carbon shinai

Hasegawa carbon shinai....

Well, carbon shinai have always been polarizing.
90% of the people either like it or hate it.
There aren´t that many people who are "meh" about it, or say there is no big difference compared to bamboo shinai.

My point of view?

Is it better then bamboo?  -No.-
Is it a horrible thing nobody needs?  -No.-
Do I need on?  -Uhhhm, maybe?-
Should I buy one?   -At least one, yes (a used one is absolutely OK!)-


Lets start at the very beginning.

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......