In Pursuit of Shinken
How To Buy Your First Real Sword
By Anthony Deen & Michael Shane
“The ethics of swordsmanship, Mr. Nakayama wishes to clarify, is not in aggressive manslaughter. It lies primarily in psychic training. … The instrument, the sword, is necessary to give that serious frame of mind. What is more serious than life as forfeit for mistakes or inattention? The cold, mirror-like glimmer of the blade facing you, you cannot but be serious.”
— Interview with Nakayama Hakudo, Japan Times and Mail, July 25th, 1926
Relatively few schools of Japanese swordsmanship today encourage students to train with shinken (真剣), or sharp swords, and fewer still practice tameshigiri, or test cutting. Nakamura Taisaburo wrote that “to consistently use nothing but a mogito (imitation sword) can cause problems. This is in conflict with not only the ideals of the iaido spirit, but also the effectiveness of training, and it clearly limits technical development.”
It is for this reason that most experienced students of Toyama Ryu and Nakamura Ryu Battodo use a live blade for both kata (solo forms) and tameshigiri (test cutting) once they can safely do so, usually after up to a year of consistent training. Selecting an appropriate blade for training is therefore one of the most important decisions any of us will make. Buying a sword is a significant investment, and it can be an overwhelming decision due to the tremendous number of options available today and the inherent complexity of the relationship between mind, body, and blade.
When preparing to purchase a sword, the most important thing to remember amidst all of the excitement is that a sharp sword is not just for cutting tatami mats. For most of us, this is the sword we will use most of the time for years to come. “Practice makes permanent,” and every swing of the sword, whether it cuts air or tatami, will either improve or degrade one’s physical technique and mental attitude. Once one has learned the basics of swordsmanship, using an appropriate shinken can be the gateway to the next level of achievement and understanding or it can just as easily lead one astray.
The truth is that most of us need to buy our first real sword before we have obtained the physical and mental sensitivity that are necessary to make an informed purchasing decision. In this article we explore some of the options available and attempt to provide a basic guide for selecting an appropriate sword.
Most of us use either factory produced swords, such as those made by CAS Iberia in China, or custom made blades from smaller companies like Butouken (a/k/a Martial Arts Swords) or Motohara in Korea; but many of us also aspire to own a genuine nihonto (日本刀), a sword made in Japan using traditional materials and methods. Nihonto are not automatically “better” than a sword made elsewhere using more “modern” processes, but many believe that the traditional method of Japanese sword making offers potential outcomes that are unavailable to modern makers using monosteels.
“Whatever the quality of the sword used and however accurate the distancing… if there are errors in the circular motion of the blade trajectory then the cutting edge can chip or the whole blade can snap. ”
Sword making in Japan is regulated by the government, and only licensed smiths and their apprentices may produce swords for sale, and only in limited numbers per year. Nihonto are forged from tamagahane (玉鋼), a steel made from iron sand called satetsu (砂鉄) that has been smelted in a special furnace called a tatara (鑪). The smith sorts the tamahagane based on hardness and then forges billets that are folded many times in a process called orikaeshi tanren (折り返し鍛錬). He then combines hard and soft billets in various laminated structures to create what we all know as the Japanese sword. During the final stages of the process, the smith applies clay mixtures of various densities to the blade in order to control temperature and cooling during the final quenching process called yakiire (焼入れ). This differential hardening produces the distinctive hamon, the classic visual indication of the combination of hard and soft steel that are unique to the Japanese sword. The result of this process is an exceptionally beautiful, but more importantly—exceptionally resilient—blade.
Kanteisho for blade by Minamoto Yoshichika courtesy of The Japanese Sword Index and Ron Polansky
Experimentation has always been a part of Japanese sword making. Before World War II there were several periods when Japanese swordsmiths explored the use of foreign steel, called nanban tetsu (南蠻鉃), including roll and spring steel. Nakayama Hakudo himself supported these efforts, using swords made by one such swordsmith, Minamoto Yoshichika. Yoshichika worked during the Taisho era (1912-1926), and into the mid-Showa era (1926 to 1989). Yoshichika’s swords were worn by the Japanese Imperial Guard and received origami from the NTHK and NBTHK and were rated by the renowned Japanese sword scholar, Fujishiro Matsuo.
Modern nihonto, called shinsakuto (新作刀), can be extremely expensive. An art sword of katana length made by a well known smith will easily cost $20,000 or more. And even a sword made with the martial artist in mind will cost $8,000 or more when newly commissioned. In both cases the wait for the finished sword will likely stretch beyond a year because of the limits on production and other craftsmen involved in finishing a blade. Used shinsakuto for martial arts are relatively plentiful in Japan and generally cost anywhere from $3000 to $6000 depending on their condition and overall quality.
