Shinai

A shinai (Japanese:竹刀) is a practice sword used in Kendo, Kenjutsu and other forms of Japanese martial arts. It is also used as a weapon in "hardcore" professional wrestling promotions, notably the former Extreme Championship Wrestling; in pro wrestling, it is typically called a kendo stick. Former ECW world champion The Sandman is the wrestler most identified with the weapon.

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The Shinai is made of four bamboo slats (take) held together by two leather caps, tsuka-gawa (handle) and saki-gawa (tip), and a string (tsuru). Placed under the saki-gawa is a rubber plug saki-gomu. To prevent the four take from getting misplaced there is a small piece of metal, chigiri, placed between them inside the tsuka-gawa. A thin strip of leather (nakayuki) is wrapped around the take and tied to the tsuru about one-third of the way down the shinai from the tip (kensen); this stabilizes the take and marks the limits of the striking area of the blade (monouchi).

Sword: A sword (from Old English sweord; akin to Old High German swerd lit. "wounding tool", from the Proto-Indo-European *swer- "to wound, to hurt") is a long edged bladed weapon, consisting in its most fundamental design of a blade, usually with two edges for striking and cutting, and a point for thrusti...

Kendo: Kendo (剣道 Kendō, 劍道) , which is the modern martial art of Japanese fencing, developed from traditional techniques of Japanese swordsmanship known as kenjutsu. Since 1975 the goal of Kendo has been stated by the All Japan Kendo Federation as "to discipline the human ...

Kenjutsu: Kenjutsu (Japanese: 剣術) is a classical Japanese martial art, a koryu budo. There are many different schools, with the objective to teach the efficient use of the Japanese sword in combat....