Training with a shinken

[The great I AM]

*cough* err this must be a joke... i mean it is blasphemy to call theese wallhangers katana..but to call them shinken.... :P

btw: that is what my 100€ katana looks like dissembled

http://www.deviantart.com/view/20777739/

don't want to use it....

EzzzE

WOW! You got a good one! The bit at the bottom of my blade was completley rusted away, I guess thats why it came off so easily.

And the ebay description said shinken, so I called it a shinken. Whats wrong with that?!

[JSchmidt]

btw, did u hear that the lidstone taikai may not be on this year? due to H&S reasons?

Who told you that?.

Jakob

[Anjin-san]

Earth to Najaf, Earth to Najaf......
Are you drunk again?

hahaha, Probably was...

Kaoru

I really find this offensive. Look, if you don't like the Kendo that I practice then you're entitled to your opinion. To mock me for something I do, just because its different to what you deem to be normal 'Kendo' is just plain silly... you... morons! Didn't you learn anything from the second world war?!?!?!! Dirka Dirka, mohammed jihad! Bak Dirka Shurpa!

[Anime12478]

WOW! You got a good one! The bit at the bottom of my blade was completley rusted away, I guess thats why it came off so easily.

And the ebay description said shinken, so I called it a shinken. Whats wrong with that?!

If you look at descriptions on Ebay, you will notice that the description may not be in total correlation to the item. For example, they are trying to sell you Megaman 2 for the NES. The description might read as such, "Megaman 2 NES, SNES, GBA, Gameboy, GBC, Gamecube, RARE!!!" Of course, the game was only on the NES. But sometimes, people use these descriptions just to pad out their title to come out from more searches (as annoying as it may be). This is likely what happened. The worst case scenario, with all of these samurai/sword movies that have been coming out and with the increasing popularity of Anime and Japanese culture, they use that description to sell an unsuspecting Japanophile what they think is a real shinken, when in fact it's a cheaply made one that should only be held in your hand, if that. While I can't really tell, I think that doing a bit of homework should let you know how to select a good one.

Try http://ejmas.com/ejmasiaitosource.htm to look at different retailers involving iaito/shinken. When you look at prices, you usually spend $200 US for an iaito and considerably more money if you go for a shinken.

The reason why people don't really like what you are doing is because of experience issues with using a sharp blade. I don't know if you have been doing this for quite some time, but purchasing a 25-pound shinken would tell me otherwise. Those cheap blades are usually just wallhangers and not meant for anything else.

[The great I AM]

But it doesn't usually hurt that much, and even that one time when the police got involved we were let off because of circumstantial evidence (something to do with intent and no proof that it was on purpose, anyway!). And on ebay it just said Ivory Handled Shinken.


Whats a wall hanger? Is that like a tapestry or something?! You think we're practising with long bits of rolled up fabric?!?!? Eh? Why the hell'd you think that?

Oh and has anyone got any ideas on how to sharpen these things? I've been using the rolling-sharpener-thingy that I use to sharpen my kitchen knives with, but it just blunts again really quickly and takes small chunks out of the blade.

[ShinKenshi]

To Anjin-san and The Great I Am:

Please search the web for information on REAL nihonto shinken. You might find some differences between your so called shinken and real ones. Seriously, you would NEVER be able to get your hands on a real shinken for so little money. How do you maintain it? Do you use the powder and properly apply oil and everything? I'll admit I don't know everything there is to know about properly maintaining a shinken but I know the basics and if you guys aren't doing that then there's a big red flag right there. Look at the hamon. Is it very regular and symetrical? If so, then there's your second red flag. The hamon on real shinken is irregular and very asymetrical. For your safety and the safety of others, I IMPLORE you to STOP using those things and stick with bokuto. It's your choice to either take the advice of others or ignore it but there's a reason why so many people are suggesting you guys stop using those things. And another thing Anjin-san; what do you mean when you say "normal kendo"? I'm just a little confused by this, seriously.

[Anjin-san]

Look, Gibbo knows his stuff. He hates to pull rank so I'm going to do it for him. He's read Hagakure. Backwards. 37 times. Show some respect ok?

And I don't understand why everyone has such an issue about the safety of using live blades. Sure you get the odd nick here and there, but never anything serious.

To Andy, yeah this weekend sounds good. Basically we train using super sentai cosplay armour as its really well suited to the style we practice. I always dress as the green ranger, so you'll be able to pick me out.

[Banza Joe]

Who told you that?.

Jakob

My sensei yesterday at our kendo club meeting. He 'ordered' me to take my ikkyu at the lidstone, but warned that the taikai may not takeplace on the saturday due to H&S reasons, mainly the terrible flooring and the sh*tting pigeons (lol).

[The great I AM]

To Anjin-san and The Great I Am:

Please search the web for information on REAL nihonto shinken. You might find some differences between your so called shinken and real ones. Seriously, you would NEVER be able to get your hands on a real shinken for so little money. How do you maintain it? Do you use the powder and properly apply oil and everything? I'll admit I don't know everything there is to know about properly maintaining a shinken but I know the basics and if you guys aren't doing that then there's a big red flag right there. Look at the hamon. Is it very regular and symetrical? If so, then there's your second red flag. The hamon on real shinken is irregular and very asymetrical. For your safety and the safety of others, I IMPLORE you to STOP using those things and stick with bokuto. It's your choice to either take the advice of others or ignore it but there's a reason why so many people are suggesting you guys stop using those things. And another thing Anjin-san; what do you mean when you say "normal kendo"? I'm just a little confused by this, seriously.

