The Other Bits
The Other Bits
Now, once you get your 2nd dan, you may notice that a shinai isn't made of just bamboo! If you are under 2nd dan this may come as quite a shock, so take this moment to sit down and have a quiet cup of tea, contemplate this for a while can come back. . . . . . You good? Ok? Lets carry on.
Throughout a shinai's life of getting smashed and battered around the face and neck of your mates, the leather fittings and fancy bit of string can come under a bit of bother, and sometimes break. The pictures below will show you the most common ways that this can happen.
The main point here is one of care. It is totally up to you as the owner of the shinai to check not only the take but the sakigawa, nakayui, tsuru and tsukagawa regularly to make sure they are up to the rigours of practise. If in doubt, ask someone, and if you can't ask someone, just replace the bit. Under no circumstances should you ever use a shiani where you think the leather fittings may be ready to fail, as you can really give someone some bother with the business end of unprotected bamboo, so don't even try!
The Sakigawa
There are two main ways that this thing can go wrong. The first and most common is for it to simply rip near the top and expose the bamboo underneath, like this:
The second and slightly less common failure is for it to loosen at the top so that you can see the sakigomu (little plastic nobby bit) inside the tip, like so:
The Nakayui
As this is situated in the main hitty bit of your lump o' wood, this can take a battering at times. Usually you won't notice anything until it starts looking like a splayed rib cage around your shinai, but sometimes you might catch it before it goes, in which case it will quite likely look like this:
The Tsuru
Again, for some reason another bit that has a habit of simply popping with no prior warning, but it can get frayed occaisionally, so its worth checking. Here is an example of one that has seen better days, and should not be used:
The Tsukagawa
Not a bit you would normally associate with taking a pounding on a shinai, but they do occaisionally give way. Common examples can be around where you fix your tsuba, particularly on thin ones, the leather can simply wear out and dissappear:
In addition, the little thing that you tie your tsuru to can snap sometimes to. As with the nakayui, just take care for similar nicks or chunks missing from it (probably after one of Treen's stray "kohtay" strikes....) to make sure that it won't go south on you.
If you don't check your shinai regularly, it can end up like this:
(see how bad this is! I can't even show you!)
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