Hasegawa Breaks!

[KhawMengLee]

This is a lesson to all the Ogre Kendoka out there(bashers). I witnessed last night the heartwrenching sight of a Hasegawa DB39k2 shinai breaking. I was shinpaning the match between two seniors and basically they were doing ogre kendo, full swings without tenouchi, they wanted speed and power but it just screwed up their form. Eg. the MEN cuts had so much force behind them that the shinai finished at waist level and they looked like uchidachi at the end of kata 1.

One of them learned a lesson he will never forget. He moved in and scored a kote hit with a big Conan style cut and as they moved back to issoku itto I was about to call "nihonme" when I noticed that the front slat of his DB39k2 was broken. So I had to stop the match.

It was a clean break( as in: ======= snap!I====) and the shinai was only about three trainings old.

Moral: don't do ogre kendo! Even if carbon shianis are more durable than bamboo it doesn't mean they can't break.

MENG

[kendomushi]

I have seen my sensei, who is a nana-dan, break a carbon shinai in its 3rd or 4th training session.
Sensei was using a standard shinai, one of the students, a ni-dan, was using a carbon shinai and tried to block sensei from attacking men. He went up in classic star wars fashion and one stave of the carbon shinai split across its width about 10cm above the tsuka.
We still debate if the carbon was defective or what (carbon shinai do have a bamboo core which might have had some defect in this case).
Moral....... carbon shinai can be broken by good kendo as easily as by ogre kendo. There is no such thing as an unbreakable shinai, at least not yet.

[Inouye02]

a san kyu doing shinpan ? never heard of a dojo that allowed that , ahh but ur a pro eh meng ..lol

[KhawMengLee]

nah, we do this excercise where we get into groups of three and rotate doing sanbon shobu so everyone gets to shinpan. Hell, you got to learn somewhere.

[qpuppy]

Hey Meng...

The senior who used the carbon... how long has he got the shinai for? 3 training is very very short :eek: If he just got the shinai not long ago, tell him to take some photos of it.. and email/contact the company where he got this shinai from and ask for either a new carbon shinai or a new slap. Send the photo to them... If they will give him a new shinai.. he would have to send the old carbon back..... There should be some sort of warranty for a couple of months.

cheers

[KhawMengLee]

yeah, but I thought the hasegawa warranty doesn't apply overseas? Will check though.

[qpuppy]

Well.. i dont think that Hasegawa company itself applies.. but the company where he bought the shinai from.. that company should have some sort of warranty....

[KhawMengLee]

cool! will do:D

[Steve]

i "used" to have the same hasegawa...dobari, oval grip, the whole works. It broke after one year. <sniffle>

I have heard that carbons break much more easily if the nakayui is loose, so you need to retie it before each class.

[Chusan]

Originally posted by Steve
I have heard that carbons break much more easily if the nakayui is loose, so you need to retie it before each class.

Ooops. No, no! It seems to be wise not to tie the nakayui to tight, since the carbon isn`t that soft as bamboo is. When you fix the carbon with strong-tied nakayuigawa, the shinai will be less flexible thus hitting you opponent harder.
The knot might be somewhat looser compared to bamboo-shinais.
To prevent slipping, one might fix the knot to the sageo.
And, BTW, carbon-shinai have the tendency to break, that is true.
I`m not sure, but my idea for this phenomenon is that beginners, using carbon too early, don`t get used with the proper amount of force to be used with the hit. While bamboo-shinais break very soon, carbon are somewhat more durable, but since too-early-carbon-users never learnt to deal with the proper force of hitting, they use too much power - which leads to breaking carbon.
No matter, which Kyu or Dan s.o. has...

[Neil Gendzwill]

Hasegawa shinai shouldn't be used by beginners. Breaking a carbon shinai against the men-gane is a $300 mistake compared to a $30 mistake. Cheap taiwanese shinai are the best - they're durable (more durable than expensive bamboo ones) and beginners can't really feel the subtle difference between them and better shinai. After you've been practicing a few years, a Hasegawa is a useful tool in the bag - use it for any practice where there's a lot of shinai-shinai contact, get out your bamboo for keiko with sensei.

[Chusan]

Originally posted by Chusan

To prevent slipping, one might fix the knot to the sageo.

Ooops... sorry, of course TSURU :confused2