For those who are interested to learn a bit more, I've been training Aikido for 13 years, and have always just used the bokken (wooden sword, styled like the Japanese katana) that my dad had gotten years ago. It's still a fully functional weapon, with some "battle scars" a.k.a. a bit of wear and some splintering that I need to sand down eventually. Overall, a great weapon. I'm not entirely sure what wood it is made out of, but it's clearly stood the test of time.
So now that I have reached the rank of shodan (1st degree black belt), and I want to try to start an Aikido club here at school, or if not at least train a few friends who would be interested, I figured that the best way I can keep the interest up is to also train in weapons like I have been trained. The only "downside" is that a lot of the movements and practices require 2 of each weapon, at least as far as the bokken and jo are concerned (a "jo" is a short staff, similar to the more common bo staff).
With that being said, I just figured I wanted to at least invest a bit more into the art that I have recently discovered a pretty high passion for. So I bought my first very own bokken. I got the handle engraved with my name (in Japanese, or at least as close of a translation of "Geoffrey" that the Japanese can do). The wood that it's made out of is "sunuke", which is "the core wood from a distylium racemosum tree (a.k.a. the isunoki tree) in Japan. Most of these trees are 200 years old, and hopefully that's the kind of tree that my weapon was made from.
Naturally with a high age like that, it makes the wood rare, so it was a pretty penny to get this. And for those who are interested in why I said "hopefully" before, it's because technically a younger isunoki tree can be used, and be chemically treated to have similar effects. But a younger tree has its fibers that aren't as bound to each other as tightly as a naturally occurring 200 year old tree, so that risks some slight fragility, and can splinter along the fibers.
And before you ask, "Well why didn't you just make sure you're getting naturally aged wood", the craftsmen in Japan don't even know what kind of wood they are getting when they order sunuke wood. It can be a gamble, but hopefully it worked in my favor.
Anyways, I suppose time and usage will tell me how durable this bokken is, and I'll just have to be a bit careful until I can try to learn its limits. In the meantime, I'll have to stretch out my tsuba (a piece you put on to protect your hands, think of it as the guard on the hilt) since it's also brand new a bit stiff trying to get to the bottom where it needs to be.
If you've made it this far into this blog post, thanks for spending the time to read it all out. As a reward, here's some pictures of the bokken, one of the engraved handle, and one of the entire bokken in one shot.
As you can see, the color of the wood is really pretty and has a nice darkness to it. Not the darkest wood available, as there's African ebony that would be way darker (the internet images on the store make it seem like it's almost black, if not black). But that one also costs nearly $1,000 or maybe it's more. Not the kind of money I have on hand. I wouldn't mind spending that much, if I had that much to spare. But also as my first bokken, I don't need something so expensive.
Furthermore, I kind of refer to my other bokken as "Old Faithful" now since it's been with me for years and has been sturdy enough to survive all of the usage. I'm trying to think of a good name for my sunuke bokken, but I have no clue. Feel free to comment on the blog, if anyone actually gets this far and has an idea.
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