Kajowaraku
Green Belt
Since the combined experience on this forum is vast, I figured it might be a good idea to look for some advice concerning my current quest for a sword. Concretely, I'm looking for a decent iaito, which will be used not for iaido, but bikenjutsu training. Basicly, this means that occasionally swords will cross, but for obvious reasons one would not want to do this with shinken. This is mostly trained with Boken, but i'm somewhat pressed into upgrading my trusted whiteoak sword to something shiny with a saya and a bohi (swiiiish!). Nuki-uchi (or nukitsuki, if you will) is an important part of training, and well, it just isn't the same with a bokken. My concern is that typical japanese iaito might not be so resistant to contact, even though it's not supposed to be hard contact. It's the zinc-aluminum alloy that got me somewhat worried. On the other hand, I do like my sword to have the proper feel of balance and rigidity. It 's a bit like a motorbike, you need good feedback from your toy, and you need to be able to rely on it and place your trust in it if you hope to have a good time taking it out for a spin. So here's the general and more specific things i'm looking into:
I'm 183 cm tall by the way, so 2.5 shaku feels quite right without overdoing it.
Japanese Iaito
Tozando: for example: Higo Koshirae (2.50 shaku)
Or alternatively one of the hanwei blades (they're stainless steel -frowning face- )
for example the gorin or tsuru katana.
Personally I would feel more comfortable with tozando, but I have some additional concerns. I hear tozando has abominable (not often one gets to use that word) aftersales custumer service. Second: Their site takes transport into consideration, but i'm somewhat concerned customs and/or what have you might add a considerable fee to the overall cost.
Additionally; I have the opportunity of buying a very nice shinken from an importer i know, but well... to be blunt, a shinken just doesn't cut it when you seek to practice safely, and especially not when practicing forms with a partner. The blade is forged with tamashigiri in mind, but that's not really high on the agenda for now. It pains me, since i like it, but i'm afraid the shinken is not a priority right now.
Oh and I'm Belgian, so US-based stores give me the same problem I have with Japanese -import tax-.
thanks alot for your input. I'm trying to sort it out a bit, but there's just so many options...
I'm 183 cm tall by the way, so 2.5 shaku feels quite right without overdoing it.
Japanese Iaito
Tozando: for example: Higo Koshirae (2.50 shaku)
Or alternatively one of the hanwei blades (they're stainless steel -frowning face- )
for example the gorin or tsuru katana.
Personally I would feel more comfortable with tozando, but I have some additional concerns. I hear tozando has abominable (not often one gets to use that word) aftersales custumer service. Second: Their site takes transport into consideration, but i'm somewhat concerned customs and/or what have you might add a considerable fee to the overall cost.
Additionally; I have the opportunity of buying a very nice shinken from an importer i know, but well... to be blunt, a shinken just doesn't cut it when you seek to practice safely, and especially not when practicing forms with a partner. The blade is forged with tamashigiri in mind, but that's not really high on the agenda for now. It pains me, since i like it, but i'm afraid the shinken is not a priority right now.
Oh and I'm Belgian, so US-based stores give me the same problem I have with Japanese -import tax-.
thanks alot for your input. I'm trying to sort it out a bit, but there's just so many options...