The best blades

[Set]

I just found this message board with varous interesting posts. I was just curous what some poeple pefer in their blades. My personal favorites are the: Zanbotou, which are exetremly large (over 6 shaku) and heavy but once you can control them have no equal, the musashi style katanas (which are about half again as large as a regular katana) they are like the zanbatou but easier to master, and the dual kodachi blades that have unrivaled speed. So what makes your perfect blade

[sadist]

There is no "perfect" sword they are all good at what they are you use them for. It really depends on how talented you are not what your packing. However if you were in a fight for your life I would be hoping my blade was well made not what style it was.



-Brian Shaw

[Harutomo]

Zanbatou are heavy like a freight train coming down at you. don't block, just MOVE! kodachi are nice and the musashi katanas are good for leverage, but the length of the handle can be a bit cumbersome in a practical situation.

I'll take the good o'l tokugawa style katana with the sweeping tip blades.

[dpeters420]

There's definately no "perfect" sword, since all swords were developed in certain circumstances, to meet certain requirements. After all, I certainly wouldn't want a longsword or katana if I was going to be fighting in an army like that of the Romans, I would want a gladius or some kind of short sword. Obviously though a tachi or saber is best from horse, so some swords are better suited to certain situations.

Personally however, I would prefer something I can use with a shield. Probably something like the Oakeshott type XII or maybe a shamshir.

[mantisman]

I love the wakasashi short katana.

[Harutomo]

I believe set means "what sword suits us". if you reread his post it doesn't say THE perfect blade, it say's "what makes YOUR perfect blade".

and to throw in an odd weapon or two, has anyone here ever heard of a sakabatou?

[dpeters420]

Yes consensus is that the katana length sakabatou probably never existed untill after the anime. I read that there was a tanto sized sakabatou once, but I guess something like that was a rarity. There are a few weapons from other cultures that look strikingly similar to a reverse edge katana, such as the Dacian Falx and Romphaia which I think have concave edges, as opposed to convex. For Japanese swordmaking traditions, a sakabatou would have been difficult to make compared to a regular katana, and it's got the bonus of being much less practical. I don't see why Kenshin doesn't just use an Iaito or bokken or something, but I guess anime just has to be different lol.

[Harutomo]

the sakabatou never existed IN BATTLE. it was a blade that was made more to test the smith's ability than as a weapon. similar to the zanbatou which was about 6 feet long. of course there were some that were made to be used, but in that time people wanted sharp edges, and using a katana backwards is quite odd. I will obtain one at some point just for the philosophical aspect, a blade that doesn't kill.

And the anime Rurouni kenshin for the most part embellishes historical fact. everything in RK existed in some form. There was a Battousai, but no one knows much about him other than that, there was a Saitou Hajime. The anime took the facts and altered them to make the story more interesting.

But I digress, there were many unusual blades made to test the smith's ability, and some smiths made it harder for themselves by refusing to make a useless blade. And so there are many unique pieces such as the sakabatou, zanbatou, mugenjin-tou, and others.

Good Day.

[splice]

the sakabatou never existed IN BATTLE. it was a blade that was made more to test the smith's ability than as a weapon. similar to the zanbatou which was about 6 feet long. of course there were some that were made to be used, but in that time people wanted sharp edges, and using a katana backwards is quite odd. I will obtain one at some point just for the philosophical aspect, a blade that doesn't kill.

Could you provide us with a reference on this? I have never heard of sakabatou existing before the anime.

And the anime Rurouni kenshin for the most part embellishes historical fact. everything in RK existed in some form. There was a Battousai, but no one knows much about him other than that, there was a Saitou Hajime. The anime took the facts and altered them to make the story more interesting.

There's a lot in Kenshin that is quite different from reality. For example, there never was a style called Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. The anime has a historical basis, but I wouldn't leap from there to saying that everything in the it existed in some form.

Hrm... That "dual kodachi blades that have unrivaled speed" from Set, at the top of the thread.... That just screams Kenshin fanboy to me . I don't think I've heard of any Ryu that uses two kodachi. Has anyone?

As far as to what makes my perfect sword, whatever is handy. I'm with Musashi on this .

---
Sebastien Leclair

[Harutomo]

Could you provide us with a reference on this? I have never heard of sakabatou existing before the anime.



There's a lot in Kenshin that is quite different from reality. For example, there never was a style called Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. The anime has a historical basis, but I wouldn't leap from there to saying that everything in the it existed in some form.

