The Toad-skin Shinai

One day, having recently received a copy of Donn Draeger’s seminal work Classical Budo, I came across the following passage:

In his search for a worthy successor, Kamiizumi Ise no Kami engaged Yagyu Tajima no Kami Taira no Munetoshi (1527-1606) in combat, defeating the latter by using the kiki-hada (sic), a sword made of bamboo strips covered with the skin of toads.

Had I been drinking a Coke at the time, it would have gone through my nose.  This a great example of the adage, “Even monkeys fall from trees.”  I don’t blame Draeger for “kiki-hada” mistake; I assume it was some sort of copy error left in by an editor not familiar with Japanese.  But I was a bit shocked to see that while Draeger got so much right in this book (the correct reading of Munetoshi rather than Muneyoshi, or his reference to “the waters of the West River”, for example), he could get something so fundamentally wrong.

Just to set the record straight (and to scratch an itch I’ve had since reading that passage), the hikihada shinai of Shinkage-ryu is not, and never has been, made of toad skins.  The leather sleeve of the shinai was made of horsehide or cowhide.  To be sure, hikihada does mean “toad skin”, but this refers to the appearance of the leather after it has been lacquered.  A rusty red was often used for Japanese lacquer, and when applied to the leather sheath of the fukuro shinai resembles the skin of the hikigaeru, or Japanese Common Toad.

The hikihada sleeve is roughly 2 shaku, 5 sun (75 cm, or 30 inches, give or take).  Extending from the sleeve is a strip roughly two feet (61 cm), which is wrapped around the bamboo to secure the sleeve, and marks the tsuka.  The sleeve is lacquered, typically a deep burgundy color.  “Kamakura Red” is a popular varnish, but there are various red/brown shades.

The length of bamboo that makes up the shinai is generally cut to 3 shaku, 2 sun (97 cm, 38 inches), but can vary according to the height of the individual, or their particular sword preference.  In the Yagyu-kai, some fellows use their navel as a guide, while others use the length of their bokuto/iaito/shinken.   The knobs of the bamboo are chipped off or sanded down.  One end of the shinai is split lengthwise to roughly the half-way point.  In the days when Yagyu Shinkage-ryu did free matches (shiai), shinai for shiai were split once (making two slats) or twice (making four).  Shinai used for kata practice were split more, four times (making eight slats) or even eight times (making sixteen).  The edges of the slats, inner and outer, are then filed or sanded to a smooth surface, and the tips rounded.  These edges would damage the leather from the inside if not removed.

The seam of the hikihada is used to represent the blade.  After frequent use the seams get quite soft, but initially they can be quite stiff, and draw a little blood if striking bare skin.  Not surprisingly, the amount of pain involved in getting struck by a hikihada shinai varies greatly depending on who striking , how they are striking, and where you are struck.  A full force blow on the legs, protected only by the hakama, can sting and leave a welt or bruise.  Blows to the body or arms are better protected by the typical thick kendo uwagi, though bruises are still common.  Worst are the hands.  Any blow hurts more when it’s striking bone rather than muscle or flesh, and the hands are all bone.  Strikes to the hands often lacerate a little, and cause swelling in the knuckles.  The lowest knuckles of my right hand are in permament swell right now; I’m not sure if they’ll ever go back to normal.  Certain points are callused from repeated stripping of a layer or three of skin.  Uchidachi often wear wrist or hand protection, but shidachi do not.  If they are doing things right, they have no need to.  Looking at the hands of the veterans of the ryu, I see that though my own hands are starting to look like theirs, I still have a long way to go.

The hikihada shinai, like most creative inventions,  was a product of a cross between inspiration and innovation.  Kamiizumi Ise-no-Kami Hidetsuna, the man with the strongest claim to inventing the fukuro shinai, certainly did not invent hikihada; the lacquered leather was commonly used for weather resistant traveling gear before his fated meeting with Yagyu Munetoshi.  And one seems hard-pressed to believe that nobody ever used a length of bamboo as a practice sword.  Kamiizumi’s great innovation was to join the two.  There’s no historical record on the process, but I personally suspect it was a two-step one.  First he probably put the bamboo stick in a leather sheath, thinking of the leather as good padding, and then he probably realized later that by splitting the bamboo on the end inside the sheath, the threat of injury could be greatly reduced.

What I find most fascinating about the hikihada shinai is how it pulls you into the correct movement.  If you cut too much with the hands, the slats break.  If you cut correctly with the whole body, the slats split.  The existing slats split further down the length of the bamboo, and new splits are formed.  In the hands of a skilled practitioner, an eight slat shinai will eventually become a sixteen slat shinai.  A broken shinai is no good, but the skilled practitioner’s shinai, splitting further down the length of the bamboo and into smaller slats, begins to fulfill its role even more.  As the bamboo further splits, it gets even more flexible; eventually if you do suburi with too much hand power, the tip of the shinai will oscillate back and forth.  Actually striking something will flex the shinai inwards, or worse, it will wrap around uchidachi‘s shinai, dangerous when striking at the head.  Again, such flexible shinai are only useful if one cuts with one’s whole body.  You can fool yourself with a bokuto (and many a Youtube poseur does), but the hikihada shinai itself will tell you how bad your cuts are.  Your shinai is an honest reflection of your heiho.