“If the cutting angle is wrong, then however superlative a blade you are using, the cut will not succeed.”
Numerous companies outside of Japan state that they make their sword blades using “traditional methods,” but with modern steels. These blades are not nihonto, but the manufacturers, which are mostly based in Asia, note that lower labor costs allow them to use Japanese methods. Ultimately, swords made in this manner tend to be more expensive than typical “factory made” swords. A “forged, folded” katana from CAS Iberia, including their high-end Hanwei XL and Elite brands typically cost north of $1,200. CAS Iberia’s Citadel line typically sells for over $2,000. It should be noted that the bulk of these swords are made in set sizes and therefore it may not be possible to find a sword that is the right size for your body.
L6 Katana made by Motohara
There are swordsmiths working outside of Japan with legitimate Japanese training, but that on its own is not a guarantee of quality, and it can be difficult to know where the truth ends and the marketing begins.
Shinsakuto made by Ogawa Kanekuni (Mukansa) in 1984.
Other modern manufacturers focus on their capability to provide blades custom made to your exact specifications. A custom made sword from Butouken in L6 spring steel starts at around $1,500, while a sword from Motohara starts at around $2,000 and goes up from there, depending on the custom options selected.
The "Japanese style" sword has not changed much in about 1,000 years. No sword is indestructible. Any sword, modern or otherwise, that meets another sword in conflict will need restoration work if the encounter involves blade to blade contact. The Japanese sword is indeed bendable. Even breakable. Old swords are not magical, and modern swords are not miraculous. That said, modern steels will be more resilient than tamahagane in the hands of the developing practitioner. A poor cut during tameshigiri that would bend a tamahagane sword would most likely have no effect on a “performance” steel like L6 or D2 or D10… and so on.
Price point alone doesn’t define a “good” sword. It is not necessary to spend thousands of dollars as long as one has appropriate guidance and realistic expectations. Buying a used sword is often a good first step if the blade is appropriate for training, especially if a trustworthy colleague in the dojo community is selling.
This proliferation of options at various price points is a great benefit of practicing battodo in the twenty-first century, but that luxury also makes choosing an appropriate sword increasingly fraught. Shinsakuto and non-Japanese blades can all cut targets fantastically well in the hands of a capable practitioner.
This obvious truth leads to the first rule of choosing an appropriate shinken for training:
Cutting performance should not be one’s primary concern when choosing a sword.
Tameshigiri (test cutting) is an essential part of a well rounded study of the sword. Nakamura sensei wrote that “in tameshigiri the results of one’s mental and physical integration, blade trajectory and circular motion, cutting angles, and grip manipulation are clear and immediately obvious.” Ultimately only the unique demands of tameshigiri can provide this kind of total feedback to the practitioner.
Many swords advertised as “for competition” or “optimized” for cutting tatami mats often actually have poor balance and proportions that depart from traditional Japanese swords in extreme fashion. In the long run these blades are detrimental for their owner’s overall development. Using an improperly balanced sword often leads to the dominance of the upper body in cutting, which hinders one’s ability to stop the sword safely, move fluidly with the sword, and transition naturally between multiple targets. Not only does “competition geometry” fail to develop proper use of the lower body and tanden, these blades also offer much less feedback and educational value to the user because they can hide his or her technical shortcomings. In short, “competition” blades can impede learning.
No sword will unlock magical cutting ability. An appropriate sword must have proper edge geometry, but the most accomplished among us can cut well with any legitimate sword. Studying the enkeisen (circular trajectory of the blade in motion) is critical to developing an intuitive understanding of what balance is, and what good and poor balance feel like. John Evans Sensei, 7th Dan Nakamura Ryu, writes that, “[t]his movement requires great strength in the core and lower limbs, great elasticity and range of motion in the upper limbs and an integration of the two through the engaging of the abdominal ‘brain’ or hara.”
Kunio Suzuki Sensei demonstrates impeccable swordsmanship with proper use of the tanden and an appropriate sword.
“Even if one does not actually use it for cutting people down, iaido is still a martial art, and the original form was trained with cutting as its core principle... I would like for iaido and tameshigiri to be seen as two wheels on the same axle and wish for their practice to first and foremost address being able to cut.”
So then what is the attribute we should really be discussing? This leads us to the second rule of choosing an appropriate sword:
The “feel” of a sword is the most important factor to consider when buying a shinken.