Hrm... That "dual kodachi blades that have unrivaled speed" from Set, at the top of the thread.... That just screams Kenshin fanboy to me . I don't think I've heard of any Ryu that uses two kodachi. Has anyone?

As far as to what makes my perfect sword, whatever is handy. I'm with Musashi on this .

---
Sebastien Leclair

I didn't say kenshin was completely made of altered fact, i said that it is mostly embellished fact. an example is in saito's "gatotsu" technique. that technique is completely fictional, BUT the real saito hajime used a slightly altered version of a simalar move known as the "Hiratsuki" which IS a real thrust technique, though i cannot remember the name of the ryu that used it.

set's comment about a kodachi's "unrivaled speed" sounds like a stupid fanboy opinion, but I know set personally and have trained with him on a regular basis. his statement is partly true, the kodachi in skilled hands is quite fast, but the skill of the opponent with a katana can prove to be twice as fast if he has trained for quick and fluid movements.

and as for a historic basis for the duel kodachi style, the samurai were required to wear both a katana and wakizashi. therefore it would be unwise to learn only the katana, and most schools taught some form of two sword techniques. i assume that as a martial artist you understand how relatively easy it is to adapt a long and short sword style to a double short sword style.

when samurai were attending a meeting or social event, they were required to remove their katana from their side. if this meeting were to go wrong(say, for instance, when an imperialist meeting was raided by shinsen-gumi during the bakumatsu) then grabbing a fallen warriors wakizashi and using it in conjunction with your own was quite acceptable and effective.

[splice]

I didn't say kenshin was completely made of altered fact, i said that it is mostly embellished fact. an example is in saito's "gatotsu" technique. that technique is completely fictional, BUT the real saito hajime used a slightly altered version of a simalar move known as the "Hiratsuki" which IS a real thrust technique, though i cannot remember the name of the ryu that used it.

set's comment about a kodachi's "unrivaled speed" sounds like a stupid fanboy opinion, but I know set personally and have trained with him on a regular basis. his statement is partly true, the kodachi in skilled hands is quite fast, but the skill of the opponent with a katana can prove to be twice as fast if he has trained for quick and fluid movements.

and as for a historic basis for the duel kodachi style, the samurai were required to wear both a katana and wakizashi. therefore it would be unwise to learn only the katana, and most schools taught some form of two sword techniques. i assume that as a martial artist you understand how relatively easy it is to adapt a long and short sword style to a double short sword style.

when samurai were attending a meeting or social event, they were required to remove their katana from their side. if this meeting were to go wrong(say, for instance, when an imperialist meeting was raided by shinsen-gumi during the bakumatsu) then grabbing a fallen warriors wakizashi and using it in conjunction with your own was quite acceptable and effective.

Thanks for the reply. However, I do not consider the fact that samurai wore a katana and wakizashi as a historical basis to conclude that dual kodachi were in use. I understand the logic you present, but I haven't heard of dual kodachi use ever, at all, outside of Rurouni Kenshin and people who watch/emulate the show and the characters. Short of actual historical texts or studies actually commenting on that, I can't see that the combination was actually used formally. Do you have any such references?

You said that most styles have two sword techniques -- do you mean that most styles teach the use of both swords, or that most styles have techniques using the two swords at the same time? For the former, I haven't seen that many, but it stands to reason. For the latter, I very much doubt it. The only style I know with two sword techniques is Niten Ichi Ryu, and even then the number of techniques is very low. I don't think it was a very common thing at all. I've heard of that some other styles have two sword techniques, but I can't recall which and I don't have any details on them. But they definitely seem to be in the minority.

And I don't see myself applying many two sword techniques to a dual kodachi style at all. They just wouldn't work the same.

I don't know. I wouldn't know how to use two kodachi, I don't know of any japanese sword arts that use that combination, and short of serious fights to the death I can't see any effective technique being developped in modern times. I'm interested in kenjutsu and iaido, not trying to have the best, fastest anime-inspired technique. I guess that's why I don't see the point of it. Without the framing that a koryu has, I think "practicing" with swords is just horseplay with an outdated weapon. Kinda like playing ninjas, or cowboys and indians. Fun, yeah. But I'm not in it for that, I'm in it for the culture and the tradition.

Hopefully all this makes sense .