But I can't cut stuff up with a bokuto! I cut a really cool triangle out of the backrest on my sofa before the think broke on Dave's head!

The Hamon? Are you making fun of me?! That means Bacon in Portuguese doesn't it. I'm not that stupid. Nice try.

[mingshi]

He 'ordered' me to take my ikkyu at the lidstone.

Hmmm... Not sure about what's going on, but there is no ikkyu grading at the Lidstone. It should be the BKA grading on the following Sunday at Mumeishi, which is a completely separated event.

[Fai]

Hey, I'm just wondering if its the same elsewhere. We regularly have kendo/kenjutsu training sessions with shinken, typically we do armoured practice and then kata without armour.

A lot of people say that shinken are too expensive for this kind of thing, but really you can get one for quite cheap. I got mine on ebay for £25. They last longer if you go easy on the tree-cutting practice.

Gibbo what type of classes are you doing? hitting each other with shinkens.

[Anjin-san]

Please search the web for information on REAL nihonto shinken. You might find some differences between your so called shinken and real ones. Seriously, you would NEVER be able to get your hands on a real shinken for so little money. How do you maintain it? Do you use the powder and properly apply oil and everything? I'll admit I don't know everything there is to know about properly maintaining a shinken but I know the basics and if you guys aren't doing that then there's a big red flag right there. Look at the hamon. Is it very regular and symetrical? If so, then there's your second red flag. The hamon on real shinken is irregular and very asymetrical. For your safety and the safety of others, I IMPLORE you to STOP using those things and stick with bokuto. It's your choice to either take the advice of others or ignore it but there's a reason why so many people are suggesting you guys stop using those things. And another thing Anjin-san; what do you mean when you say "normal kendo"? I'm just a little confused by this, seriously.

Yeah well, you can give yourself as many red flags as you like, its still not an ippon.

To those of you wondering, Super Sentai armour looks like this:

http://dmd-sales.com/artbooks3/476694108xb.jpg

Now don't laugh ok, seriously its really protective, especially when practicing for a real duel. And you don't get a hakama wedgie or anything.

By normal kendo I mean 'normal kendo'. Man, why can't you just be cool and let us practice what we want? Why are you so closed minded?

[ShinKenshi]

The Hamon? Are you making fun of me?! That means Bacon in Portuguese doesn't it. I'm not that stupid. Nice try.

Umm, no I'm not making fun of you. I don't speak a single word of Portuguese. The hamon is the wavy line running along the side of the blade. If you read up on the terminology of a katana you'll find that I'm not making this up.

[The great I AM]

Gibbo what type of classes are you doing? hitting each other with shinkens.

Yeah, but its ok, because most of us wear protection like motorcycle crash helmets to soften the blows and protect against the odd "shaving cut"!! Breaks alot of blades though, but thats only when they don't cut properly. One of our guys wears the top half of a HenryHoover modified to stay on his head.

And to the Bacon-man. What about the terminology of shinken eh? Didn't see anything about Bacon there my good man.

Anyway, we don't let people attack us in armour until at the very least they can carve up 3 white plastic garden chairs in under a minute. Thats not so easy, especially if you get stuck half way into the chair! You have to lever your sword out. That takes loads of time so if they end up doing that they fail and have to wait 3 days before they are allowed to test again.
And they have to supply their own white plastic chairs.

[ShinKenshi]

By normal kendo I mean 'normal kendo'. Man, why can't you just be cool and let us practice what we want? Why are you so closed minded?

I wasn't harping on you. I was just curious about what you meant. For all I care, you guys can go running around in whatever you want and do whatever you want. You guys can just slash at whatever you want, I don't care. If that's what you guys want to do, then go right ahead, I'm not going to stop you. The only time I would ever stop you (if we were ever at the same place that is), is if you showed up at a practice and attempted to do kata with a shinken, attempted to do jukeiko with a shinken (with or without bogu), or tried to do something crazy like imitating the Hitenmitsurugiryu. What you do on your own time at home is none of my business so if you accidentally cut off a limb or a finger or something, that's your own fault. Again, I could care less about what you do at home or on your own time. I just feel that you really shouldn't even begin to consider using a shinken until you're higher up in rank. I'm not even ranked yet but I still wouldn't ever consider using a shinken until I at least become a godan.

The Great I Am: A wall hanger is an imitation sword that's used only for decoration purposes. The fact that you're taking chunks out of it when you're trying to sharpen it is a dead give away that it's not a real nihonto. The blade is probably aluminum or some similar metal.

I know how cool it must be to cut stuff up with a sword but if you really want to do that, then save up and buy a REAL shinken AFTER you read up on them. Spend the time to read books about nihonto and really know what to look for. I've never handled one but growing up in Tokyo, I've had dozens of opportunities to look at antique katanas and shinken so for me, it's really easy to tell the difference between something that belongs on a display stand and something that could be used to for kenjutsu and battojutsu.