Bokken - Bokutō the practice sword of the samurai

Buy Bokken – Guide

In the bokken store I partly carry up to 40 different types of wood, from which we make bokken and other wooden weapons.

In wich martial arts are bokken used?
For the training of the samurai a training sword made of wood was developed - the Boku (wood) Tō (sword). Outside Japan, the term bokken is often used. While it was once used to train elite soldiers, today it is used in many Japanese martial arts and in various forms of therapy, such as initiatic sword work. For example, the bokken can be found in the martial arts of kenjutsu, iaido, aikido, Jōdō, jujitsu, ninjutsu, kendo (kendo kata), and various styles of koryu.

Which Bokken is suitable for beginners?

The question about the suitability of bokken for beginners / beginners reaches me very often. My first query is, "What martial art do you want to learn?" The choice of possible woods depends on this. I carry various "beginner bokken" and "beginner sets" in red or white hardwood in my bokken store. As a set there is a plastic saya still in addition. These Bokken are well suited for the enatrance into martial arts, in which it does not come to a hard full contact training.

For entry into martial arts with harder contact, I often recommend our ash wood bokken. Ash is robust, abrasion resistant, strong and elastic. In the hands a very pleasant and warm wood. Ash has a Brinell hardness of about 41 N/mm² and is a good alternative to Japanese red or white oak (about 41 N/mm²).

What are the different forms of bokken?

We carry two basic types of bokken in our assortment:

Bokken-Standardform
In our Bokken in the standard form, the handle merges smoothly into the blade.

Bokken Itto-Ryu-Form
This bokken shape is used in most martial arts. The bokken has a heel between the handle and the blade. A tsuba can be attached to this heel, e.g. made of plastic or tsuba made of buffalo leather.
In different martial arts, different bokken special forms are used.

Bokken mit Hi-Rille
So, there are Bokken with Hi groove (Bo/Hi), which corresponds to the gouge of the samurai swords. This form leads to a hissing sound during the cutting exercises - equal to that of a katana.

Bokken Suburi / Suburito
These longer and heavier bokken are suitable for building up the muscles. Partly they are used in partner exercises. The weight is between 800 g and 1100 g. The length is between 110 cm and 115 cm. A special form of the Suburito bokken is the Musashi paddle, which we carry in our program made of ebony.

Bokken mit Saya
In the martial art Iaido - the art of drawing the sword, a bokken with a saya is used to practice the realistic drawing and returning of the sword within a kata. We have cheap SAYA made of hard plastic as well as saya made of wood in our assortment.

Bokken Iwama-Ryu
This special bokken is used in the martial art Aikido. The peculiarity is that it has no tip and is cut flat at the end of the bokken.
 
Other Bokken Special Shapes:
▪ Bokken Kashima Shin Ryu - Traditional Japanese koryû martial arts school ▪ Katori-Shinto-Ryu - Ancient Japanese martial arts school Tenshin-Shoden-Katori
▪ Bokken Keishi Ryu - used by Japanese police in conjunction with Kendo
▪ Bokken Jigen Ryu - used in Aikido and Jigen Ryu Kenjutsu martial arts.
▪ Bokken Niten Ichi Ryu & Shoto Niten Ichi Ryu - finds application in the 2 sword martial art of Miyamoto Musashi Miyamoto Musashi's
▪ Bokken Hokushin - A heavy and long bokken (106 cm) used primarily in the martial art of Hokushin Itto Ryu Kenjutsu or also as Suburito/Suburi.

What to look for when buying Bokken??
From my experience, there are 3 points you can look for when buying your bokken:
1. martial art/form
2. wood
3. size and weight

Martial art / Bokken form:
To decide which bokken to buy, you neet to answer two questions:
1. which martial art do i want to learn (beginner/beginner)?
2. which martial art do I practice

In many martial arts bokken are used in the Itto-Ryu form. Mostly a plastic tsuba or alternatively a tsuba made of buffalo leather, cornelian cherry, buffalo horn is attached to the bokken. In our fine bokken store you can find bokken in the Itto-Ryu form made of almost all types of wood, such as ash, walnut, mahogany, ebony.

Also Bokken in the standard form - with smooth transition between handle and blade are used in martial arts. You can find Bokken in the standard form in our store e.g. from the wood type Lignum Vitae, Balayong, hornbeam, oak, church or also pear wood.

Which Bokken form is better suited for your martial art, regardless of our information to you, you will find out from your Sensei. You will find support in your martial arts group and with the warriors in your dojo.

What wood is suitable for which bokken?
An important aspect when choosing your bokken is the wood used. We carry up to 30 different types of wood in our store and offer you a wide range of choices. It is not only about the look / feel, but also about the properties of the wood (which significantly affects the use), as well as the tactile aspect. Between wood and warrior - warrior a connection is created. If I feel connected to the wood, I wield the Bokken from a different inner attitude.

For more than 20 years the Bokken-Shop is known for its wooden weapons made of ebony and other ironwoods like our new wood Dugeon & Betis or Lignum Vitae. Also our European woods like bokken made of ash, walnut, cherry, chestnut, beech and our precious woods like bokken made of mahogany, teak, balayong, palm wood are appreciated by warriors and in dojos.

A few tips for choosing wood when buying a bokken
Is it more of a soft, gentle contact where the woods touch and meet with gentle pressure or is the bokken used more for practicing forms?

Here we can recommend you Bokken made of softer woods. For example, our bokken made of walnut, bokken made of mahogany, bokken made of pear wood. For this range you can use all woods. Are we in the area of medium and stronger contact, where strikes are made and parried? Here the woods hit each other with momentum but not with all the force. For this range we have you for example bokken of beech, bokken of oak, bokken of boxwood, bokken of elm, bokken of chestnut.

Or does it go into full contact in the partner exercises. As one customer said: "With us it goes fully to the thing" - "fully on it". Here we can recommend you e.g. Bokken from ebony wood, Bokken from ash wood, Bokken from Balayong, Bokken from Dugeon, Bokken from Betris.
Wood is as different as there are trees. Various factors such as climatic conditions, growth, age, environmental influences, storage of the wood, drying and residual moisture have a large share in the quality of the finished wooden weapon. We would be happy to advise you personally in a phone call or you can come by and feel the different woods.

Size and weight for a bokken
We distinguish basically 2 different sizes in our wooden bokken.

The long training sword which also has the names: Bokken, Daito, Tachi, Bokuto and the short training sword, which you can find under the names Wakizashi or Shoto. The long training sword usually has a length of 101.5 cm. We also carry Bokken with a length of 110 cm or the Bokken Nagamaki made of ash or ebony wood with a total length of 155 cm. Since we produce most of our wooden weapons ourselves (2 carpenter families) we can also produce special bokken. For example, we recently made a bokken from ebony with a total length of 185 cm and a special shape.

The weight of a bokken also plays a role in your choice. Depending on the type of wood and the size of the bokken, the weight will vary. For example, we offer Suburito bokken made of ebony with a weight of
1400 g, as well as bokken with a weight of 300 g made of pine wood in our program. Even within the type of wood the weight can vary.

We are happy to help you find the right Bokken in size, weight, shape and type of wood. We look forward to hearing from you.