Joudan shinai

[Eldritch Knight]

I started using joudan a few months ago and I had a few questions about what type of shinai to use. Should I go with a shorter shinai for speed, or a longer one for reach? I'm using an ichitousa (120cm, its quite heavy though), which is working well, but I wanted to get the opinion of this forum.

[JSchmidt]

I started using joudan a few months ago and I had a few questions about what type of shinai to use. Should I go with a shorter shinai for speed, or a longer one for reach? I'm using an ichitousa (120cm, its quite heavy though), which is working well, but I wanted to get the opinion of this forum.

Just use a bog-standard size 39 shinai.

Jakob

[Neil Gendzwill]

For jodan I like a dobari-style with a thick grip. The thick grip helps with the katate-waza. Likewise having a light tip helps. If you play at a tournament you'll be subject to the same size/weight regs as chudan players, so training with anything lighter than 510 g doesn't do you much good.