shinai size...is this right? & tsukagawa question

[braxtonhicks]

Hi,

Noobish noob here, but I'm wondering if this is correct or not.

First off, I'm tall, have long limbs for my height, and fairly big hands, and my sensei has suggested (strongly) that I look for a longer tsukagawa, as he feels my small hits suffer from the combination of having long arms, and hands close together.

So, I emailed a certain well known online retailer and they said that they have long tsukagawas, but they were (and I quote):

"designed for JODAN.
The tsuka is for 41 shaku sizes of shinai. (Your shinai is 39)
It will be too long to put on your usual practic shinai."

Um, I've never heard of special size 41 shinai for jodan. Isn't this beyond regulation size? Has this sales person lost the plot? I don't see anything about this in the shinai regs sticky.

I've heard of jodan players using long tsukagawas but special shinai?

Also, if anyone has any leads on longer tsukagawas, that would be great. I've seen a couple archived threads:

http://www.kendo-world.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-14335.html
http://www.kendo-world.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5017

[braxtonhicks]

And for the record, I'm not trying to do Jodan. Before I'm jumped on by people with lots of green thingies after their user names.

[Neil Gendzwill]

I think that tsukagawa may very well be too long, but hard to tell without seeing it. I've found over the years that there is a variation in 39 tsukagawa, personally I prefer ones as long as possible, usually stretched through practice.

However, you could try the 41 and if it's too long you can shorten it up. The usual way is to take apart the top, cut, re-roll and lace. This requires a bit of work. I think there might be some step by step instructions lurking somewhere around the net but I don't have a link.

[JByrd]

However, you could try the 41 and if it's too long you can shorten it up. The usual way is to take apart the top, cut, re-roll and lace.

Interesting. I always shorten tsukagawa from the bottom. I turn it inside out using a dowel, clip off the end, poke holes around the bottom, and cinch it back up with a bit of string. The best part is that if I don't do a great job, the ugliness disappears once I invert the handle again. :)

[Toecutter]

Hi,
The tsuka is for 41 shaku sizes of shinai. (Your shinai is 39)
It will be too long to put on your usual practic shinai."

I have the same problem as you, I have gotten slightly longer tsukagawa from I believe AOI if memory serves but it was a while ago. I believe the 41 is in reference to the tsukagawa length not the shinai but I might be wrong, you can commonly get them in 38 and 39 or at least that’s how their web pages identify the length of the tsukagawa, I didn't realize 41 was available. If you don't mind me asking who is selling this size, I'd like to get one, you can always roll it down if it's too long. On a similar note the tsukagawa of our sensei(he uses a carbon) is at least one and a half to two inches longer than mine and I have an XL. So if the 41 doesn't work out you could always try getting one made for a carbon, why they are longer I have no idea.