Taking it on the Plane

[Future Head]

I'm flying home for Christmas break, and I want to bring my shinai with me so I can practice suburi at my parents' house. I'd thought about getting an extra-long mailing tube and stuffing the shinai in that with some paper for padding. I also might break it down and carry the pieces on the plane (needless to say they won't let me carry a swordlike object in the cabin). Does anyone have a way that worked well for them?

[R A Sosnowski]

For kendo, iaido, jodo and naginata, I have used expandable fishing rod cases as carriers; they come in at least two diameters. If you plan to carry just shinai, you might be better off with the narrower version. Since I generally travel doing more than one art, I prefer the wider version. Then it's just ordinary checked baggage.

I use duct tape on the latches so they don't catch and accidently open in transit.

HTH.

[aikanaro]

I've wrapped the shinai/bokuto in a plastic bag, then used a cardboard tube (like the ones used for posters) with two or three "tsuba-like" pieces of cardboard along the shinai / bokuto in order to keep it in the center, then sealed and labeled the tube and made a strap with tape (don't know the name - the brown one used in packages) ... it has worked fine so long.

[tango]

if there's a martial arts supplies store in your town, then you might consider just buying a new one when you get there and keeping it at your parents' place.

or you could order one and have it shipped. shouldn't take but maybe a couple days..

or you could fedex your own shinai..

just a couple ideas if you decided not to mess with the airlines...

OH! if you're flying, why not just call the airline and ask them about it?

good luck!
t

[Nanbanjin]

Last time I came back from Japan my luggage was way overweight so I tried to carry my shinai as cabin luggage. I had about four shinai, plus bokuto all in one bag.
Security wouldn't let me carry the bag on board, but seemed pretty happy to see someone who was interested in kendo. They took the shinai bag from me and later I saw one of the stewardesses take it on board. More or less got my shinai and bokuto hand delivered for no charge.

[iwatekenshi]

I travel a lot taking shinai with me and I've always put it with my luggage and not with carry-on. Just for extra care you might want to use duct-tape and wrap your shinai bag with it :) . They don't break that easily in air travel.