Iaito or shinken?

[Wonderwillow]

Maybe I should go back to a bokken. Or even a green balloon on a stick.

I prefer a white flag on a stick....

.... but seriously I use an iaito. At my club we are allowed to use a shinken from shodan but only if our sensei thinks it is safe for us to do so. I personally wouldn't touch one with a barge poll, well at least til I'm about 3rd Dan.

I do believe you are required to have a shinken to grade for Rokudan. My sensei went right up to a year before his Rokudan grading before he started using one.

[Nakura]

Still using a dull iaito and yes, dull is the word! Can't wait to get me sharp shinken!

[I_am_Cthulhu]

Is that to match your wit?

[Galo]

Shinken here.

Just got a full-set seitei seminar last weekend with lost of focus on minor details for the not-so-new students like me, and the sensei than came agreed with my use of it, thou he said I still had some minor details to improve during noto, but also felt confident I was able to pull it over already.

Been using it for about a year and a half, nukiuchi is not an issue anymore. As few have mentioned before, using a sharp blade forces you to keep in mind that you can cut yourself, and others of course, and stay focus. Also if you train with it regularly, issues like the balance change from an iaito start to disappear.

[chidokan]

buy me a shinken (and maybe some spare fingers-just incase) and i will use a shinken.

I don't even trust you with a bokken....

Shinken banned from following situations:

big seminars (too many distractions and if teaching you can forget if people have them even though they tell you coz there are so many there)

when tired (easy to make mistakes)

as a junior (you can make a hell of a mess of the sword or saya if you make a mistake, and to ruin an antique is just NOT acceptable)

a new shinken and grading type situation (under pressure with new sword hurts when you cut yourself)

teaching (people forget you have one)

so.... for personal solo practise use in safe situations. It does stop me being 'careless' when practising....

[Webalistic]

Yup iaito it is... and for the next 20 years or so. Wouldn't mind owning a shinken right now, but not for practice.
It seems a very bad idea at lengthy seminars anyway... no matter how much experience you have.

[Nukitsuke]

Great! Thanks for the replies so far. I think that when people start to use shinken varies with the person, dojo, style. It's pretty much a personal choice here at our dojo in Japan, and not many people below 3dan actually opt to use a shinken.
One of my senpai however, started with a shinken shortly after he got his shodan and said it has made all the difference. I can see his point.
The topic of when a shinken is required has been debated on this forum several times before. I think it depends on the country and federation you belong to. Here in Shizuoka, Japan, as members of the ZNKR we are required to test with a shinken for our 5dan. When I took my 4dan, I used my iaito, though there were several people with shinken who took the test as well.
I guess my opinion is that it's a personal thing. When people feel they're ready, and their Sensei feels they're ready, maybe then they're okay.
Keep the replies coming!
Brad

[Andy_Watson]

I started with a shinken at shodan and personally I am glad that I did because it changed my iaido considerably. After cutting myself on the first lesson with it I treated the sword with a lot more respect especially during noto where to that point I had been slamming the sword home.

I'm not advocating using one so early but I'm glad I did anyway.

So there.

Ner!

(I'm walking away now)







.

[Charles Mahan]

Well, I'm not kendo renmei, but I do MJER with a Sword Store "Steel Iaito that cuts", which roughly translates to chinese made shinken. Sharp as all heck. I've been using it for the last 3 of my 9 years. I will never forget the day that sensei handed me his Japanese made shinken and said "I want you to use this tonight." I liked to crapped my britches. It was a very nerve racking experience. Afterwards he told me it was time to start saving for a shinken, and a few months later I bought one.

The first two months I tried to be absurdly cautious. Super attuned to noto and nukitsuke as it were. It worked. I didn't cut myself. I tried to keep that level of hyperawareness up, but eventually you start to lose that, which is probably for the best. My noto and nukitsuke improved a good deal when I stopped obssessing on them and allowed old habbits to kick back in. I'd spent 6 years being taught how not to cut my fingers off and apparently I learned something. Once the newness wore off, training was much as it was, only with a new emphasis on aligning the blade to the saya properly so as to limit the number of toothpicks.

