ANST - why not shinai? ... was: armor standards

j'lynn yeates jyeates at realtime.net
Mon Aug 23 18:15:08 PDT 1999


On 23 Aug 99, at 19:38, Chris and Trish Makowski wrote:

> Let me get this straight.. We can use a curved piece of wood (or are you
> referring to a katana made of ratan?) and beat each other with it, but not a
> piece of split bamboo that is tied togather and somewhat padded with leather?
> 
> I'm confused...

just that shinai are too esoteric / exotic to have seen much widespread use and 
are not well known ... they don't fit into the two main common combat forms - 
light or heavy

have observed (during the 25 years i've been around) that they are usually 
isolated to small, spcial-interest use.  the appear from time to time, quickly 
peak in popularity, and soon dissapear from lack of stable critical mass.  

shinai is not really really suitable for the primary (historically) "war" form 
as we practice (too light to be reliably called when wearing heavy armour) ... 
and they are not usually welcome among the secondary light weapons form, as 
light fighers don't like getting "whacked" and usually have insuffiencient 
armour for such 

being more a "art" form, shinai  tends to flourish in the dojo and not the 
field.  our combat arts are more akin to the use of boken - more suitable for 
war-kata and full impact armoured competition .. in our case we replace the 
shatter prone hardwood boken are traditionally made from with rattan for safety 
and primarily use euro-centric forms.

having a strong eastern bent keep several boken and a couple shinai racked with 
my full staffs and the shorter jo ... 

'wolf
... opinions are mine, your mileage may vary


... truth is the sword of us all (lords of the new church)
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