Ah, also, I asked what basis you had for stating the sakabatou existed (pre-kenshin anime) and was a test of the smith's skill? I'm really curious where you got that. Not that I'm picking on you, I just have something against things stated as fact with no supporting historical evidence (that I'm aware of, which of course excludes a great many sources ). You get a lot of people who come out of it with Kenshin inspired history...

---
Sebastien Leclair

[dpeters420]

I definately agree that trying to practice sword arts alone with just a sword or bokken/waster is pretty pointless, and one person wouldn't get very far without a school. Now I'm sure WMA have a little ways to go before it reaches where most EMA are. I think though that organizations like ARMA have a great curriculum going utilizing wasters, sharps, blunts, period treatises, and sparring, test cutting, pells, drills, etc. In other words I don't think a traditional dojo/studio is necessarily required, since of course sword arts aren't used today, and so it seems they would naturally degrade as an art of war or dueling. I've heard medieval schools could be quite brutal on students(I guess like period boot camp), so I wouldn't be surprised if really traditional martial arts all over are actually extremely difficult.

From what little of Japanese sword arts I've seen, Niten Ichi Ryu like splice said is the only one I've heard of that utilizes two swords, and two swords is hardly ever used in Western arts(I've heard of "florentine", but don't know much about it). Ocassionally one would use a dagger or knife and sword in the city or if he has a sword and no shield or something, but practically never would two swords be used. The problem with it is your missing either the defense(and some offense) of a shield, the speed of a dagger over a sword in your off hand, or the speed of a hand and a half or two hander which are just plain better than two swords, hence why historically it isn't prevalent. Not too mention swords would be pretty expensive until stock removal became prevalent. From what I got out of the Book of Five Rings I doubt Musashi used the two sword style very much in single duels. But then maybe I read it wrong and I haven't read many Musashi stories, so please correct me about any confusion I have.

[carl mcclafferty]

Folks:
Yagyu Shinkage has two sword techniques. I've seen them demo it in Japan. Just an FYI. Also Guy power Sensei use to have a peice on his website that talked about Nakamura Sensei's way of messuring the sword length best for you to cut with, you might check it out.
Carl McClafferty

[splice]

From what little of Japanese sword arts I've seen, Niten Ichi Ryu like splice said is the only one I've heard of that utilizes two swords, and two swords is hardly ever used in Western arts(I've heard of "florentine", but don't know much about it).

I know next to nothing about WMA, but when Imai Masayuki soke (10th headmaster of Niten Ichi Ryu) came to Guelph, he talked to us about an old spanish fencing manual, with a few photocopies of drawings in the manual. The fencing style used two swords (rapier and main-gauche, I believe?), and soke was commenting on how the text was similar to Musashi's ideas in the Go Rin no Sho. It was quite interesting. So there's some two sword work in WMA, and the ideology (at least, that behind the text that was brought to soke) is sometimes quite similar to what Musashi had talked about.

---
Sebastien Leclair

[dpeters420]

That's true heh. I haven't seen a main gauche up close but I think it would be a dagger. Of course I probably just think I know something about WMA and don't really know much(I'm pretty much just a collector so far). But I think I see what you mean, since I guess a main gauche might be only a little smaller than a wakizashi. Of course some other common weapons for the off hand with a rapier would be a cloak, or a buckler. Course I'm with George Silver, in that I'm all for single handed cut and thrust swords, or even better a pole arm or quarterstaff.

[Harutomo]

Musashi used two sword techniques mainly when outnumbered and/or surrounded.

and the western rapier style that incorporated the dagger/maine-gauche was indeed similar in philosophy to Musashi's Go Rin No Sho and was semi-common among the noble class.

[Tengu]

On it's own, a sword is not effective, the hand that wields it is what makes it effective. Afterall Musashi was said to have defeated many enemies armed with only a bokuto. Even then, a tool is only effective when it's application is correct.

All the best y'all

[kenkyusha]

The only style I know with two sword techniques is Niten Ichi Ryu, and even then the number of techniques is very low. I don't think it was a very common thing at all. I've heard of that some other styles have two sword techniques, but I can't recall which and I don't have any details on them. But they definitely seem to be in the minority.---
Sebastien Leclair

Including (as McClafferty sensei said) Yagyu Shinkage, Tenshinsho Den Katori Shinto Ryu (founded more than 100 years before Musashi was born), Kashima Shinto Ryu...

Be well,
Jigme