I am down to my last two shinai. One is a beautiful handmade Japanese madake koto shinai, that thanks to the ever rising yen is worth an average European weekly wage and the other an interesting piece of kit with Japanese madake written in kanji on the tsuka, and made in China inscribed in English on the take. This unfortunately is now bent like a banana and now of little use for anything other than hitting around corners.
I did acquire a standby from the dojo cupboard, but this has a koban handle and somehow seems like half a shinai, in that it only works in one direction. Within two minutes of removing the string rings, it collapsed inwards after receiving its first kirikaeshi, so I do not think that it is going to provide a permanent solution to my shinai needs.
I have two of Chiba sensei’s shinai stashed in the spare room against his future visits and the devil on one shoulder keeps telling me that it would not hurt to borrow them. The angel on the other shoulder however, reminds me that it would be wrong to do so, and that my using such a meijin’s shinai would approximate giving a Stradivarius violin to a chimpanzee.
In the middle of this quandary the manager of the Linkedin kendo group asked about the pros and cons of using carbon fibre shinai.
Clearly carbon fibre is hard wearing and long lasting, but I still have an aversion to shinai made of this material. Their feel and the sound they make when striking a target is very different to that of their bamboo counterparts and when I used one briefly in the past, I sustained elbow injuries. This is not an uncommon experience, and there are numerous reports of golfers elbow sustained through their use. I have also heard of cases of damage caused to bogu and impact injuries to people hit with them, but these reports may or may not be urban myths. I was given a carbon fibre many years ago, and its use moved rapidly from keiko, to receiving uchikomi and I then gave it away.
There are numerous fans of carbon fibre shinai. Many German kendoka use them as their weapon of choice. This may be because of the influence of the late Ando sensei who used them and other products made by their manufacturer. Nevertheless my own preference is for bamboo, so when I make my trip to Japan next week, I will be taking an empty shinai bag and a pile of yen.
What a small “kendo” world this is. What sparked the discussion on LinkedIn was the visit from a German kenshi who is in our town for a few months visiting. He uses a carbon fiber shinai and so does his whole dojo! Another reason was that in the winter we tend to break more shinai. I am told it is due to the dryness of the cold winter air. As a general rule, I use the rank and file “inexpensive” practice shinai. I could use some advise on how to better preserve the shinai in winter. Thanks!
Good subject again Geoff.
I just smashed my only last two shinais(that were rebuild from other old shinais) this weekend while doing gyaku do -practice and i think they were just too dry to the core. I could always rebuild a couple of more from the old parts, but i think they would break also pretty fast, so i am forced to order maybe couple more.
The problem here in scandinavia is that the weather is very, very dry in the wintertime so oiling would be right thing to do maybe twice a month or so…? But of course when youre busy with life you just tend to forget to maintain your shinais on a proper basis.
Also ive had problems with new(?) shinais ordered from Europe, lasting for about 2 weeks and starting to splinter and crack. I assume that ive just had bad luck and shinais sold from a very old batch.
And as a side note, a fresh newly made shinai taken to practice and maintained regurarly has lasted with me as long as 1-2 years.
But to the point(do i have one
?), i never practiced with a carbon fibre, once tried one briefly tho, i still dont mind all the oiling, sanding and other things that involve maintaining a bamboo shinai…
I ban bamboo shinai in my dojo.
Please admit you are winding me up or explain
Oops, I meant to say “I ban CARBON FIBRE shinai in my dojo” a slip of the tongue!!!
I didnt do that on purpose to wind you up!!
NYC apartments tend to get very dry in winter as well, and shinai life is usually shortened. As previously mentioned oiling works well to prolong shinai life, but that opens up the topic of which oil is best or appropriate. Japaneses have told me to only use Tsubaki oil. Which I’ve used and is great, but can be as expensive as a really nice shinai. Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I use a very small amount of olive oil. It’s in my genes I guess.
typo… should have read: Japanese Sensei **
Yeah, i use olive oil or just your default cooking oil, shinais may turn green and or yellow but i dont mind
After 1-2hrs from oiling, i wipe the excess oil off the surface and scrub it with a candle to keep the moisture inside.
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Hello,
I started using carbon shinais when I was a teenager in the 90s (as a matter I fact, I believe we may have had the first child-size carbon shinais in France, via Switzerland or Germany). We had 5 of them that we used regularly (around 4h/week, plus extra during seminars), and also a bunch of adult-sized ones that were also extensively used (at that time, there was very few personal equipment in the dojo, so almost everything was shared by all the users).
I stopped using carbon shinai for one major reason : the feeling at impact, which is really different from bamboo ones. Carbon shinais will bend a lot more, and do propagate the shocks differently (which may explain the tennis elbow that you have observed, although we didn’t have any case in our dojo). This strong bending is even more disturbing when you start using the tip of your shinai to block your opponent, since he can then move forward a lot and you need a very strong grip on your tsuka to keep your shinai.
Since I broke one of these carbon shinais (after several years!), I would especially not use them for receiving uchikomi as you did : they bend too much (see before), and they get some cracks in the pinkish outer layer very fast if your partners hit a bit hard. When you see the cracks the shinai is wasted, because it won’t be long before you can observe the inner black composite layer (and even the thin rope in the middle if you break it badly like in my case) and they becomes dangerous (the protection coating has gone away)…
There’s a lot to say about shinai care under Western climate: I have bought in Kyoto a linen oil spray to use on the bamboo blades, it seems easier to use than pure linen oil but I don’t know if it’s as effective.