! The benefits are many: You can use blunt swords and still get a good feed back if you are doing it right or wrong, since you can reuse the clay many times it is very cheap, it really gives you a good feed back if you are cutting correctly (more of that below) and of course it is fun!
I just use ten kilos of the cheapest pottery clay without chamotte that I could find. So to begin with is not very expensive. But the best part is that as long as the clay don’t get to dry I can reuse it many times!
The feedback it gives is also very nice. I I cut correctly the sword moves effortless through the clay. But if I cut wrong, for exempel cut properly through or diverge from the plane of movement the sword get stuck immediately. I can also see my cut in the clay as a nice bonus.
Compared with for example water bottles clay it works much better I think. Of course proper meat are more of the “real thing” and the educational value is higher. But it is much more expensive and to be honest I am a bit hesitant to use it to much from a moral point of view.
So in short for cutting training I must recommend clay!
Fardang tinker and fiddle 