Equipment

The fukuro‑shinai (袋竹刀) was invented by the founder of Shinkage Ryū in the 1560's to allow for full-contact practice without injury. It consists of a bamboo core—with multiple splits near the tip—encased in lacquered leather to dampen impact.

In practice, the fukuro‑shinai allows practitioners to engage in full-contact drills with committed strikes and riposts. Owing to the bamboo's flexibility, the sword bends upon impact, allowing it to follow the same cutting trajectory as a katana.

The katana is the classical fighting weapon for a samurai - always paired with the wakizashi short sword of course, as is tradition. Our school teaches techniques for use of both the katana, and the wakizashi - as well as techniques for using them simultaneously, one in each hand. Please let us know in advance of you joining a training session, and we may be able to prepare a katana for you to try out.

The Bokutō (木刀), or wooden sword, is a solid training weapon designed to allow safe edge-on-edge contact during practice, but we only use the aforementioned fukuro-shinai for sparring and full-contact fighting.
Our school's most iconic technique sequence Enpi-no-tachi, is trained using the Bokutō .

The Bokutō is also an essential part of practice where using a katana would be too dangerous, and the fukuro-shinai wouldn't prove stiff enough to understand the physics of certain techniques.

The jō (杖), a wooden staff is just as good a tool for brisk walks, as it is for self defence.
Our staff is of a specific length traditionally used within our school since the 17th century.

A fukuro-jō is a padded version of the staff, and allows for a more dynamic practice at higher intensity and speed.

This type of gauntlet (Kote 籠手) is an iconic invention of our school and are used during practice and sparring with an opponent to shield the hands and forearms strikes and parries to be delivered with vigor when using the fukuro‑shinai, bridging the gap between safety and realism in training.

Practitioners are allowed to use other protective items as well during training to make the experience perfectly safe and meaningful.