About Zanji Shinjinken Ryu...

[Colt47]

Why is it that a first level martial artist with Zanji Shinjinken can use a bokken but not a Katana? I thought it was the samurai school of swordsmanship. Doesn't that mean that the fighter learns after all those years of training to USE a katana? The Bokken was designed to simulate the weight of an actual Katana, wasn't it? So it isn't wrong to assume that if a samurai can use a bokken effectively he can use a katana effectively?

[Guest]

Why is it that a first level martial artist with Zanji Shinjinken can use a bokken but not a Katana?

That's the way the style was designed.

I thought it was the samurai school of swordsmanship.

No Comment

Doesn't that mean that the fighter learns after all those years of training to USE a katana?

Not necessarily.

The Bokken was designed to simulate the weight of an actual Katana, wasn't it?

No, it wasn't.

So it isn't wrong to assume that if a samurai can use a bokken effectively he can use a katana effectively?

No more than using a foil teaches you how to use a rapier.

[Guest]

*eyebrows raise*
No, I'm pretty sure this means the skill is taken at that level of proficiency; hence the Daisho, being a more complex thing to learn than the weapons taken singularly, being at a lower level than either individually.
Heck, especially since it seems to imply that whichever WP's you don't learn at the special level (however you interpret that!), you gain at first. If this is a major concern of yours, just pick Daisho for your 3rd Level and apply the bonuses from two previous levels of Katana and Wakizashi to the use of that paired weapon proficiency.

Yeah, this has already been dismissed in detail at viewtopic.php?t=56140

[Rockwolf66]

Most people who practise katana-based arts these days have only done live sparring with a bokken. Those who've trained with katana are rare, and that's reflected by needing to select the katana rather than it being a given.

I have sparred with Live swords( ***** with his Kattana and me with my Wakazashi), I count it as one of the stupidest things I have done. While I can understand performing disarms with live weapons. Sparring with live bladed weapons is asking to be cut.

As far as wooden practice swords go you can still get hurt. I once gave a friend a concussion while sparring with him. The damage you do accidently is usually far less.

[Rockwolf66]

that's why bokken are used by amateurs even during actual battles. Enough to hurt, not enough to kill.

I'm sorry but no. I have known of people killed by blunt objects and a bokken is definatly one of the more effective varieties. While researching the human body for various fight scenes in my literary works. I have come to realize that the human body has little real protection from injury. With any of the four Bokken I have in my closet, broken bones or worse are quite possible.

Bokken

[Mantisking]

that's why bokken are used by amateurs even during actual battles. Enough to hurt, not enough to kill.

Considering that Musashi is said to have switched over to a wooden sword in the latter portion of his career as a duelist, I think you're way off base with that statement.

[Svartalf]

a) a bokken is indeed a LESS deadly substitute for the katana, because it is usually used like one, thus de emphasising its deadly potential. You have to make special effort to be deadly with one, rather than merely bruising (or bone breaking)

b) Musashi officially switched to bokken because he would have been too deadly with standard swords. Then again, that might have been a psych war trick.

[Colt47]

I guess the bokken is probably a slightly better weapon since there is no sharp blade to cut oneself on accident with, thus letting a practitioner perform a larger variety of movements.