--- title: Modern-Day Samurai Cuts 100 MPH Baseball in Half description: Isao Machii has been making videos of him using swordplay to cut speeding objects for years canonical: https://time.com/4073256/isao-machii-modern-samurai-baseball/ author: Nolan Feeney article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-14T15:56:57.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:25:59.833Z og:title: Modern-Day Samurai Cuts 100 MPH Baseball in Half og:description: While standing about 30 feet away og:url: https://time.com/4073256/isao-machii-modern-samurai-baseball/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Modern-Day Samurai Cuts 100 MPH Baseball in Half twitter:description: While standing about 30 feet away twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Modern-Day Samurai Cuts 100 MPH Baseball in Half  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Oct 14, 2015 3:56 PM UTC  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Oct 14, 2015 3:56 PM UTC Guinness World Record-holder Isao Machii is a master of _laido_, a Japanese sword-based martial art, and he’s been using his swordplay skills to slice speeding objects for [a few](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/28/isao-machii-modern-day-samurai-cuts-pellet-half%5Fn%5F2377386.html) [years](http://kotaku.com/modern-samurai-slices-an-80mph-fried-shrimp-1704397993) now. The latest stunt from the man deemed a “modern-day samurai”? Cutting a 100 mph baseball in half while standing about 30 feet away from where it was fired. You can see it all go down in the two-minute clip, below, but pay close attention—the actual slicing of the baseball happens in the blink of an eye around the 25-second mark. \[[_Kotaku_](http://kotaku.com/samurai-slices-a-100-mph-baseball-in-half-1736420399)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4073256/isao-machii-modern-samurai-baseball/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4073256/isao-machii-modern-samurai-baseball/"},"headline":"Modern-Day Samurai Cuts 100 MPH Baseball in Half","datePublished":"2015-10-14T15:56:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:25:59.833Z","description":"While standing about 30 feet away","url":"https://time.com/4073256/isao-machii-modern-samurai-baseball/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nolan Feeney","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4073256/isao-machii-modern-samurai-baseball/","name":"Modern-Day Samurai Cuts 100 MPH Baseball in Half"}}]}] ```