Samurai!

[bergh]

Hidden Fortress=star Wars.....oh my....im glad i don't understand this

[Tash]

You know someone told me that Star Wars was, ummmm, borrowed from a Kurosawa film.  Except they told me it was Seven Samurai....when I saw that film I was really confused because I saw nothing reminding me of Star Wars....

OK I think a Kurosawa festival is in order this weekend!


As for my katana, the blade is about 36" with the handle being roughly 12"  I know this is exceptionally long for a katana.  The reason for this is that most of my swordsmanship training is not in Kendo or Kenjutsu but in a Korean style called Shim Gum Do.  Shim Gum Do is a one handed style that uses the extra length of the handle for parries in certain moves.  So when I was looking for an actual sword I got one with a really big handle.  That in turn left me with a very large overall sword, which prabably could be called a daikatana.  Honestly I don't know where the distinction lies and I can certainly use it the way I was taught to use a katana.  
However its not the largest katana I've seen.  I had a copy of "Book of the Five Rings" a few years ago that was illustrated with various prints from a specific mural depicting some famous battle during Musashi's life.  It had several pictures of samurai weilding a pair of katana that would probably have been larger than mine realative to their user.  A good friend of mine is a quite dedicated (some would say obsessed) kedo practitioner as well and he uses a katana with a 36" blade and 10" grip, only a hair shorted than mine.
I'd like to get another katana soon as I want to start seriously studying sword again.  However I'm torn between continuing eastern styles and joining the ARMA to learn longsword.

[Muggins]

I'd like to get another katana soon as I want to start seriously studying sword again. However I'm torn between continuing eastern styles and joining the ARMA to learn longsword

I don't think you need compromise one system to learn another. Of course, my bias is towards my own German Longsword stuff, but I think it is quite possible to learn several different styles of swordsmanship. Foot movement and tactical considerations are similar, but when you switch from one weapon to another (dagger to longsword to rapier to quarterstaff in my case), you simply need to focus and change your mindset. And if you do a lot of free-sparring, doing something from a different school of swordsmanship can confuse the opponent...

James

[Bastoche]

In my Kobudo lessons (katori shito ryu + some "modern" iaijutsu schools) our bokken are 42" long. I believe they are somewhat short compared to historical blades.

I may be wrong, but I guess the blade got shorter when the katana became more of a dueling weapon and less of a war weapon (somewhat similar to what happened with the short sword in the west). I don't know for certain.

[Muggins]

Actually, thinking about it, there is one possible reason we are overlooking for the length of the blade.

George Silver, and a few other historical swordsmen, mention the perfect length of a blade being related to the size of the person- in his case, a smallsword should reach from the end of an arm streched sideways to the opposite armpit. This is to do with your reach and the distance in which you can "uncross" or cut from one side of an opposing blade to another.

Hence, the varying length of katana blades may be due to the varying sizes of the wielders... Until someone came up with the bright idea of standardising things!

James