New and strange equipment

[streetcleaner]

Do you use Machine stitched or Handstitched Bogu?

should i? korean machine stiched

[shred_lord]

Then you are guilty of the using the same kind of stuff you say is killing Kendo.

Machinestitched Bogu is not only a technological step forward, it has probably done more the make kendo affordable to the masses that any other equipment based development.

At one end of the range it is a cheap substitute for traditional handmade bogu.

At the other end, it's a tecnological step forward allowing new ideas in bogu manufacture to be explored and is STILL cheaper that most handmade bogu.

You are, by you own standards, killing Kendo with your cheap and nasty fake bogu.

Go spend a couple of thousand pounds and get something proper.

[streetcleaner]

Then you are guilty of the using the same kind of stuff you say is killing Kendo.

dont we talk about "inovations"? as i remember we started with ugly fake men, then fiberglass mengane, then carbon shinai. whats wrong with machine stiched bogu? despite of the fact it is _machine_ stiched, its standart bogu. and yes, to support traditional bogu craftmanship i buy handstiched bogu as soon as i can. but today my bogu is fine

[shred_lord]

dont we talk about "inovations"? as i remember we started with ugly fake men, then fiberglass mengane, then carbon shinai. whats wrong with machine stiched bogu? despite of the fact it is _machine_ stiched, its standart bogu. and yes, to support traditional bogu craftmanship i buy handstiched bogu as soon as i can. but today my bogu is fine

You've already stated your opinion on the this type of equipment.

Kendo is full of inovative changes.

For example: plastic tsubas, synthetic dohs, plastic dohs for kids, clarino kote palms, polyester hakamas, plastic chichigawa, bogu cleaning products, improvements on shinai and bogu bags (you can get ones like backpacks), online forums, sweat-wicking gi, machine stitching, etc.

innovating changes? everything you point is just BAD CHEAP SUBSTITUTE of good traditional items. all this thing make kendo more popular, but not better at all. i'd say make it weaker. thats why it meets opposition not much time ago in japan

Now, as The Great I AM, Gibbo himself would proclaim.....


Suck my plums!

[hyuna]

This is a strange argument.

I wonder if there was a similar one when shinai and bogu were first invented.

I think it is important to think about the notion of "tradition" but one should also consider why it is important to follow tradition. Is it for it's own sake, or is following "tradition" meant to instill some other value?

In the short time I've been practicing kendo (some 13-15 years now, depending on how you count), I've seen numerous changes to the structure and method of practice. Many of them obviously modern (such as adding stretching to the warm-up, and getting actual explanations of how to perform waza -- in english, yet). I don't really see how changing our equipment in some way is different from that.

[Inner_Silence]

personally i really feel that the standard bogu really needs modifications, if it would be for me, the kendo bogu would be different as it is now. basically i would put a head protector for the men, some modification for kote and of course i would really change the way that the tsuki protection works.. coz if u miss a couple of centimeters... really it not works at all... the objective of this is not to chenge kendo or stuff like that, the objective is making unnecesary the modifications that we all do to our bogu like extra men pad or a wrist protector...

i think kendo is about tradition and all that stuff, but i dont think thar using some kind of bogu or shinai or whatever means traditinon.
i think that kendo is something that u have inside, i think kendo is the very moment when u know that u have the ippon and somehow for a fraction of second it feels like time has stopped. i think that kendo is that state of mind, that emptyness that u get when u are in a shiai...

i really dont think that kendo is not the shinai that u are using or the colour of your keikogi or how painfull the practice is... i really think that kendo is in the shiai, so i dont mind if im having a normal men or a weird one, the thing that matter is that in combat im still kickin streetcleaner's ass using carbon shinai or bambu, or hand made bogu or a football helmet or whatever...

[Inner_Silence]

...hypotetically speaking...

[Robobob]

Of course your are rigth with that. Everything around is just material needed to help us get there. We need bogu because we couldn´t do kendo without it (at least only, say, once...), not because the bogu is kendo. But I still feel that, just like our behaviour around the actual shiai/keiko (meaning reiho), the material we use can influence our attitude, our feeling about it. It is certainly not the thing itself but it might help or counterwise distract us. Thats why the maintenance of equipment is part of the reiho. And thats why for me the equipment has some importance too. And by that I do not mean that it should look cool or that it should be expensive to make sure we´re sincere, but that it should be treated with care and, if possible, made with care and that it should be made and look in a way that is modest and timeless.
So therefore, I´m not against improvement, I´m not against cheaper stuff, but I am against spaceballs-design.