kansai vs kanto

How to tie the men?

We have 2 options, kansai or kanto.
Whats the difference?


Kansai style:

The men himo (8 shaku long) are attached by one single piece of leather at the top of the mengane.

Kanto style:

The men himo (7 shaku long) are attached by two leather pieces at the "cheeks" of the mengane.

asymmetrical kote

Yesterday,
as I packed my bogu bag after keiko, a question entered my mind.

"Why are kote designed the same for each hand?"

All Japan Pitch nemesis kote - review

These are the most paradox kote ever, wow...

Nemesis, a name that screams business.
The Nemesis gear is (better said was) the 100% shiai dedicated bogu line from AJB.

When there is bogu with added padding and so on for intense Keiko to minimize shinai impact,
then you have the complete opposite with the nemesis bogu.

The idea is to remove everything unneeded and preserve only the bare necessities.
So, you´ll end up with a high performance, ultralight weight and flexible shiai beast of a bogu.


Now the kote:

-full, genuine orizashi reinforced cotton construction
-5mm cross-pitch-stitching
-AllJapan Shin leather (artificial) micro punch palms
-proudly made in Japan

AJB bamboo doh - review

I fulfilled myself a long time dream by buying a beautiful bamboo do.

Yes, take do. The pinnacle of kendo gear dreams (affordable dreams, don't even think about same do...).

What do we got:

-60 slate bamboo do-dai

-kiji do-dai covered with a thin layer of ki-urushi lacquer.

-almost plain mune with a thin stripe of same (yes, a little bit of fanciness had to be obtained)

All Japan Pitch guardian kote - review

Let's start with a keen statement:

They are simply the best pair of kote I've ever owned.

Yes they are.

Guardian, a name that promises protection.

A promise you won't be disappointed from.

The guardian series are advertised as having extra protection compared to standard kote.

They are in first place designed for those  who often act as motodachi or are mainly on the receiving side.

What do we have:

-full shoaizome orizashi construction

-10mm All Japan Pitch Stitching 

-genuine smoked deer skin tenouchi 

don´t compare grades

There is a question that I mostly dislike asking and getting ask.

"What is your grade?"

Well, actually one should assume that ikkyu, shodan, nidan... around the world could be compared directly with each other.

In my opinion this only counts for rokudan and nanadan (we won't talk about way superior hachidan here).

why take doh is better....(yes, it is)

Alright,

Don't we all truly fancy for a genuine bamboo do?

I allways did and due to the holy and glory times of modern interwebs, the prices for take do dropped from tremendous expensive to at least "affordable".

Except for same do, those thingies still want to be paid with 2000€ and more, wow....

Anyway, after scraping up some leftover cash for a year, I made the order.

What I got really pleased me.

I went for a kiji do (raw hide) with a thin coating of brownish ki-urushi laquer.

The mune is sort of plain with a thin stripe of shark skin (don't blame me, it just looked too nice to me.... And still does).

Here's a picture:

self made eye protector

As far as I can remember, I´ve never ever took part on a single keiko without an eye protector inside my men.

Unfortunately, some greedy kendo shops dare to fetch about 15€ for a single, clear piece of plastic, duh.

I finally tried to copy these by myself, and I think it worked pretty well:


What do we need?

Polycarbonate (PC-Plastic) 2mm (about 17€ for 40cmx50cm - about 9 pieces when cut)
(DON`T use Polystyrene or so called "Plexiglas" which will snap and break easily. Polycarbonate is much more stronger and prone to breaking)
A scriber.
Pliers.
Deburring tool or exacto knife.

Step 1. 
Lay an old visor onto the plastic for tracing.

Leave the white foil on, important!

straight stick or belly?

Regarding the form of a shinai, we basically have two options to choose from.

Dobari or Koto (we'll ignore Jissen here, which are nothing more than dobari on steroids).

About 2 years ago I decided to switch  from the everywhere used dobari-shinai over to the not so often seen koto-shinai.
Initially this choice was purely out of curiosity, but after a while I started see the benefits of these so called koto-shinai.

Most people say, the koto feels heavier than the their dobari counterparts of the same weight, I don´t think so.
Due to the more even weight distribution towards the tip, I personally have the feeling of a certain stronger "pull".
I seems the shinai is pulling me more forward whilst holding a more solid feeling in the tip.
This makes me more confident when obtaining the center line.
In contrast, the dobari seems to have a tip that moves more swift, but I always had the feeling of having a somewhat flimsy tip.
However, this could be just personal...

One point that is clearly on the pro site for koto-shinai is durability.
More mass along the front section makes the shinai less fragile (less breakage).
Of course, even the beefiest shinai may break easy (and eventually it splits anyway), but under the same circumstances, they should last a bit longer.

I wonder why most of the younger sport orientated kenshi I see mainly use dobari/jissen shinai, but 95% of sensei and other kodansha are mainly using koto-shinai......

the shinai, weapon of choice

There are tons of sorts of shinai out there, but how to choose?

The best answer given is probably, choose one you´re comftable with.

That’s rather easy if you are lucky enough to have a well equipped kendo-store near your home.

Visit, pick up many different shinai and buy one that suits your fancy, presto.

If you´re not in this rather enjoyable situation, the big journey starts.

Check an online store, order different shinai, realize after the first few keikos that 4 out of 5 shinai you´ve ordered are not what you’re looking for.

Repeat......... oh boy.

Second to this issue, most of us go through different stages of kendo and will mention a constant change of the needs and fancy´s they have.

I´ve always been rather picky on which shinai I´m going to buy or I´m going to use.

But I think I finally found my preferred setup.

Lately I started to feel most comftable with the following:

39 Kotogata shinai, 26mm round handle with 38 tsukagawa.

I´ll make several different upcoming posts about the differences and pros/con regarding everything,

so stay tuned

first step.....

Well.....

after stumbling around on tumblr for a while now and being somewhat unsatisfied with it wanted to do something different , I finallly managed to set up this blog (or better said, I am still setting it up...).

Please don´t expect too much in the beginning, but when the machine starts to runs, I´ll try to post all the things I consider to be related to kendo, my big passion.

So long.....