Carbon vs bamboo shinai

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Carbon vs bamboo shinai

by Christoph
(Belgium)

Nowadays you can buy carbon shinai. I noticed that they are rather expensive, so I was wondering...

Are they 'better' (for lack of a better word) than the bamboo ones? Or is it just a matter of personal preference?

I can imagine that a carbon shinai would be much harder to damage than a bamboo one, but I'm not sure...

What's your opinion?

Many thanks

PS...I would like to congratulate/thank you for maintaining such an interesting website. I'm only just starting kendo, but browsing your webpage has already supplied me with loads of information.

Answer: Thank you for your kind words. And I am glad that you like the website!

Carbon shinai, as you mentioned, is hard to break. That is its sales point. So I think these carbon shinai are used by students who train every day and those who cannot buy bamboo ones often, i.e. kendoists living where they have limited access to kendo suppliers.

I don’t use carbon shinai personally because of this one incident…

When I was a high school student (late 80's), I borrowed a carbon shinai from my friend because my shinai was broken and did not have a spare shinai with me. Of course, I should have some spare shinai. Very bad student!

I went up to the late Murayama sensei (8th dan) for a jigeiko with a carbon shinai. Man, he got mad! Carbon shinai back then was very hard plastic stick. It really hurt.

Shinai was invented NOT to hurt others. But carbon shinai at that time surely hurt!

I am sure the carbon shinai have got way better since then. So it is more “shinai” like impact on human, maybe :) .

But mind you. Carbon shinai is hard to break but it will break. Imagine the damage you can give to your training partners with a broken carbon shinai.

If you use a carbon shinai, you need extra attention to the shinai condition. You have to make sure that your carbon shinai is in good condition all the time. And you have to have an ability to spot something unusual on shinai. This ability is really necessary to kendoists.

So conclusion.

Carbon shinai is harder to break compared to bamboo shinai.

Some people probably don’t like it because it hurts.

So my advice is to have both carbon and bamboo. If you are allowed to use a carbon at your dojo, then use a carbon shinai at your dojo for training.

You should have some bamboo swords for special occasions such as training with 8th dan sensei from Japan.

Or even when you go to another dojo to practice with other sensei. Ask them if they don’t mind you using a carbon shinai with them. It is always nice to ask permission. :)

Nowadays, you don’t probably have to be that sensitive to a carbon shinai like this but I have a traumatic experience so I never use a carbon shinai.

It is always a good idea to be prepared for any kinds of situations.

“A winner of the 8th dan championship told me off about using a carbon shinai with him” is traumatic enough for me to avoid using a carbon shinai for the rest of my life. ;)

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Carbon vs bamboo shinai

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Apr 21, 2010
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carbon hazards
by: Anonymous

Another thing about carbon though, and as was mentioned, is that you can hurt someone very badly with carbon.

If my understanding is correct, they are made from the same basic composition as carbon arrows. Getting a broken piece of one of those things in you means months and months in the Intensive Care Unit.

You can't see the carbon fibers on X-ray, and there's blood poisoning, nerve damage, the whole nine yards. The risk with a shinai is obviously a lot less than having a bow drive a damaged arrow through your hand, but it is still a possibility.

Kendo-Guide.Com: I am not sure about blood poisoning and all since I do not really know. Probably someone else can tell us about those.

Broken shinai, bamboo and carbon, will hurt our training partners.

Oct 03, 2009
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why I use carbon
by: aaron

For me the use of carbon was economic.

True, the constant breaking of my bamboo shinai would encourage me to do it right. True, carbon last longer but can still break if you are hitting like King Kong.

But also true is that my pocket book could not hold up while I learned to do it right nor could it hold up while my kendo partners learned to do it right and not break my shinai for me.

So far my carbon has lasted nearly 4 years without a break (May I continue to be blessed) and feels and acts like a bamboo shinai. I feel that I could now use a bamboo shinai but I know the quality of shinai I often ended up with. So I stick with carbon. A personal economic decision.

Kendo-Guide.Com: Thanks for sharing your view. Since I do not use a carbon shinai myself it is always grateful to hear an opinion from those who do use a carbon shinai.

One of my students broke his shinai the other day and he bought 3 koban shinai for about US$150.00. He could try a carbon instead, since carbon shinai sounds like they have gotten a lot better.

I am not sure how much is a carbon shinai now but is it around US$100 now? We can buy about 4 or 5 normal quality shinai (the length of 39) for US$100.

I think having two spare shinai is a good idea. Two is not enough so we should carry three shinai all the time. We never know when a shinai breaks.

So if a carbon shinai lasts 4 years it is a good buy, I reckon. I still feel like having two more shinai (bamboo or carbon) as spares is a good idea. We just don?t know when these shinai break.

The most important thing is NOT TO hurt others. So having only one shinai is very irresponsible. If you see a splinter, even a little bit, you should change a shinai and check the one with the splinter after training.

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Oct 03, 2009
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Submitted by: aaron

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Comment
For me the use of carbon was economic. True, the constant breaking of my bamboo shinai would encourage me to do it right. True, carbon last longer but can still break if you are hitting like King Kong. But also true is that my pocket book could not hold up while I learned to do it right nor could it hold up while my kendo partners learned to do it right and not break my shinai for me. So far my carbon has lasted nearly 4 years without a break (May I continue to be blessed) and feels and acts like a bamboo shinai. I feel that I could now use a bamboo shinai but I know the quality of shinai I often ended up with. So I stick with carbon. A personal economic decision. Kendo-Guide.Com: Thanks for sharing your view. Since I do not use a carbon shinai myself it is always grateful to hear an opinion from those who do use a carbon shinai. One of my students broke his shinai the other day and he bought 3 koban shinai for about US$150.00. He could try a carbon instead, since carbon shinai sounds like they have gotten a lot better. I am not sure how much is a carbon shinai now but is it around US$100 now? We can buy about 4 or 5 normal quality shinai (the length of 39) for US$100. I think having two spare shinai is a good idea. Two is not enough so we should carry three shinai all the time. We never know when a shinai breaks. So if a carbon shinai lasts 4 years it is a good buy, I reckon. I still feel like having two more shinai (bamboo or carbon) as spares is a good idea. We just don?t know when these shinai break. The most important thing is NOT TO hurt others. So having only one shinai is very irresponsible. If you see a splinter, even a little bit, you should change a shinai and check the one with the splinter after training.

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Aug 19, 2009
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You feel impact more with carbon
by: Anonymous

I have never used a carbon shinai myself, but I know a few people who did and who switched back to bamboo after a while. They said their forearms hurt too much after a practice with a carbon shinai.

Since each 'side' of a carbon shinai is made of a single piece of material, the shock wave from impact travels much more easily through its length, and reaches your hands and arms with a lot of force. In bamboo, the shock wave dissipates more energy as it travels through a multitude of tightly compacted fibers, thus reaching your arms with less force. Or at least that's our theory... :-)

Kendo-Guide.Com: Interesting! Thank you for the post. I think it is a good idea to feel a bamboo shinai first. Then, use a carbon. Probably it is the best way to know the difference.

Aug 14, 2009
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Cabon still breaks
by: Matt

I see many beginners who get carbon shinai because they break normal shinai all the time.

If you are habitually breaking a normal shinai because you are hitting incorrectly, you will just as easily break a carbon one. It will just be more expensive.

Kendo-Guide.Com: Thank you for your comment. Yes. Broken bamboo shinai tell us what we are doing wrong. If we closely look at shinai, we can tell our striking habits.

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Carbon vs bamboo shinai

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