Habiki gekken sparring gear

[Travis Chan]

So I'm interested in practicing some steel katana sparring with my dojo mates some time in the future to facilitate kendo and toyama ryu practice. The cost of the protection gear might be a problem, which can prevent most others from doing this type of practice, but that's ok with me. I can buy one, and maybe I can convince others to pitch in for another set. Does anyone know how I can buy a suit of armor for this type of practice?

More about habiki gekken itself here: http://www.e-budo.com/forum/showthre...=gekken&page=2

[rfoxmich]

Sorry I'm not going to help you injure yourself or kill someone else.

[hl1978]

So I'm interested in practicing some steel katana sparring with my dojo mates some time in the future to facilitate kendo and toyama ryu practice. The cost of the protection gear might be a problem, which can prevent most others from doing this type of practice, but that's ok with me. I can buy one, and maybe I can convince others to pitch in for another set. Does anyone know how I can buy a suit of armor for this type of practice?

More about habiki gekken itself here: http://www.e-budo.com/forum/showthre...=gekken&page=2

Ask Sangwookim on this forum, or Dave Drawdy on e-budo. I don't believe Dave practices it, but a number of his students do.

It seems like they use the blunted swords and heavy armor infrequently and are more likely to wear helmets and use a foam covered bokken.

[Maro]

Mike Femal's shop stocks the foam padded kit.

[snooz2k2]

Apparently, even when they do the annual tournament in Tokyo, they only use the armors for semi-finals onwards: they only have two sets of armor (at least, I was told so, recently). Before semi-finals, they use padded sticks like in sports chanbara.
The reason being that a set of armor for their gekken tournament is very expensive (certainly more than 4,000 USD for a set).
I met a few of those guys a while ago, and might meet them again in August... if you 're ok with waiting, I can try to ask them about purchasing a set then...