weighted shinai for suburi

[burger boy]

Hi everbody,
I'm in a training state of mind as of late...

Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on using
weighted shinai for suburi practice?

Pros, cons, how much weight is too much, etc.?

Thanks.

burger boy

[titus]

I use a six-piece Suburi Shinai from e-bogu at home. It's officially just over a kilogram I think, never actually weighed it though. Makes a major difference in strength and speed, at least for me. Whenever I go to practice, the normal shinai feels feather light!

There are also those 200g weights you can attach to your shinai, never used them myself though.

Most strength increase was in my forearms and wrists/grip, with more moderate gains in my upper arms and shoulders. I think if you already work out with heavy weights, then you will get most of your gains in your forearms and wrists/grip. But if you don't do any weightlifting outside of regular practice, then a suburi shinai would help you alot throughout your arms and shoulders.

[kendomushi]

I use a 4kg log vaguely resembling a bokuto for suburi and warm ups.
Pros - making an effort to strike properly has given me much better control. Resisting the pull of the extra weight at the end of a strike had really increased my wrist and grip strength. Using the standard shinai is like using a feather.
Cons - Shoulders get very tired. Have to keep the shinai handy so I can switch when I get tired and to immediately get into actual practice. If you aren't really making the effort to swing properly with the extra weight, it will result in just giving you more power and thus overpowering with the shinai and slowing you down.

[KhawMengLee]

And remember tenouchi! Don't just swing away with the heavy bokuto.

[taiwnezboi]

I made a 20 or so pound shinai out of one of my old broken shinais.

Pros - Great strength and speed training.
Cons - Get tired quickly and can only do big strikes.

[titus]

Originally posted by taiwnezboi
I made a 20 or so pound shinai out of one of my old broken shinais.

Pros - Great strength and speed training.
Cons - Get tired quickly and can only do big strikes.

20 pounds is just over 9kgs, or the equivalent of about 17 regular shinais, isn't that a bit of overkill? And how did you make it out of old shinais? Must look pretty cool.

Also just wondering, what do you mean you can only do "big strikes?" Could you give examples?

[Chusan]

I`ve been using suburi-to for quite an amount of years now, and my impression is: it does not give you more strength if used properly, but more ´easy-going`.
I.e.: if you fix yourself on getting more power while using suburito, you`ll usually get tierd very soon. But if you relax and use as few power as possible, your suburis will be moere and more relaxed yet sharp. Hmm, seems like a contradiction, but it ain`t.
Let`s try it that way: if you manage the use of suburito in a relaxed way, you`ll be able of performing literally hundreds of suburis even with the BigThing, just with using nothing else than easy swings and a growing amount of tenouchi. So the use of suburito is fine for learning ´no-clubbing`. Got it? Sorry, my English isn`t very good with these topics...

[taiwnezboi]

titus: well.. if you really want to know.. I went to Home Depot.. bought 4 flat metal sheets that were about the thickness of the shinai.. a metal rod.. a big screw and electrical tape.. took an old broken shinai.. put the metal rod in the middle of it.. then put held the metal sheets in place while I taped it all up with electrical tape.. since the sheets were longer than the shinai slats I put the big screw at the top to take up the space.. the result is a shinai that weighs a LOT.. maybe more than 20 pounds.. =P

[taiwnezboi]

titus: oh yeah.. your second question.. I take Kumdo.. and we call strikes where you life the shinai all the way over your head then strike "big motion" strikes.. as opposed to the other type of strikes where you barely lift the shinai to strike (short motion).. also I think in Kendo you guys call the suburi where you kind of shuffle back and forth while swinging the shinai haya suburi? yeah you cant do that with the shinai I made because it is so heavy that you can't keep the movements flowing together

[MaxPayneWayne]

maxpaynewayne says: do suburi with 15-20 lb bench pressing bar. and after that gets light, put weight on the end.

[hwarangdo]

hello,

once for a week straight i used a weighted jookdo (shinai) for all my warmups as well as for "shadow" sparring (didn't touch a regulation shinai and it really helped my speed. the damn thing was so heavy i had to learn to use the right muscles efficiently or suffer the next morning.

[Inouye02]

hwarangdo, interesting name , do you study the art also ? i used to many years ago ..