Mediums

In our most recent class, we got to do the kenjutsu drills with steel blunts. The reason why I introduced this to the class is because of one simple reason. Intent.

Now the three mediums that we use for the drills are -

1) Gekken swords - these are great for the fact that they're kind of bulky and they look like fun. There really is no fear to swing it with some umph at somebody. Because of the new gekken swords, techniques can actually be pulled off with similar form to the way we practice because of the curvature. However because they look harmless, the idea of taking it serious can be a bit more difficult as well.

2) Bokken - for obvious reasons bokkens are good is that it's similar in shape, and also the intent is there. However once again, not as intimidating, and also the physics of the techniques are a bit different. Bokken are thicker and more substantial so therefore you can get away with just muscling through parries and certain techniques. If you do that with a metal sword, you can easily bend the sword.

3) Steel Blunts - although it was Hataya sensei I first saw use them, it was from Western Swordsmanship that employs steel blunts for drills in class that I adopted the idea from. Yes it's scary. Yes it's intimidating, but when was it not? It's supposed to be. When someone is facing you with a thin little piece of steel pointing at your eyes, it changes the game up a bit. When techniques are done improperly, your sword bends and thus you could lose the ability to fight. For something that seems so strong as a sword, it feels quite insubstantial when parrying with it. It's a very eye opening experience that I learned when I did gekken in Japan.

Now, the whole point of the blunts once again was intent. This is because gekken, like tameshigiri can easily become an empty practice. Tameshigiri can easily become a hindrance to growth without the basic technique, proper form, and proper intent. Same for gekken. Since we use the foam swords, and people look funny when they get hit etc, we forget sometimes that this is scary stuff.