I have like 8 Shinai... And 2 bokken. When sparing with my dad, I use the shinai, cause we once used the bokken and he cracked my rib.... Not a fun day XD
I always consider swords male, cause ya know.... SWORD.





[I mean its similar to a penis

Yeah, I dunno if it's my club or not, but we are strictly opposed to using bokken on one another. The shinai was created BECAUSE of injuries due to bokken xD

Yeah.... I learned that when I started doing Ren Faire and I would spend like hours a day sparing.... I miss those days.

Agree on the male.

I've had an Escrima stick broken on my shoulder not fun at all :C Not to mention the incident got weapon spars banned for a while at the dojo

I remember my first shinai and how everyone at kendo told me how the white color wouldn't stay for long.

NOPE XD

I remember my first bokken....it took a serious beating from all the practices and sparring i used to do years ago...very fond memories...

You shouldn't have been sparring with bokken..

who said I was wise years ago? I know better then that now...

Nifty, I'd say you can name it whatever you like.

.. never got to use my bokken.

Do you plan on using it with more aggression or technique? Name it accordingly.

Technique. Bokken is only for practicing my form, not against others.

Unless I need to defend myself :)

Gosh, though, I strive to always have both.

WHOO KENDO
I did a little bit of it, but I still have my shinai somewhere around here. Looks like it was definitely time for a new one! :D

ITS NAME IS ROBERT THE SWORD

HAHAHAHA

Man, been through... so many shinai. I think my first one will probably always be my favourite. It was very springy in a way that I don't find that often, whereas some of my others have been brittle.
I miss all those broken fingers and glasses. XD

Still have my first bokken, though. White oak, very very good investment, it's held up nicely. Not used for sparring or anything, but practiced a bit with mixed weapons (jo and sai, they all leave some dents).

Anyway, sorry, enough about me.
Are you just doing kendo, or something like iaido/iaijutsu?
I guess I would think of swords as male, by itself (or that masculine but neutral non gender like a lot of monsters in fantasy), though being into bagua, I guess I kind of think of a weapon as a transformative part of me. I mean, not literally, but sort of. Pick up a sword and you're now a cutting weapon, pick up a tonfa and you're not a blunted weapon and so on.
That's probably silly and I don't mean it literally or in a spiritual sense, but just why I don't see my weapons as separate things and why I don't name them. Nothing wrong with naming them if you choose to, though.

I always thought this would be a cool sport to at least try sometime, but I don't think that there is a dojo anywhere near me

obviously the sword's true name will come AS YOU PROGRESS THROUGH YOUR SHINIGAMI TRAINING

ok I have a shinai but never use it. the Bokken on the other hand needs to be replaced. I do spar with them. all I have to say about it is that it taught me to move fast and how to take a hit.

and yes I'm nuts.

normal naming convention swords are male the sheath female, or what ever you feel like XD

What style of martial arts do you do? That's just curiosity but at any rate, I think of my sword as female. It's name is "Breath of Ice" because I cut my hand the fuck open with it (no joke) the day I got it. She bites.

I don't name my bokken because I tend to not think of them as as much of a part of me as my blade in that sense. My bokken is just a hickory beat stick. I don't use it in sparring, however, because with the style that I do if we hit at -all- someone's getting something broken. If they don't die from it, that is. We don't use shinai in my school, so it's just straight up bokken or live blade.