Some beginner questions.

by Renee
(Montana)

I just started practicing kendo from your videos. I do not know much about kendo and have some basic questions.

I started practicing the Joge buri? (I hope I spelled that right) today and I noticed that my elbow stuck out a lot no matter how high I kept my bokken.

I was wondering if the bokken was too long for me because it got better when I moved my left hand farther up the handle instead of having it on the end.

Is it okay to have that type of grip or should I get a different bokken or shinai? I want to make sure I am doing it properly.

I do not have any other gear and am only using this bokken because it was left to me by a friend. I'm 5' 6" and female and wondered if there were different swords for men and women.

Also I have rather longer arms than usual and wondered if that was making the problem worse. Also if I should use a shinai versus a bokken? If you could answer my questions I would be so grateful!

Thank you for this site too, I live in a very rural area and don't have access to a dojo so this is a wonderful find for me. Thank you again for teaching!

Answer: Thank you for your question and thank you for your kind words! I am glad that my site is helping you.

You might break your left wrist. Or your left wrist is too high. It may be your grip. It is hard to guess why your left elbow sticks out without watching you actually swinging your sword. The tip of the sword or kensaki should be stopped at 3-6 cm down from your knee height (if you have an opponent it should be lower than your opponent’s knee height)

Shinai is longer than bokuto (or bokken) so you should use your bokuto. But if it is longer than the kendo bokuto, then you should get the proper kendo one. It should be 101 cm or about 40 inches long.

We don’t have bokuto for male or female. There is only one type of bokuto for both gender.

If you want to you can send me a picture with your bokuto doing joge-buri where you stop your bokuto.

Hope this helps!

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