I now train with it most of the time, only brining out the iaito if I'm feeling paritcularly off my game, if the dojo is particularly crowded, or if a guest instructor is trying to teach me something very different from what I am used to.

[Halcyon]

Just recently got a shinken myself. Rather than being an issue of safety, for me it was more about saving up enough money for a shinken and finding the right one. My sensei let me try out a number of shinken over the years, but it wasn't until the most recent one that I felt it was the right fit. I practiced with it and almost instantly felt that it was "the one."

Previous shinken that I used were all nice in their own way -- some with fancy fittings, some with beautiful hamon -- but I always felt there was something a little bit "off" about them, whether it was balance, weight or length. I wasn't looking at aesthetic qualities as much as functional qualities -- a shinken I could use for regular practice, and not something to be stashed away or merely to be displayed on a katana-kake.

My sensei likes to say that finding the right shinken is like meeting the right mate. If the sword is indeed imbued with a soul, then I guess this makes perfect sense.

[Nukitsuke]

Halcyon, I agree with you, the fit and especially balance are very important for iaido. Companies making standard iaito now are pretty good at nailing the balance and weight for most iaido practicioners.

Shinken though are a different ballgame because they are hand / custom made and the weight, balance, curvature, kissaki, everything needs to be considered along with the function. Is the blade going to be used for kata practice? If so, it needs to be not too heavy overall and not to top heavy either for good balance. Tameshigiri blades are a whole different ballgame, and nobody in our dojo uses the same shinken for both practice and tameshigiri.

Charles, do you guys do tameshigir? If so, do people have a practical blade for that different from their kata practice shinken?

I'm probably going to have the same experience you did when my shinken is finished. Everyone says that when they first changed to a live blade their technique changed for a few months until they relaxed a bit. I'm so fearing that "first nick"! Just need to relax I guess.

Thanks again for the input everyone!

[Maro]

Iaito for Kata and shinken for Tameshigiri. Occasionally we use Shinken in kata but it's not really fun - your average Chen blade is not balanced as well as a good Japanese iaito.

I'm getting a Dynasty Forge soon so we'll see how that balances. Even so, it will still be Iaito 90% of the time.

[dohrt]

In my home dojo, there is a sandan and also . . . well, he started as a shodan with it, but now is nidan . . . who use shinken often . . . though they may use iaito for large seminars or for shinsa . . . but the nidan commented to me recently that it really made a big difference in terms of focus and technique. Although I didn't say it to him, my thought at the time was, "your focus and technique were already quite good!"

But I myself? First of all, I don't have the financial means at the moment to just pick up a shinken. But even if I did, my technique is nowhere near where it would need to be. On the other hand, I find it alluring to have that seriousness that I don't have right now with my iaito. And then there is the additional care and maintenance that are so much more pronounced with a shinken, which appeals to me as well.

Still, being that I am very much a novice in iaido, I defer to my sensei and sempai for advice about these things, and I'm sure they'll recommend good courses of action for me when the time is right. So in the meantime, I'll be very happy with my iaito and I'll keep practicing.

[Aaramis]

Shinken here. The blade itself is about 200 years old, so probably Edo period. I'm actually thinking of lengthening the tsuka a little, and changing the habaki and tsuba as well... but that costs a fortune :/

As for it's effect on me - my situation is similar to those above.
My Ryu pushes for a Shinken shortly after Shodan, although some wait until Nidan or even Sandan. It all depends on your skill, and your sensei's trust in you, I suppose.

And as others have stated, I've found it's made quite a difference in terms of improving my iai. It's certainly made me a lot less cocky, and encouraged me to treat it more carefully.
It also irons out any bad habits....quickly.

I guess it really depends on what side of the fence your style is.

[Charles Mahan]

Charles, do you guys do tameshigir?

No. It is officially forbidden within our organization to do tameshigiri.