Feel is ultimately another word for “balance across multiple axes while the sword is in motion.” One possible way to describe this might be the ability to maintain awareness of the kissaki (tip of the sword) at all times, but that may not be a sufficient description. Great swords—the kind of blades that can play a productive role in training over years of practice—all share a quality in hand that is difficult to describe, regardless of whether they were traditionally made by a smith in Japan or a top quality modern forge like Motohara in Korea.
“Using a badly balanced sword is a prime cause of the holes in technique that can be seen in many aspects of a swordsman’s performance at demonstrations.”
A properly balanced sword naturally cultivates physical and mental sensitivity and teaches good habits and use of the legs, spine, and tanden (body center). In contrast, a sword that is too heavy, too light, or improperly balanced will not develop the inner and unseen qualities of swordsmanship that ultimately lie at the top of the mountain.
Two swords with an identical point of balance (which one can empirically measure) can still feel totally different in hand. This apparent contradiction should be somewhat intuitive because the shape of a Japanese sword is not uniform like a cylindrical rod, both in terms of the curvature and the geometry created by the mune (spine of the blade), shinogi (ridge line on the side of the blade), haba (width), kasane (thickness), niku (blade profile), and other characteristics of the katana. The number and interplay of three dimensional variables boggles the mind, especially when one adds the unseen properties of the laminated construction of traditional swords.
“I was lucky enough to handle four important blades from a world famous collection. They were from very different periods and of very different shapes though of roughly the same length. They all felt very alive and responsive in hand in a remarkably similar way. Perhaps I was swayed by the occasion and their history, but I don’t believe so.”
So how can you be expected to make a good decision if it’s time to buy a shinken, but you’ve only been training for a year or two? Enter the third rule of choosing an appropriate sword:
One should always select a sword under the mentorship of one’s teacher.
“I prefer a sword that I can do all things with, such as kata and cutting... I like a sword that is not too light (because then it feels more like a toy than a real sword), but light enough that it doesn’t put too much stress on my joints. I feel that every sword does have a presence and feel and most often, off-the-shelf swords are the ones that tend to feel more ‘numb.’”
As part of your selection process, you should start off using your dojo’s “beater” sword for a while. Every dojo should own one decent shinken of average size so that students do not have to rush to procure one of their own. Using a “beater” will also teach you in ways that a new sword will not. Experiment with swords that belong to your sempai (senior students) if possible so that you can get a feel for how different swords behave during both kata and tameshigiri. You’ll soon see that even swords that appear identical can give the user vastly different kinds of feedback. Your teacher can help you understand what you are feeling when trying different swords, and he or she can also ensure that basic measurements like length and weight are correct for your body.
If you can afford a used or new custom sword, we do not recommend buying “off-the-shelf” production swords because their proportions are more often than not inappropriate for our use. We also do not recommend “competition” or “optimized” swords, because as stated above they simply do not teach what we’re all striving to learn.
From The Spirit And The Sword, by Nakamura Taisaburo (p. 56)
The best choice for most students buying their first shinken is a used sword with appropriate specifications. As long as the blade is suitable for actual training (which it will be if you follow the three rules), it is better to spend less on a used blade than to rush into a substantial investment for a bespoke sword or nihonto.
We as modern martial artists in some ways ask more of our swords than perhaps our combatant forebears did 500 years ago. "Goldilocks and The Three Bears'' comes to mind. On the one hand we are looking for the ineffable combination of feel and handling that in the hands of a competent user elevates the sword from a weapon to a conduit for the expression of the enkeisen via the tanden. On the other hand we want a sword that is “realistic” and also cuts targets (usually tatami mats) with ease.
“Among modern day iaido practitioners there are not many who own a sword that is well balanced for them personally, and I would estimate that 70 percent are not using suitable blades.”
The truth is you can’t have it all, and no sword of any kind will compensate for physical and mental deficiencies. Physics tells us that cutting soft targets will be more difficult with the kind of sword that is better for holistic training, but this fundamental trade off is essential in the long run. Tameshigiri is one pillar of our curriculum, and although at the highest level it can epitomize our art, it is not the end goal of our training. Rather it offers us lessons only available through cutting actual targets so that we can apply them throughout the rest of practice—from kata and kumitachi to gekken (sparring).
“Experiencing tameshigiri will cultivate in the student an instinctive feeling for how much power and momentum to put into the cut, and will allow him to internalize the technique of coordinating his whole energy and being with the sword: kikentai ichi (気剣体一).”
This is perhaps the most important thing to remember when the time comes to buy your first shinken. You are not buying a tool for sport. Rather you are choosing a long term training partner for a physical and mental discipline and, in effect, a second teacher that will significantly impact how you develop as a martial artist in the years to come. That doesn’t mean you have to buy a specific type of sword or spend a certain amount of money, but it does mean you must choose wisely.
